The book by Eva Maria Fahrner-Tutsek and Petra Giloy-Hirtz, ABOUT US. Young photography in China, is a revelation. As the title indicates, it is a publication about young photographers in CCP China. It was published accompanying the homonymous exhibition at the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung in 2020-21 [correction added on July 30, 2021: The book was planned and written as a monography, a part of the photographs were shown at the Tutsek-Stiftung, and there will another exhibition with photographs from the book shown alongside works by other artists].
If you think that in a country where the Communist Party tries to control almost everything, young artists would have little chance to express themselves, to find their own way, to create great art, you’re wrong. Let’s hope that they will be able to keep their artistic freedom as expressed by the impressive photographs documented in this valuable book (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de).
In her catalogue introduction called ‘A Young Generation: Journeys to Inner and Outer Worlds’, Eva Maria Fahrner-Tutsek writes that the photographs selected for this book offer the view from inside. Mostly younger Chinese photographers— offer insights into their feelings and attitudes. They do not speak or write about their country; rather, they see it through a camera. Their visual language is straightforward.
The works by roughly 40 photographers from China are all part of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung. Eva Maria Fahrner-Tutsek underlines that she interested in how these younger artists deal with their individual life experiences, with the political and social consequences of the rapid economic and political transformation of their country, with the resulting industrialization and urbanization, with the redesign of their landscape and living space.
Acccording to Maria Fahrner-Tutsek, these young Chinese grew up in a period of stability, expansion, growing prosperity, and relative security. Not only Western brands and advertising, but also an international lifestyle and global networking—even outside of large cities—are omnipresent and are not perceived and lived as foreign, but as belonging. She writes that people their age in the West are experiencing the obvious transformation caused by globalization and digitalization more slowly, more organically. Fundamental change has a destabilizing effect.
Maria Fahrner-Tutsek writes that the sometimes drastic juxtaposition of traditional and modern (and also Western-influenced) life, often goes hand in hand with alienation from one’s family and a sense of losing one’s cultural heritage and values. The writer Zang Di addresses this situation of many (young) people in China in his contemporary poem “On the Possibility of Walking on Two Roads at the Same Time”. Several lines from it are the epigraph to ABOUT US. Young photography in China (Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de).
Maria Fahrner-Tutsek stresses that, however different the perception and interpretation of the “reality” of the artists presented int this publiction may be, they are all reacting individually to the ongoing restructuring of society and the social effects this has caused as well as to an increasingly authoritarian political climate. They absorb the sociocultural context in which they live and use the medium of photography to show their personal reactions and strategies for coping. They combine traditional forms of expression with contemporary artistic approaches.
The photographers united in ABOUT US. Young photography in China represent a small sample, but also the incredible diversity, of China’s art scene. They were born during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and responded with their unconventional works to the transformation of Chinese society in the 1990s, when “contemporary art was still in an underground state”. They include artists such as Yin Xiuzhen and Zhang Huan, who later became in ternationally famous for their performances, painting,
photography, and installations—holding large exhibitions worldwide and participating in documenta and biennials. There are also young, unknown artists who were born in provincial China and still live there. Others left China for a time and went to New York, San Francisco, or, like Gao Bo, Paris and nevertheless, or precisely for that reason, grapple with issues of identity and history and the changes in their country. Some of them are self-taught, while others were trained at renowned academies in China or abroad. There are artists who focus on media other than photography, such as film or video, like Wang Bing, Yang Fudong, Cao Fei, and Shen Wei.
Maria Fahrner-Tutsek also underlines that special attention has been paid to female photographers, who at first glance were less present than their male colleagues. It is apparently not easy for women in China to become artists.
In her catalogue essay ‘Visual Statements of Humanism’, Petra Giloy-Hirtz stresses that experimental and conceptual photographs are documents of the emotional and experiential environment of the younger generation of artists in China. She interprets autobiographical narratives, subjective ideas, alternative models and visions as “visual statements of humanism.”
The essay by Marine Cabos-Brullé ‘The Material Turn in Chinese Contemporary Photography’ is dedicated to specific visual techniques. She examines how Chinese contemporary photographers such
as Cai Dongdong, Sun Yanchu, and Liu Rachel have revisited historical photographs. Furthermore, she
shows why some artists have deliberately chosen to use analogue techniques, such as Zhang Xiao and his
instant films, Jiang Pengyi and his Polaroids, Adou and Ren Hang and their take on film photography.
In her catalogue contribution ‘Photography in China: Recent Decades’, Karen Smith offers insight into the evolution of modern photography in China. She presents an overview of the many different artistic approaches to photography and their protagonists throughout recent decades and identifies the emergence of an independent photography in China’s art scene.
The pages 25 to 281 of this beautiful book are dedicated to the roughly 40 photographers and their works, all sections preceded by short introductions of the particular artist(s). In addition to all the great photographs exhibited, this and much more can be found in the catalogue by Eva Maria Fahrner-Tutsek and Petra Giloy-Hirtz: ABOUT US. Young photography in China. Hardcover, 25×30 cm, Hirmer, 2021, 296 pages, 239 color illustrations. Order this book from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de.
For a better reading, quotations and partial quotations in this book review are not put between quotation marks.
ABOUT US book review added on July 27, 2021 at 17:28 Swiss time.
