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The Politics of Photographic Representation in Postsocialist China

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The Politics of Photographic Representation in Postsocialist China Staging the Future: The Politics of Photographic Representation in Postsocialist China by James David Poborsa A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by James David Poborsa 2018 Staging the Future - The Politics of Photographic Representation in Postsocialist China James David Poborsa Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto 2018 Abstract This dissertation examines the changing nature of photographic representation in China from 1976 until the late 1990s, and argues that photography and photo criticism self-reflexively embodied the cultural politics of social and political liberalisation during this seminal period in Chinese history. Through a detailed examination of debates surrounding the limits of representation and intellectual liberalisation, this dissertation explores the history of social documentary, realist, and conceptual photography as a form of social critique. As a contribution to scholarly appraisals of the cultural politics of contemporary China, this dissertation aims to shed insight into the fraught and often contested politics of visuality which has characterized the evolution of photographic representation in the post-Mao period. The first chapter examines the politics of photographic representation in China from 1976 until 1982, and explores the politicisation of documentary realism as a means of promoting modernisation and reform. Chapter two traces the internationalisation of photographic theory and practice in China throughout the 1980s, while exploring the pervasive engagement among photo critics with issues of historical representation, national progress, and the role of the photography in representing !ii social change. The third chapter examines the photographic oeuvre of Mo Yi from the mid 1980s to the late 1990s, and situates his work within the broader photographic and cultural politics of the period, while chapter four examines the history of conceptual photography and photo theory in China during the 1990s. !iii Acknowledgments I would firstly like to thank Alana Livesey for her love and support throughout the years, and to Quinn, who has made the past two years the most memorable and adventurous of our lives. And to our little girl - I can’t wait to meet you in a few weeks! I would also like to thank Professor Jennifer Purtle, whose guidance and support over the years has been integral to the development of this dissertation, as well as to Professors Meng Yue, Tong Lam, Wu Yiching, and Tom McDonough for their thoughtful and insightful commentary on the dissertation. In China, I am greatly indebted to Wang Ningde (and Lisa), for the initial inspiration to pursue the study of photography in China, and for his many introductions to an array of figures in the field. I would also like to thank Mo Yi for spending so many hours patiently discussing his work, and the history of photography in China, as well as Bao Kun, for his thoughtful commentary and for opening up his own personal archive of materials. I am grateful to Professor Yao Lu for providing me with access to the CAFA archives, and to Professor Wang Zhongchen in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Tsinghua University. I would also like to extend my special thanks to Wang Qingsong and Zhang Fang for their astonishing hospitality, as well as to Cang Xin, Rong Rong, the fantastic staff at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Daozi, Zhu Qi, Xu Yong, Zhao Liang, Na Risong, Li Xiaobin, Liu Zheng, Li Wei, Zhang Dali, Wen Danqing, Lu Yanpeng, Hu Yang, Ruben Lundgren, Michael Cherney, Chakman Lei, Catherine Cheng, Peter Le, Wendy Wang, and Yang Weidong. Thanks as well to my colleagues in Beijing, including Katie Grube, Stephanie Tung, Thomas Sauvin, Chen Shuxia, Mia Yu, Zandie Brockett, Jacob Dreyer, and Madeleine Eschenburg. To those who made Beijing so memorable, including Colin MacLennan and Julian Wilson, there will always be one for the road… Special thanks to my colleagues Mark McConaghy and Sean Callaghan, who furnished an intellectual environment of unprecedented character and wit, and to Robert Baines at the NATO Association of Canada, whose leadership and tenacity helped forge new paths through the wilderness. !iv Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….iv List of Plates..…………………………………………………………………………………….vi List of Appendices……………………………………………………………………………..xxix Introduction – Towards a History of Contemporary Chinese Photography…..…………………..1 Chapter 1 – The April Photo Society: The Documentary Turn and the Limits of Representation……………………………………………………………………………………20 Chapter 2 – Popular Internationalism: Photography, Criticism, and the Logic of Modernisation in the New Era………………………………………………………………………………………77 Chapter 3 – Illusory Spaces: Mo Yi Documents the Real………………………………………127 Chapter 4 – Conceptual Photography as History: Fragmentation, Dislocation, and the Historical Imaginary in China, 1988-1998….…………………………………………………..…………172 Epilogue – Lineages: Baipai as Contemporary Art…………………………………………….221 References………………………………………………………………………………………231 Appendix 1 – Interviews………………………………………………………………………..299 !v List of Plates *** For copyright purposes, all images have been removed from this dissertation *** Chapter 1 Images Image 1 Li Xiaobin 李晓斌 (b. 1955), 45 baitian Tiananmen guangchang 45⽩天天安门⼴场 (Tiananmen Square on the Day of April 5th), 5 April 1979, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Image courtesy of the artist. Image 2 Photographer Unknown, Untitled image of Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇 and Hou Bo 侯波, date unknown, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Sheng Chao 盛朝. “guanhuai 关怀” (“Show Loving Care”) in dazhong sheying ⼤众摄影 (Popular Photography) Vol. 4 (1980), 1. Image 3 Qi Tieyan 齐铁砚 (b. 1942), “nan wang de jingtou 难忘的镜头” (“An Unforgettable Scene”), 14 May 1980. People’s Republic of China, photograph. Source: Qi Tieyan 齐铁砚. “nan wang de jingtou 难忘的 镜头” (“An Unforgettable Scene”) in Zhongguo sheying (Chinese Photography) Vol. 7 (1980), front cover. Image 4 A) Image 4 B) A) Zhong Wenlue 钟⽂略 (b. 1925), xiu lu 修路 (Repairing the Way), date unknown, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Zhong Wenlue 钟⽂略. “xiu lu 修路“ (“Repairing the Way”) in Zhongguo sheying 中国摄影 (Chinese Photography) Vol. 5 (1962), 44. B) Zhong Wenlue 钟⽂略 (b. 1925), “《xiu lu》 de zhizuo jingguo 《修路》的制作经过” (“The Making of ‘Repairing the Way’”), 1962. People’s Republic of China. Source: Zhong Wenlue 钟⽂略. “《xiu lu》 de zhizuo jingguo 《修路》的制作经过” (“The Making of ‘Repairing the Way’”) in Zhongguo sheying 中国摄影 (Chinese Photography) Vol. 5 (1962), 53. Image 5 Photographer unknown, shike jingti 时刻警惕 (Constantly On Alert), 1974, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Zhishi qingnian zai beidahuang: Heilongjiang shengchan jianshe budui yeyu sheying zuopin xuan 知识青年在北⼤荒：⿊龙江⽣产建设部队业余摄影作品选 (Young Intellectuals in the Great Northern Wilderness: A Selection of Amateur Photographs from Heilongjiang Production and Construction Units). Beijing 北京: renmin meishu chubanshe ⼈民美术出版社, 1973, Image 135. Image 6 !vi Photographer unknown, xunluo zai zuguo bianfangxian shang 巡逻在祖国边防线上 (Patrolling Along the Nation’s Borderline), 1974, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Zhishi qingnian zai beidahuang: Heilongjiang shengchan jianshe budui yeyu sheying zuopin xuan 知识青年在北⼤荒：⿊龙 江⽣产建设部队业余摄影作品选 (Young Intellectuals in the Great Northern Wilderness: A Selection of Amateur Photographs from Heilongjiang Production and Construction Units). Beijing 北京: renmin meishu chubanshe ⼈民美术出版社, 1973, Image 136. Image 7 Photographer unknown, 1939, Chairman Mao in Yan’an Having a Candid Discussion with the Peasants of Yangjialing (“yi jiu san jiu nian, Mao zhuxi zai Yan’an he Yangjialing nongmin qinqie tanhua ⼀九三 九年，⽑主席在延安和杨家岭农民亲切谈话”), 1939, photograph. People’s Republic of China, photograph. Source: Zhongguo sheying 中国摄影 (Chinese Photography) Vol. 6 (1976), unpaginated. Image 8 Liu Quanju 刘全聚 (b. 1936), Hua zhuxi dai shang honglingjin 华主席戴上红领⼱ (Chairman Hua Puts on a Red Neckerchief), 16 October 1978, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Liu Quanju 刘 全聚. “Hua zhuxi dai shang honglingjin 华主席戴上红领⼱” (“Chairman Hua Puts on a Red Neckerchief”) in Zhongguo sheying 中国摄影 (Chinese Photography) Vol. 1 (1979), inside front cover. Image 9 Ao Enhong 敖恩洪 (1909-1989), chuntian de huaduo 春天的花朵 (Spring Flowers), 1978, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Ao Enhong 敖恩洪. chuntian de huaduo 春天的花朵 (Spring Flowers) in Zhongguo sheying 中国摄影 (Chinese Photography) Vol. 1 (1979), 4. Image 10 Luo Xiaoyun 罗⼩韵 (b. 1953), huainian Zhou zongli, tongchi “sirenbang” 怀念周总理，痛斥“四⼈帮” (Cherishing the Memory of Premier Zhou, Sharply Denouncing the “Gang of Four”), April 1976, photograph. People’s Republic of China. Source: Zhongguo sheying 中国摄影 (Chinese Photography) Vol. 1 (1979), 7. Image 11 Designer unknown, guowai meishu ziliao 国外美术资料 (Overseas Fine Art Materials), December 1977. Published by the Zhejiang University of Fine Arts, Art Theory Teaching & Research Section (Zhejiang meishu xueyuan lilun jiaoyanshi 浙江美术学院理论教研室). Source: guowai meishu ziliao 国外美术资 料 (Overseas Fine Art Materials) Vol. 1 (December 1977), front cover. Image 12 Designer unknown, guowai meishu ziliao 国外美术资料 (Overseas Fine Art Materials), inside front cover, December 1977. Published by the Teaching and Research Section for Theory at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (Zhejiang meishu xueyuan
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