-- Written by Marine Cabos-Brullé
When I launched the platform Photography of China ten years ago (2011), the photographic scene in China was booming yet still little known, especially abroad. What happened during this last decade? What have been the main trends in recent years? What is the reception of Chinese contemporary photography today? I propose to ponder over these questions through discussion of key examples.
Firstly, one should remember that what we refer to as contemporary photography in China begun in the mid-to-late 1970s, and it can only be understood under a specific socio-historical context. To briefly review the basic facts: political leaders that followed Mao Zedong (who died in 1976) launched a comprehensive program to reform the whole country. The previous focus on ideological purity was replaced by a full-on drive to achieve material prosperity. This time of changes triggered a rapid economic growth, an increasing access to information from abroad, a significant transformation of urban and social fabric, bringing about a huge social gap between generations especially between those born from the 1980s and the elders.
These market reforms dramatically transformed cities’ overall structures by multiplying exponentially and extremely quickly the amount of urban population. In order to answer such growth, Chinese government felt a relentlessly need to launch modernization projects, knocking down cities walls, widening old streets, demolishing traditional residences to build brand-new skyscrapers, eventually uprooting hundreds of families (as many can’t afford to relocate in these new buildings). Sometimes areas would be left abandoned in ruins for several months, even years, generating then alienation and helplessness feelings amongst locals still living there. The awareness of this alarming condition emerged in contemporary photographs and represented one of the major themes in the last decade.
Perhaps Yang Yongliang’s works epitomize the ways in which the anxiety about urban transformations takes shape in Chinese contemporary photography. Yang plays around the antagonistic notions of utopia and dystopia. At first sight we think we are gazing at a peaceful landscape close to Chinese traditional painting, but a closer look reveals puzzling settings filled with urban elements added thanks to digital techniques. Other works that have examined this theme of urban transformations have elaborated on a visual vocabulary that tends to focus on ruins and the absence of humans. All of these features act as tropes indicative of an impossible harmony and uncertainty.
A close examination of the works created in the past decade also unveils the popularity of historical photographs. While defying the trends of our digital age, they also create a connection with the visual history of photography in China. A project that is particularly representative of this emphasis is Zhang Dali’s “A Second History”. Zhang has explored many archives including the People’s Daily (Renmin huabao, official and biggest newspaper of the Chinese communist Party since the 1940s), unearthing many photos that were published countless times between the 1950s and the 1970s. Most Chinese know these images that became almost iconic due to their wide diffusion in local press. But few realized that most were constructed through successive manipulations. Zhang has consistently dissected these images by tracking down the deliberate alterations, separating the different collages, removing the retouching, colouring and other changes in order to go back to the original photograph, while annotating them with detailed information about the publication. By doing so, he has demonstrated the systematic fabrication of a large number of historical images.
If Zhang has been keen to examine public archives, other initiatives have focused on private archives, commonly termed vernacular photographs. This type of ordinary visual records encompasses all types of domestic and utilitarian photographs made or bought by everyday folk; they were not originally destined to be widely seen. Rachel Liu, for instance, has been working on projects based off of an extensive family photo archive that she discovered during a visit to her native country China. Other artists like Zhen Shi, Sun Yanchu, and He Bo amongst others have also been altering vintage prints in order to reinvent or reinterpret the original content.
A significant project in this regard is the Beijing Silvermine archive launched under the direction of the French collector and artist Thomas Sauvin. He embarked on this massive project in 2009, when he began to salvage discarded negatives from a recycling plant on the edge of Beijing, while acquiring a wide variety of prints and albums he found at flea markets and on the Internet. Today his collection incorporates more than half a million images and has been an excellent resource for the history of amateur photography in the second half of the twentieth century in China. Such photographic practices attest the significance given to the archive as a means by which forms of remembrance and historical knowledge are recovered and transformed in contemporary China.
In connection with this taste for uncovering historical photographs, it is quite logical that some photographers also developed a sincere interest in analogue techniques, a catch-all term for photography that uses traditional chemical processes to capture an image. As an example, to photograph the images in his “Simple Song” project Luo Dan used the wet collodion process invented in the 1850s. Wet collodion images can produce exquisite detail, but the process requires a light-sensitive emulsion to be prepared on a glass plate using hazardous chemicals. Beginning in 2010, Luo lived in close contact with people of the Lisu ethnic minority, in the remote, rural mountains of Yunnan's Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture. He patiently stayed in these villages for up to six months in order to capture the timeless qualities that he admired in Lisu people.
Similarly, since 2014 in his series “Foresight” amongst others, Jiang Pengyi has been trying to get rid of external limitations including cameras, lenses and shooting techniques, as well as subjective identity as an artist by retaining only negatives, objects, time, and extremely limited, uncertain human intervention. While such traditional techniques enable artists to play around with photographic aesthetic qualities and possibilities, they also produce unique prints or very limited editions prints. This fact is particularly important in current photography market because Chinese collectors tend to remain reluctant to acquire multiple edition works.
A special mention should be made of the generation of artists born from the 1980s onwards. Many have developed an introspective approach to the medium, making works about identity, youth culture, sexual identity, gender politics and broader social issues through a kind of performative attitude. The late Ren Hang belonged to this generation (Ren endured a long battle with cyclical depression throughout his life and committed suicide in 2017). Ren started photography at the age of 17 and taught himself how to use a small point-and-shoot film camera. He created several series during a decade, in concomitance with poems and free verses. Over the years, he gradually shifted from seemingly candid shots of nudes to sexually charged photographs. Although he was disinterested in any sort of political or social commentary, he eventually embodied Chinese artists’ battle for creative freedom. In fact his works suffered from enduring censorship and intimidation from the Chinese authorities, who defaced or confiscated his works and even arrested him. The main cause: pornographic and nudity images have been banned in the People’s Republic of China since 1949.
This generation of artists born after the 80s have been questioning the huge social gap between generations, caused by the transformation of urban and social fabric, the increasing access of information from abroad and other factors I mentioned earlier. Besides, most of these young artists have studied or lived abroad compared to previous generations. It is particularly visible in Guo Yingguang’s works, which examines gender differences when it comes to arranged marriages, when parents and grandparents gather in parks to “find love” for their children. Her series is a combination of photographic works, performance and artist’s book.
Interestingly, Guo’s peculiar approach to printmaking resonates with the current burgeoning in independent publishing culture in China (and globally). Over the past few years, we saw the proliferation of independent publishing houses, self-publications, even specialised fairs, which have been supporting and sustaining the market for photobooks and contemporary photography. For instance, almost each year at Polycopies – a photobook fair in Paris – one can usually meet the main Chinese independent publishers, such as Jiazazhi, La Maison de Z, or Imageless whose book “Gao Shan, The Eighth Day” won Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Award in 2019.
Finally, it should be noted that a fair number of young contemporary photographers have also developed socially engaged practices. Of particular interest is Chen Ronghui’s “Freezing Land” series of photos made across north-eastern China’s countryside, which mixes landscape photography with environmental portraits of young people. It is a story about this recessionary land – once amongst the wealthiest areas – its declining population and lonely young people.
Still exploring China’s multi-ethnic frontiers, Liu Yuyang has captured Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and questioned how policies impact its local residents, while calling into question the possible solution to a tense social problem with an economical way. Another recent example of this social engagement is JT’s “Wild Grass --- China's Orphans” series, which has been documenting non-official orphanages and the living conditions of abandoned children in China as an independent investigator. These photographers have represented the derelict social landscape of China – places and people that were once lively but now forgotten.
What about the reception of Chinese contemporary photography in the art scene then? Contemporary photography is playing an increasingly important role locally. This is particularly noticeable in the numerous photo festivals, specialised fairs, and institutions that have emerged over the years. To name just a few, the Three Shadows Photo Art Centre (launched in 2007 in Beijing and now also in Xiamen), the Shanghai Center of Photography (2015), the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum (2019), and the Lianzhou Foto Festival that became in 2017 the Lianzhou Museum of Photography. This museum is of particular importance as it is the first and only public museum dedicated to photography in China. Moreover, it is a key example of a cross-cultural venture: the two founders are the Chinese photography expert Duan Yuting and the French curator François Cheval.
From an international perspective, there is a growing number of scholarly researches, media coverage, and exhibitions amongst other events. In France, one of the major events that triggered a strong interest in Chinese photography was the “Danshanzi Art District” exhibition at Les Rencontres d’Arles Festival in 2007. Curated by Bérénice Angrémy, this event profoundly reinforced the bridge between France / Europe and China. It later gave rise to the Caochangdi Photospring - Arles in Beijing (held between 2010 and 2012), and eventually the current Jimei x Arles Festival International Festival (held in Xiamen since 2015). In exchange, this French authoritative international photography festival in Arles is offering each year a special focus on one young Chinese photographer. Other pivotal events include the Outstanding Contribution by the World Photography Organization given to Rong Rong & Inri (2016), the BBC special report on Luo Yang regarded as an essential photographer to have captured the new generation of “girls” in China (2016), the partnership between Format Festival and Lishui International Photography Festival (2019), or the group show “China Imagined” at BredaPhoto Festival (2020). All of these events confirm that the appetite and curiosity for photography in China is huge both locally and internationally.
In sum, it seems fair to say that the photographic scene in China has experienced significant changes over the past decade. Throughout these examples, I hope to have given the readers a better understanding of the multiplicity of photographic practices, while evoking key developments and innovations that occurred over time. What we can say is that today a new generation’s voice emerged from young Chinese artists born from the 1980s onwards. Those young artists are challenging the perception outside China of it being a very uniform and conformist society where everyone is studying hard, behaving, and succeeding by fitting in. Quite contrarily their voices tell us that people passionate about photography in China are taking a proactive and critical approach to life and creativity.
