Sixty ways of looking at China: in the past decade, photography in the People's Republic has become a full-blown art form for the first time in half a century. Now two noted scholar-curators offer a major show—and, below, a wide-ranging discussion—designed to acquaint Western audiences with cutting-edge Chinese photographers and video-makers

Art in America, June-July, 2004 by Richard Vine

RV: I would venture to guess that this show and its catalogue will set the terms of discussion in the field of contemporary Chinese art photography and video for some years to come. How would you describe the likely future of progressive Chinese work both within the People's Republic and abroad?

WH: In a way art photography is more "public" than art video, so I think that these two art forms will develop in related and divergent spaces. It is conceivable that experimental photography will increasingly mingle with design, fashion and advertisement--visual fields that are rapidly expanding in China and creating both excitement and anxiety among artists. Then there will be reactions against such mingling--some artists will try to divorce themselves from the high-tech, the urban scene and globalization, and will do things more private and possibly more profound. The development of photography will thus be characterized by interactions between these and other trends and intensions.

CP: I have a feeling that it may be in video, not photography, that you'll see the liveliest developments in Chinese art in the coming years. Barbara London's recent screening series of Chinese video for MOMA [see article beginning p. 130] gave a very clear sense of the energy and inventiveness that can already be found there. And I have high expectations for the new media department that was just established at the China Fine Art Academy in Hangzhou. Its director is Zhang Peili, the pioneer of Chinese video art, and the facilities that I saw there are amazing. When you combine the technical sophistication available at such a place with the imaginative power of young artists like Yang Fudong, Cae Fei and Yang Zhenzhong, the results could be extraordinary.

"Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China" will be on view at the International Center of Photography and the Asia Society, New York [June 11-Sept. 5]. It will travel to the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago [Oct. 2, 2004-Jan. 16, 2005]; the Seattle Art Museum [Feb. 10-May 15, 2005]; the House of World Cultures, Berlin [spring 2006]; and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art [summer 2006]. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by Christopher Phillips and Wu Hung, along with selected artist interviews, published by the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, and ICP/Steidl, New York, 2004.

A Sampler of Recent Chinese Photo Shows in the West

Zooming into Focus

This assemblage of 50 works by 13 artists is drawn from the holdings of San Diego art patrons Eloisa and Chris Haudenschild, who in just two years have put together an extensive compendium of photographs and videos by respected practitioners like Cae Fei, Chen Shaoxiong, Xiang Liqing, Yang Yong, Yang Zhenzhong, Feng Mengbo, Shi Yong; Yang Fudong and Zheng Guogu.

University Art Gallery, San Diego State University [photos Oct. 25-Dec. 6, 2003; videos Jan. 31, 2003-Apr. 21, 2004]; Shanghai Art Museum [March-April 2004]; Centre Cultural Tijuana [May-July 2004].