-Comment on Yuan Dongping's documentary photography monograph "The Poor"

1

In the past two months, I have been writing a preface for the documentary photography project "The Poor" made by Brother Yuan Dongping. After several efforts and countless starts, I have never been able to achieve a text that I can read. The difficulty lies not in writing a complete text, but in the fact that I have never known how to treat the practical value and significance of such a documentary photographic work that looks quite traditional in the current China film industry-Yuan Dongping's text is obviously quite equivalent to the increasingly "artistic" image and the image text advertised by various digital means such as "experiment", "concept" and "pioneer". Traditional documentary photography pays attention to the realism of exploration objects, the simplicity and unity of structural style, the honesty and truthfulness of documentary images and the plain and simple narration of words. How many fresh experiences can you provide us? How much fresh inspiration does it give us in image language? If not, what is the reason why such a text deserves our attention?

A recent incident in the imaging industry seems to confirm my suspicion. 20061From 23rd to 27th October, the "2006 Beijing Imaging Experts Conference" was held in a hotel in Beijing. In the early stage of this meeting, it was publicized in many domestic media for about half a year. According to the organizer, 800 photographers signed up for this conference, and after screening by the organizer, 300 people were finally selected to participate. At this conference, 30 gallery agents from Europe, the United States and China, as well as some people from museums and collection agencies will meet photographers from China. The organizer intends to promote a market-oriented matchmaking meeting between China photographers and the world photography market. Of course, it means that we hope to establish an international image market and artistic standards under the background of globalization, so as to get rid of the narrow localization and localization of China photographers' image concepts and focus, go global and seek a broader marketing market for image products.

The meeting was very lively. This kind of excitement is repeatedly exaggerated by the mass media who like to join in the fun, like reporting the opening of a real estate business. But what I value is three important messages revealed by this meeting.

One is, what kind of image products have entered the field of vision of these foreign gallery operators and experts in museum collection departments, and have been favored by them. This message is quite clear: those so-called foreign imaging experts pay attention to experimental images, such as the works of photography students under the background of the educational system and academic inheritance of the Academy of Fine Arts, and the image works of painters who have been engaged in image experiments in recent ten years. As artists, "artworks" came into their field of vision and were invited to become their contracted artists. The next advantage, of course, is to exhibit in their galleries or art galleries, to be represented, to get a lot of dollars and euros in the future, and to have an international reputation.

Another important message is also quite clear: a large number of documentary works by invited photographers from China were met with cold reception or even disdain by foreign experts. These works were directly judged by some arrogant foreign imaging experts as "out of date" and "just the photography style of Europe and America in the 1930s and 40s". Of course, it means that these works are too backward to become the image products they pay attention to, and of course these photographers can't become their contracted artists, and their galleries and art galleries will not accept their exhibitions. Most importantly, they can't pay dollars for these documentary photos!

The final result is cruel, because it touches a realistic demand that quite a few photographers in China are eager to realize, that is, to turn their photos into money as soon as possible! In the past five or six years, the marketization of pictures has been a hot topic in China photography. Related efforts include establishing various commercial websites that provide news pictures for the media, transforming pictures into commercial products in the form of book publishing, and a few pictures enter the collectors' field of vision through galleries. At the same time, another video market has actually been quietly operating in a small scope and achieved considerable marketing results. That is to say, some artists' image artworks made with photography as the media materials, relying on China's art works market channel to go global, go global. These artworks, called "conceptual photography" or "experimental images", make these artists become "successful people" of the middle class earlier. Although the strategies, compromises and deals behind their success, as well as the distorted personality and colonial attempts of artists bought from the west by cultural capital, have been widely questioned by many contemporary cultural critics, their "successful" experiences and results have been envied and imitated by many photographers.

Therefore, the last thing I want to see, and the most shocking information I saw at this meeting, is the joy of experimental image artists being affirmed, represented and bought by western imaging experts, and the anger, frustration, confusion and willingness to yield to the "art" standards put forward by many China documentary photographers by western imaging experts. Through such a completely market-oriented meeting, they began to understand a problem: the photos they took over the years that recorded all aspects of contemporary China in great changes were not "works of art"! Only images as works of art can be associated with the west and the dollar! If you want to enter the gallery collection, if you want to get a lot of dollars, those serious documentary photographs have no value and market prospects. They have begun to prepare to give up the focus and image form of documentary photography and prepare to be "art" according to the guidance of foreign experts and learn from the experience of contemporary successful artists. I have heard many documentary photographers in China, including many people I have always respected, tell me that he just realized that his previous work is worthless and meaningless. Their next effort is to move closer to "art" and create a number of video works that are liked by foreign galleries and buyers, just like those successful artists who have already sold well. "What's the matter? So will we. " Their words are passionate and their eyes are shining with eagerness. I stood by and looked at their anxious eyes. I believe that with their rich photographic experience for many years, their expertise, many times more than those of video artists, and their clever minds and infinite love for dollars, they will do it. I even see that in the near future, there will be countless images in China that are defined as "works of art" by western imaging experts. Just in view of the huge volume and high imitation efficiency of China, a photography professional group, I don't know if those foreign galleries have enough dollars.

2

The conference caused a great shock in the photography field in China, especially the result that China's documentary photography works were almost wiped out in front of foreign experts and the dollar market in the past twenty years, which made it necessary for us to review and examine the inevitability and value of the development of China's documentary photography in the past twenty years. This is also a starting point for me to look at and evaluate Yuan Dongping's documentary photography The Poor.

Yuan Dongping is an important photographer in contemporary China, starting with another documentary photography project "Mental Hospital" he shot fifteen years ago. This project, which took several years to complete, recorded the real situation of more than a dozen mental hospitals in several provinces of China with quite rigorous images. This group of works won the American POY Award for their in-depth exploration and image description of this special group of people and their living areas, as well as their tragic and cold style revealed in their images. What I value is not this award, but what I value is that such a work appeared in that era, and it involved the real position of China's social reality, what kind of concept promotion it brought to the later development of China photography, and what kind of valuable contribution it brought to the construction of contemporary China image culture.

China's photography in 1980s has made great progress compared with that before the end of 1970s. Its early influences include the important practice of Beijing's "April Film Festival" and the image practice of Shanghai's "North Lotus Dream" and other photography groups, which are rarely mentioned. But what really had an important influence on China's photography in the 1980s was the western modernist art trend that was popular throughout the 1980s. The two important orientations of this trend of thought are, on the one hand, resisting the ideology of art, in order to get rid of the vulgar utilitarian posture of art serving political propaganda and return to the aesthetic noumenon of art, which is manifested in the photography industry by eulogizing images and returning to the true expression of the current social reality in China to flatter. On the other hand, the effort is to return to the expression position of the photographer's personal inner world from succumbing to the will to serve a group. Paying attention to the value of personal existence and personalized expression demands has become their image value orientation, but it also hides the crisis of ignoring the current realistic expression. Therefore, when various western philosophies, artistic ideas and texts were introduced into China in 1980s, when paying attention to ideas and loving literature and art became a national complex, when art was simply understood as the expression of beauty, when the new idealism established by artists in the new historical period overlapped with the nationalist ideology to realize the four realities and national rejuvenation again, the personalized expression became a shallow, profound, obscure and empty historical sadness and beautiful moan. With these original photographers and cultural elites being brought into the system, the ideal of truly expressing the current reality of China has not been transformed into the image reality of the photography industry in China, and the so-called personalized expression has gradually become a new round of eulogy under the background of the new era. Those beautiful lyrical expressions of flowers and plants, those philosophical fantasies and pretentious profundity without social critical consciousness, and those pretentious and lofty artistic imagination gestures that ignore the harsh reality behind China's superficial prosperity have created a basic orientation of depoliticization and realism in China photography in the middle and late 1980s. News photography continues to extend image practice for political propaganda; Personalized expression hangs over China's real problems, and any personal grievances are magnified into artistic expressions; Pursuing the ideal of western modernism and expressing the pure idea and practice of art have become a spiritual utopia for a generation to escape from social reality and escape into beautiful imagination.

As a watershed, the political events in the spring of 1989 stopped people from indulging in this utopian imagination for a long time, and let people see the real situation again: no one will be divorced from reality and no one will be divorced from politics. Our ten-year artistic imagination, infatuation with western modernist philosophy and artistic trend of thought, and idealized expectation for the future have not let us out of the realistic predicament. The country is still not rich; Personality expression advocates that after nearly ten years, independent personality and personal dignity are still missing; All kinds of power still become a harsh force that dominates people's free thinking and survival; Ordinary people, who account for the vast majority of the population, still live below the extremely low level. People who have cooled down from the fanaticism of idealism begin to understand that this is not a beautiful country with endless poems, but a country still full of problems. Simply believing in the future, surrendering to others' will hints and beautiful scenery descriptions can't improve our realistic situation. Any citizen with conscience and responsibility should face up to these problems, ask questions, question the underlying causes of these problems and seek effective ways to solve them together.

The rise of documentary photography in China is based on this realistic demand. Therefore, whether the concept itself is vague or not, whether it is a concept from a berth or not, documentary photography has been recognized by everyone from the beginning and used as a strategy to resist the political needs of video vassals. And very directly, these photographers continued the image concept of facing reality advocated in the era of "April Film Festival" and completely gave up their personal expression. They believe that it is more important and full of social responsibility to face up to and record the real situation in China as objectively as possible, especially to pay attention to the living conditions of marginal groups and vulnerable groups at the bottom outside the mainstream ideological vision. In their view, it is important to find out the problem and show the deformed appearance of this country through image expression. In their view, it is these visual representations that show social pathologies that are the most powerful starting point to face up to social reality, and are also effective strategies that can arouse widespread power concern and social concern.

It is also from this starting point that the image practice is in full swing. In the early 1990s, we saw a mental hospital filmed by photographers Yuan Dongping and Lv Nan, as well as Yongdingmen by Sun Jingtao. Happiness Road, I want to go to school in Jie Hailong, Northeast Man of Lin Yonghui, Sichuan Tea Shop in Jin Chen, Beijing Hutong of Xu Yong and other documentary photography subjects. "Mental Hospital" shows and focuses on the realistic situation of mental patients and the social security system. I want to go to school directly points to the present situation of education in China, and puts forward some distressing questions about the current national education system and the living reality of ordinary people; Yongdingmen? The Road to Happiness pointedly puts forward the important reality that China people's basic survival rights and dignity have lost, and points to the grim topic that the current legal system lacks protection for the basic survival of the bottom people.

These imaging practices show at least three important developments. First, it directly touches the social reality that mainstream ideology has been avoiding, that is, the living conditions of the bottom people who have always been regarded as the "dark side of socialism". The complex and diverse social problems existing in this country have entered the video camera's field of vision, thus making the scene of peace and prosperity whitewashed by mainstream ideology strongly questioned. Secondly, these image practices have established a folk standpoint and unique visual aesthetics that is uncooperative with the current art system, that is, the ontology of documentary photography is regarded as a kind of "problem aesthetics". Unlike news photography in China, it does not pay attention to the positive aspects of prosperity. It goes around behind this bustling place, presenting a real image of deep reality that has been concealed for a long time, and stimulating people's numbness caused by long-term immersion in idealistic imagination with shocking visual expression. From this point of view, documentary photography not only finds back the dignity that photography should have, but also establishes an attitude, an independent personality that is not affected by rights, and a moral stand for social criticism. Thirdly, these documentary video practices got rid of the simple and rude visual description of China's photography in the past, and began to go deep into various details of society, describing social problems in depth and detail with a large-scale systematic image structure. This effort not only clarifies the concept of documentary photography, but also makes it different from other documentary image descriptions. More importantly, it establishes a brand-new language mode and visual logic for photographers with independent thinking and social critical consciousness. It is this language mode and the unique moral standpoint and social critical spirit of documentary photography that triggered the large-scale documentary photography practice after the mid-1990s.

However, in the early 1990s, the image practice of documentary photographers such as Yuan Dongping, Sun Jingtao and Jie Hailong continued, and showed the deep elite consciousness popular in the middle and late 1980s to varying degrees. They pay attention to the image expression direction of vulnerable groups and marginal groups, and their own performance is a social observer's perspective and documentary image acquisition method, which still stems from the political impulse to resist ideological autocracy in the 1980s, which is related to the time experience of these photographers and the historical experience that has an important impact on them. Therefore, we can see that their concern for the reality of civilian survival is actually not a strictly civilian perspective. They just consciously stood at the bottom of society, showing and discussing some social problems with more realistic political significance. Their basic appeal is still an attempt to interpret the social reality of China from the bottom up.

The construction of the real civilian perspective of documentary photography began after the mid-1990s. With the surge of commercial tide and the emergence of a new generation of documentary photographers who are not influenced and disillusioned by idealism, the political impulse to resist the current system is no longer the dominant image production force. More diversified documentary photography practice has become the most exciting message in this period. Although paying attention to the disadvantaged and marginalized groups is still their concern, even more extreme, this is no longer their ideological strategy of suppressing images, but a new value recognition. Important documentary photography works in this period, such as Hou Dengke's Mike, Yu Deshui's People in the Central Plains, Xiao Quan's Our Generation, Wang Wenlan's Bicycle Kingdom, Wu Zhengzhong's Old Qingdao, Zhang Xinmin's Surrounded Cities and Wandering Pits in Rural Areas, Zheng Liu's People, Lu Yuanmin's Suzhou River, Lv Nan and other places. Hainan Prostitute by Zhao and Huang, China People on the Train by Wang Fuchun, Hui People in Xihaigu and so on. Although more media photographers don't have the ability and time to pay attention to the shooting of a special topic for a long time, they also pay attention to the visual presentation of a person and a specific event from a more specific perspective in the form of screen stories, adhering to the spirit of documentaries. In a sense, the picture story has become the early practice of China's documentary photography and a supplement to the theme. Many photographers not only improved the large-scale shooting of his documentary photography on the basis of picture stories, but also penetrated into more subtle and specific parts of society. These two image forms are mixed and complementary, which constitutes the spectacular situation of documentary photography in China in the late 1990s.

Compared with documentary photography in the early 1990s, documentary photographers in this period have a broader vision and a wider and more specific audience. Unemployed, alternative youth, Catholics, vagrants, criminals, miners, women with feet, prostitutes, tourists, migrant workers, urban immigrants, ethnic minorities in remote areas, qigong practitioners, drug addicts, homosexuals, etc., have all entered the field of vision and image expression of documentary photographers. Although documentary photography in this period still inherited the perspective of social observers and still took the discovery and raising of social problems as the driving force of its own image practice, it lacked the elite's sense of compassion and salvation and the so-called humanitarian concern. They played down the political impulse to take on major responsibilities and transform society. They have begun to look at these people and social phenomena with a cool eye. In a sense, they have a strong sense of identity with the existence of a certain group of people and social phenomena, and regard it as the unique reality necessity of China in the turbulent change, and endow this existence with rationality through their own image description. For example, videos of rural Catholicism; For example, the moral identity of alternative youth-a new lifestyle caused by lifestyle, rather than a "problem youth"; For example, the video recording of wandering artists' lives and the video exploration of homosexuality. , all show the broader vision and value judgment that China documentary photography did not have in the early 1990s.

The most important clue of documentary photography in this period is to record and express the complex relationship between cities and villages in the process of China's modernization through images, thus forming a visual description of the most important social reality in China after the mid-1990s. This position also extends to the image practice of a large number of documentary photographers after 2 1 century. We have seen that some documentary photography topics that have emerged since then have adhered to this perspective and moral stance. Niu's prison, exercise and small coal mine, Peng's wandering shed, cement factory in Luning, Yu Quanxing's poor mother and old town accent, his new work Wandering Fool, Jin Chen's new work Street, and Wang Fuchun's new work Northeast Man. Hu Yang's "Shanghai Family", Huang Liping's "Yellow River Beach" and Yuan Dongping's new work "The Poor" can all be regarded as important representative works of documentary photography in this period.

These works vividly describe the contemporary urbanization process and related issues in China from multiple dimensions. One dimension is to express the violent social conflicts and a new round of class differentiation that will inevitably occur in the process of urbanization in China. The interactive use of political demands and commercial capital, the eager desire for economic development and the greedy expansion of wealth not only deprive more people of their living space and basic interests, but also lead to large-scale population mobility. A large number of migrant workers flood into cities, and they gain meager income by losing their normal secular life and social status. A large number of urban civilians have lost their homes and become urban poor because of urban transformation and real estate development. The urbanization process full of desire and turmoil has brought the vitality of the city and the wealth of a few people. The increasingly vulgar urban landscape has become the reward for the dignitaries to show off their achievements and get promoted. The new gap between the rich and the poor constantly produces new class divisions and hostile crimes. We can see the image expression of this conflict in the documentary photography themes such as Besieged City, Boluo Liuli Road, Ren Xihai's Laoshan Courtyard, Wang Jun's Children on the Edge of the City, and Peng's Wandering Greenhouse. Another dimension shows the new crisis in the process of modernization/urbanization in China. These documentary photographers believe that the urbanization process in China is at the cost of losing more people's rights and rapidly consuming more resources. It not only causes a lot of land to be swallowed up by the expansion of the city, but also causes the extreme shortage of resources and the loss of human spiritual values and moral standards. Niu's small coal mines, dreams and practitioners, Zhao's Hainan prostitutes, Lu Guang's AIDS village, Lu Ning's cement factory, Jing Guangping's My 1998, Yu Quanxing's poor mother, and the Guzhen Chamber of Commerce. Yan Changjiang's The Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, The Miner in the Song Dynasty, The Poor Man by Yuan Dongping, etc., all expressed powerfully in this dimension with shocking and rich images. The third dimension is to go deep into China's ethnic minorities and remote towns, and take a large number of remaining or surviving human and geographical landscapes as its image description object. For example, Jin Chen's "Market Town", Li Yuxiang's large-scale image collection for local China series, Liu Keng's, Liangshan Yi's, Jin Yongquan's Nuo, Yunnan's, Xu's Yunnan story, Dong's Shaoxing water town and so on. With a unique perspective and nostalgic image interest, they expressed their regret for the interpersonal warmth and poetic dwelling that will soon pass away due to the urbanization process, and also expressed their anxiety and strong resistance to the prospect of modernization/urbanization in China. Perhaps we will think that their image focus direction does not directly face the real situation in China, but this escape from looking back at the countryside and the warm and poetic lifestyle itself has become the last cry for them to disagree with this rude urbanization process and goal and take the initiative to intervene in reality criticism.

Compared with the previous documentary photography, these new documentary images are more mature and no longer care about the objective and true expression demands of the past documentary images. They pay more attention to their own position and personal evaluation. They not only question the autocratic power in the actual political operation, but also question the grandiose rhetoric of commercial capital, and at the same time question their identity and role in this social reality. Although these photographers are more involved in some systematic methods of sociological anthropology, and their image collection is more complete, rich and structured, in their documentary photography practice, their personal attitude towards reality has become the content they insist on expressing. Documentary photography, which originally emphasized marginal recording and objective documentary, has given way to the author's recording position. Zheng Gu and Wang Yaodong's Shanghai, Scenery on the Edge of the City and Lonely Carnival, etc. , have started this transformation.

This is more obvious and prominent in the image practice of those rising photographers. They are more based on personal real experience, and don't look for subjects that have not been touched by images in the real world. They regard the inner feelings of individuals in real situations as the sensor of urbanization reality in China. Through personalized image expression, their video works show the loss and absurdity of the meaning of human life in the process of modernization/urbanization in China. Huang Lei's Seaside, Zoos and Museums, Qiu's My Scenery, Yaniu's Shenzhen Scenery and Zeng Yicheng's We Never Travel Hand in Hand are all important video texts in this period. They are more obsessed with the author's personal expression and regard personal emotional experience and even direct physical experience as the important connotation of the image. Through these personal experiences of anxiety, sadness, pain and joy, these images convey the fate and mental state of individuals in a turbulent country. These images often enter the public space in the form of "artworks" through exhibition and publication, which not only injects vitality into the development of contemporary photography in China, but also greatly expands the creative space of contemporary images. Although they don't touch the major issues in the real society on the surface, their image practice has turned themselves into questions and answers, thus becoming a symbolic refraction and an important metaphor of the real society and people's situation in contemporary China, and at the same time becoming an important extension expression of documentary photography's intervention in real observation and cultural criticism.