The book was published in occasion of the exhibition with the same name in Stavanger Art Museum, Norway, autumn 2014. It was the first time an exhibition with photographs by Chinese artists from all the decades of the 20th century was shown together with works of contemporary artist from China.
The book focuses on photographies of performances and photography as performance for the imagination. Cronologically it starts with images from the 1910’s with the world famous Beijing opera star Mei Lanfang performs in fantastic costumes and poses. Followed by glimpses from the photo history of China. The pioneering art-photography of the 20’s and 30’s, the «official» photographers of the 40’s and 50’s, work from the cultural revolutions of the 60’s and 70’s, a section dedicated to Ren Shulin’s series Model Workers from 1977, photo from the «opening years» of the 80’s and performancedocumentation from the 90’s. The section on contemprary art presents the artists Birdhead (Song Tao og Ji Weiyu), Chen Wei, Chu Chu, Lee Chia-yu, Liang Yue, Ma Qiusha, RongRong&Inri, Wang Tong and You Li. For this section each of the artists has written a short artist’s statement.
Texts:
Per Bj. Boym: Introduction
Per Bj. Boym: Performance and Imagination: A Walk through Chinese Photography 1911–2014
Edwin Lai: The Life and Art Photography of Lang Jingshan
Tang Xin: The History of Twentieth/Century Chinese Photography. The Case of Wu Yinxian
Na Risong: The Innocense of a Generation
Gu Zheng: Collective Memory and the Aesthetics of an Era
Rong Rong: A Fondness for Photography. On the Three Shadows Photography Art Center
Sections of images:
Mei Lanfang / 1910–1939 / 1940–1959 / 1960–1979 / 1977 Ren Shulins Model Workers / 1980–2000
Birdhead / Chen Wei / Chu Chu / Lee Chia-yu / Liang Yue / Ma Qiusha / Rong Rong & inri / Wang Tong / You Li
Editor: Per Bj. Boym
Design: Henrik S. Haugan
ISBN 978-82-8221-012-6
Text in Norwegian and English
245 x 300 mm, 240 pages
300 images
Edition 500
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