Photography and China

Claire Roberts

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9781861899118
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780232478
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

Covering the period from the inception of photography to the present day, this is the first comprehensive account of photography in China to be published in English, illuminating in detail this previously neglected subject. Bringing together material held in museums, archives and private collections all over the world, Photography and China explores the long tradition of Chinese art and visual culture into which photography was initially absorbed and which it went on to expand in new directions.

Locating these images within their particular social and temporal contexts, Claire Roberts describes the varied purposes with which photographers in China created their work, which included the commercial, political, artistic and journalistic. The book places emphasis on the practitioners themselves and the images they created, which cover an astonishing array of subjects, from landscapes and rural scenes to propaganda and the documentation of social upheavals, and from the earliest self-portraiture to radical contemporary art practices.

This rich and evocative volume gathers over 130 images, many unfamiliar to a Western audience, to chronicle photography's relationship to this complex country, underlining the medium's status as both witness to and agent of historical change.

Index

223 (Lin Zhipeng) 178

A Day in the Life of China project 144–5

Afong Studio, Hong Kong 24–7, 42–4

Albay after Typhoon 26, 42, 43

The Bankers’ Glen, Yuen-Foo River 27, 43, 44

‘Rose Hill’, Delano Family property 13, 26–7

Ai Weiwei 160, 169–70

Aisin Gioro Puyi 49, 68–9, 99

amateur societies, formation of 45–7, 80–82

An Ge (Peng Zhenge) 136–7, 149

Beauty Contest 105, 137

Three Men Squatting 104, 136

Antonioni, Michelangelo 119–20

April 12 Incident (Shanghai massacre) 73

April Photography Society 129–35, 137

Beato, Felice A. 17–20

Hong Kong harbour panorama 17–18

North [Dagu] Fort 6, 18, 19

Prince Gong 7, 18–19, 20, 41

Bi Jianfeng 150

big-character posters (dazibao) 119, 145

Birdhead collective 178

The Black Book 117, 160–62

Black and White Society 84–7, 93, 95

Boxer Rebellion 32, 33, 34–5, 50–52

Burri, René 111, 144

Butterfly Hu (Hu Di, Hu Ruihua) 53, 72–3

Cai Shangxiong, Repairing the Coal Chimney 80, 104–7

camera, ‘inventor’ of first Chinese 15

Cao Fei, Cosplayers series (‘A Mirage’) 129, 174–6

Capa, Robert 95, 144

Cartier-Bresson, Henri 102–4, 144, 152

Cathay Art Union, tomb figures 37, 54

Central Academy of Fine Arts Student Photography Group 150

Chang Tsai 100

Chang Yee Lau Studio, Fuzhou, Kidnapped Children 30, 47–8

Chen Chuanli...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• one China Exposed
• two The True Record
• three China Modern
• four War and Propaganda
• five Reportage and New Wave
• six U-Turn
• seven Performing into the Present
• Glossary of Chinese Names and Terms
• References
• Select Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Photo Acknowledgements
• Index