Susanne reports from China
OCA Photography student Susanne Tempus reports from a visit to a Li Zhensheng exhibition at the Beaugeste Gallery in Shanghai.
In the West, Li Zhensheng is famous: he is one of only two Chinese photographers shown on the BBC documentary “The Genius of Photography”, and his book “Red Color News Soldier“ featuring images from the Cultural Revolution raised a furore when it was first published in 2003. In China, however, this part of history is considered highly controversial and the book is banned.
It is, nonetheless, possible to see a selection of Li Zhensheng’s photographs at the Beaugeste Gallery in Shanghai even if the French curator, Jean Loh, has to be discreet to avoid upsetting the authorities. Viewing is thus by appointment only, and the visitor has to walk up five flights of stairs to reach the gallery. However, hearing Jean Loh talk about this interesting exhibition definitely makes it worth the trouble of getting there.
The gallery can naturally only show a fraction of Li’s nearly 100,000 images. And even though the exhibition does have strong political overtones, it is important to note that Jean Loh’s intention is to show Li’s artwork rather than to shock the public with the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution,
Li Zhensheng , was born 1940 in Northern China and had studied cinematography at the Changchun Film Institute. However, when the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) drew closer, he switched to photography, which led to a career as a photojournalist at the HeilongJiang Daily. Of course, Li was not the only photographer who documented this period of time, but as has so rightly been pointed out by many: he was not only a skilled photographer, he also documented the times with a sense of history that went far beyond that of his peers.
Li would often use spare negatives for self-portraits, and in this image from 1966, he used his skill as a cinematographer to casts himself as a “mythical movie hero confronting the enemy ready to fight.” Jean Loh recounts how Western critiques wrote: “It’s incredible that Li Zhensheng has achieved the complete recording of the Cultural Revolution, most certainly because of his rebellious nature and this picture is the proof of it.” It was probably the same spirit that led him to capture even incriminating events and to safeguard the “negative negatives” under the floorboards of his apartment when later he was denounced and sent off to labour camp.
The second photograph (1966) is an example of how even seemingly harmless images can bring forth painful memories in the Chinese who lived trough the turmoil. This photograph of a young red guard dancing the “Loyalty Dance”, for instance, has upset several visitors to the Shanghai gallery as many remember how the Red Guards would get off the trains from Beijing and, if unarmed, would use their belts to strike people and later show off the blood on their buckles as trophies.
The last image, also from 1966, shows one of the many photographs Li has taken of “public struggles”. Here it is Provincial Party Secretary Ren Zhongyi who has been placed by the Red Guards on a shaky chair, with his hands tied behind his back after having his faced smeared with black ink. He was forced to wear an oversized dunce hat and carry a sign saying “black gang element”. Li takes us right into the middle of the screaming, hysterical crowd and as Jean Loh writes in the exhibition catalogue “ “the big drum is placed in the lower left corner as if to let us hear the thunderous roars and furies. The dark clouds gathering above-head appear as a symbol of bad omen”. This particular party secretary survived the struggle and actually signed the photo for Li twenty years later.
Today the Cultural Revolution is history and Li Zhensheng and his photos, including the negative negatives, have survived. Li lives in the USA and his photographs travel the world. However, here in Shanghai some of the former Red Guards happily broke into revolutionary songs when they saw the exhibition. The younger generation, on the other hand, shows less interest. The Cultural Revolution is not taught at Chinese schools, and so they know very little about it. This does leave room for thought!
[Images: Li Zhensheng – Courtesy Beaugeste Gallery Shanghai]
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Can we have this exhibition in London, please, or in the Brighton Festival when appropriate? It is such a relief to know there are these individual(ist)s working on such a high level and presenting us a contrasting insight into China. Great art!
Susanne and I were talking about this after the visit, and one of the very strong elements in this exhibition, is in fact what is left out.
Like Susanne says above, the exhibition isn’t aimed to shock, in fact many of the prints are actually very ‘beautiful’ in composition, some smiling dancing people, and like the self portrait of Li above, he shows a very fine sense of humour.
But it is the underlying subtext.
The prints are not that big, but they are surprisingly crisp in focus with wonderful detail and full range of tones. They include the viewer in the frame, but in many of them, even then, is the viewer left to be a spectator.
Susanne, would you agree?
I absolutely agree, Dewald! I also find many of the photographs really beautiful, and I also think that, especially as a foreigner, it would be so easy to misunderstand an exhibition like this one.
I absolutely agree, Dewald. I also find many of the images really beautiful, and I also think it is the kind of exhibition, which is difficult to understand if you don’t know the background.
I love ‘Red Color News Soldier’! I stumbled across it in my local library and then went out and bought it. Many of the photos are stunning, but putting them all together in that way with the text makes the whole work something much more.
Susanne, thanks for posting this. I enjoyed reading both the text and photos although the latter at a kindergarten level. There is so much violence and unhappiness in the world and even happy photographs have unhappy connotations – so sad. Thanks again.
Thanks for commenting, Dough. I also bothered me when I heard about people’s reaction to the young guard! Next time, I’ll try to find something more positive to write about – it’s not all bad out here!
A fascinating report Suzanne. As someone who has never been to China what strikes me about these images is that they are at once quite foreign and yet entirely familiar – the scenes – bullying, bravado, etc, are enacted in different ways nearer home. I wonder if the attitude to this period will change in China, so that it is studied in schools, or whether it will the history will be largely buried. Food for thought indeed.
Thanks Eileen. That’s a very interesting comment! We usually say out here that when you first come to China, you’re surprised because it seems just like everywhere else. Six months later you are surprised again because you realise that is really isn’t!
Thank you for introducing me to Li Zhensheng Susanne. I agree with Eileen about the images seeming familiar as such situations occur all over the world in terms of the aggression and ‘them and us’ mentality taken to an extreme. I think also that the written history might have been buried but the oral history continues and is passed down.
This exhibition shows only a “a fraction of Li’s nearly 100,000 images”
I wonder how impartial the selection of these images are; the 3 seen here do seem to give a balanced view. When in Tibet, I saw a group of army soldiers go past in a lorry; one was playing the guitar and the others were singing! It helped me to see beyond the polarised view of China that we so often hear about.
A Chinese friend here in the UK recently remarked that she might go to live in Hong Kong because of anti-Chinese sentiment in the West; however, she was born in the UK, was educated in the UK after her parents left because of persecution during the Maoist era.
This sounds like a fascinating archive; one that could be used to inform the world about a troubled period of Chinese history from which we might all learn.
I know, it is extremely difficult to comment on China – it is just so extremely complex. I did think the exhibition was quite balanced even if I find it mind- boggling that a nation can just move on after a period like the Cultural Revolution. But maybe reflection is a luxury the Chinese cannot afford at the moment and which we take for granted in the West.
I can actually understand that your friend might feel misunderstood as a Chinese. I think the news have a tendency to cover issues like corruption and human right issues, which of course, is a huge problem. On the other hand, I think people in this country deserve a lot of respect for working so hard to try to make a better future for themselves and their children.