A bunch of lonesome and very quarrelsome heroes were smoking out along the open road; the night was very dark and thick between them, each man beneath his ordinary load. "I'd like to tell my story," said one of them so young and bold, "I'd like to tell my story, before I turn into gold."
Han Lei was one of the first creative types I met in China. I went to his Alienation opening in Ritan Park, Beijing back in 1994. Alienation was a series of black and white, 35mm photographs taken in small cities throughout China but mostly Zhengzhou and Kaifang where Han Lei originally comes from. It was a badly hung, badly lit exhibition held one rainy fall evening in Ritan's classicly dilapidated pavilion. Despite the lack of exhibition craftsmanship the work was undeniably strong, tight, focused and intensly moody. Hong Lei was at the opening, Wu Xiaojun too, Wang Jin maybe... but I don't remember much and only now, much later, does anyone stretch their memories back and land on that gloomy night as our first meeting.
At the time I was mesmerized by the scene and its impenetrable characters, mulling about like stealth warriors in a post apocalyptic void. I was tagging along with Cao Weijun, a new friend in a land shaking off the ideological constraints of Socialism's stark legacies. I didn't speak enough to Chinese to follow what was happening and Cao Weijun would intermittently drop me a clue in his broken, baritone English. Afterwards we strolled for what seemed like miles to a hole in the wall restaurant (that's all there seemed to be at the time - one hole in the wall restaurant after another- with plastic stools , florescent lighting and a roll of pink toilet paper on the table that doubled as napkins- ahhh the good ole days)
'Put out your cigarette, my love, you've been alone too long; and some of us are very hungry now to hear what it is you've done that was so wrong"
The bunch of hunched over, long haired cigarette smoking heroes cracked jokes between art talk, puffs on their cigarettes and the occasional mouthful of home style cooking. It was a distant memory but alas the birth of a friendship with Han Lei, who slightly older and mature seemed to me a philosopher cum photographer hero scraping out the existential fodder of China's hinterlands.
He's kind of the same now with a different set of accessories- as are the rest of that bunch to more or lesser degrees of financial success. But Han Lei still lives on the border, in the distance, in somewhereelse-ville, still tortured by the primal questions of the human condition.
Anyway I never made it to the Three Shadows opening in Beijing, and I'm not sure Han Lei did either. I was bogged down with the echoes of my bad visa judgment, Han Lei was probably deterred by the rain.
The Three Shadows opening exhibition revisits "NEW PHOTO" a short lived, hand xeroxed magazine produced by Rong Rong and Liu Zheng from 1996-1998. It profiled the two artist works as well as that of their friends. During those years photography in China emerged with unprecedented force knocking the doors down on painting's hitherto domination of the scene. There was a huge outpouring of performative photography and other conceptual modes that became source material for a zillion exhibition proposals to NY institutions that I made during that time with no success. It 's all about timing Yes heard that one before.
Photography still remains in China, as it does elsewhere in the world, one of the dominant forms of art making.
SO once again I am curating my own photography exhibition that will go back to the US with me when I finally do. Han Lei will be in it as will a lot of the usual suspects.
FIGURE/LANDSCAPE/FIGURE
Artists:
Zhang Dali, Han Lei, Rong Rong and Inri, Bai Yiluo, Sheng Qi, Wang Lang/Liu Xinhua, Li Wei, Sun Hongbin
Curated by Mathieu Borysevicz
Rapid social transformations coupled with changes in the cultural, economic and physical environment of today’s China have provided artists with a plethora of surrealist and dramatic inspiration to draw upon. Navigating the intersections of landscape and figurative photography, these artists represent the vanguard of China’s rising art scene. The works in this show range from documentations of dying, traditional folklore to urban interventions to political statements, digital montages and beyond. In each instance, new formulas for the age-old photographic traditions of figure and landscape are uncovered.
Since the advent of photography, portraiture and figurative motifs dominated the practice. In this exhibition we not only see many artists extending this practice, but freely combining it with the equally prevalent tradition of landscape photography. In many instances the increasing urbanization of China has enveloped the landscape and subsequently become a stage for artists to act out their own renditions of the surrounding urban metamorphoses. Figurative photography, with the essence of the human form at its heart, has traditionally been at the service of the state in the People’s Republic. Consequently the legacy of propaganda and identity photography has become a subject in itself for many of these artists. Adversely, earlier folklore and superstition, on the verge of obsolescence, is also the site of investigation for artists.
above "A Bunch Of Lonesome Heroes" Leonard Cohen
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