Great Images of Process
Adam Rosenthal
Greater than trend or past affectation, New York has had a serious in-flux of Chinese photography and video in recent years. "Great Performance: Chinese Contemporary Photography" at Max Protetch Gallery shows us some of what we may have missed since 1995. This show opened in conjunction with a new 7,000 square foot space in Beijing. A gallery founded by both Max Protetch and Beijing curator and critic Leng Lin, who curated "Great Performances," another bold signifier of this mounting presence.
"Great Performances" is a combination of images that document truly great performances, as well as actions intended solely for the camera. This exhibit touches two topics currently on my mind and one that is forever churning there. The first two are the culturally curated exhibit and the photograph as final product of performance. The third is great art.
We tend to find, with any culturally curated art, the implication that the artist’s culture or nationality is of equal importance to quality of the work. This is far from true at Max Protetch where the work is undoubtedly primary. Certainly the artists’ national political environment, Communist China, plays a large role in the ultimate product of their endeavors. It seems, however, the specific effects of this role are drowned out by the broad humanist motifs coursing throughout the various works on view, the destruction of long standing communities, the complex predicament of migrant workers, social chaos, futile actions, economic need, these topics are clear and international.
In Zhang Huan’s c-print To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond (Distant), a documentary photograph of a performance by the same name, there are 40 participants in a large body of water that is, evidently, a fishpond. The men are in swimsuits, nude from the waist up and look cold. Background trees and large buildings separate the water from the sky. The descriptive title indicates a goal of the performance, which was accomplished but as the artist states, "that the water in the pond was raised one meter higher is an action of no avail." Generally, with this type of documentation, I’m left with more questions than answers. Here I was overwhelmed by this futile progress through the single image and its title.
Zhang Dali’s practice roots itself in the ongoing urbanization of Beijing where he trained at the esteemed Central Academy of Art. In his photograph on view, Demolition Time Plaza, Beijing (1999), there is the staple of his early work, the recognizable migrant head, a person-sized, loose and curvy profile the artist states is a "condensation of [his] own likeness as an individual," which can still be seen spray-painted on buildings in Beijing. The figure/head in Demolition, however, is not spray painted, but chiseled out of a stone wall, leaving the shape of the head a void. Background trees show through like visible thoughts of nature. He is engraining himself into the architecture of old while simultaneously becoming one with the entropic forces changing his city.
You’ll notice the above descriptions refer to the performance or action using the documentation on view. This is exactly what I find appealing about these photographs. Rather than presenting us with overtly beautiful documentation, which pretends to be the thing itself, the images in "Great Performances" don’t lie to us. Overall, the artists make it clear through the photographs that they are documenting a process. The result may be attractive images, such as the works mentioned above, or Song Dong’s much reviewed Breathing (1996), a photo-diptych of the artist laying face-down, creating ice by breathing on the ground of Tiananmen Square then in the same manner breathing on the frozen surface of the Black Sea and melting nothing, but the foremost goal is documentation. The truth in this type of documentary method allows these photos to be what they are, great images that document even greater performances.
