It was around Lunar New Year in Xujiahui, Shanghai's hyper modern mall district. On the busy sidewalk outside a photo printing store, might've even been a Kodak, a woman was burning ID photos in a dust pan. Of course I rushed to document this odd occurrence only to be barred by the woman. She kept pushing me away and told me I shouldn't be taking pictures She balked "How weird that you want to photograph this!" I replied " How weired that you are doing this!"
Anyway - the whole affair had the looks of some ancient ancestor worship ritual ... but in a very PM way. In effect- this whole 'found performance' solved one of the dilemmas of the contemporary arts in China in general- how to make traditional practices modern. Gu Wenda, Xu Bing, Zhang Huan, Huang Yongping, Qiu Zhijie at times, and a host of others including this photo store employee are all engaged in this arduous task.
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