Journalist Sabine Köhncke wrote the following in 2006 for ARTE magazine: « photography is the art that most faithfully illustrates modern China and its explosive dynamism». An entire generation of young Chinese photographers came onto the scene and created a new perspective on the World leading country with their images.
From Maleonn to Zhou Hongbin we note in this exhibition the vivacity of propositions, we discover the shared stakes, their will to put a look on the contemporary society as much as on the history of China and its traditions while at the same time being guided by various points of view.
To present the contemporary Chinese photography by the way of a collective exhibition makes it possible to show the wealth of the glances of these artists. When Peikwen Cheng trains his camera at the Burning Man to captures the dreamlike installations imagined by the festival-goers, Maleonn goes across China to the most out-of-the-way villages in order to draw up their portraits, and Feng Fangyu chooses as subject the former Summer Palace Yuan Mingyuan going back over on the traces of one of the most important places of the Chinese tradition. Within so much variety of subjects, we find the balance looked for by all the artists between the marvellous and the reality, a certain poetry in the staging of their subjects, a work based on light and colours, compositions marked by traditions, so many elements which are suited to this generation.
By the bridge created with China since 2009, the gallery Magda Danysz offers here the opportunity to discover young Chinese artists, this generation, which knew how to renew the questions, which they had through the photo. It draws up an exciting outline of the prosperity, the originality and the vitality of the Chinese contemporary photography.
HUANG XIAOLIANG, MA KANG, QIU MINYE & ZHANG BOJUN. Magda Danysz Gallery - 78, rue Amelot - Paris 11 - until 23 December 2014
CREDITS
Artist Huang Xiaoliang