| What is the real meaning of photography? It is not an advertisement or mainstream news photography. We should remember that contemporary art “accepts” photography initiative, not photography actively walking into the contemporary art field. The meaning of contemporary art is changing. So is the meaning of photography, but the basic meaning of photography never changes. It still continues to record the reality—a wider range of reality. How to “record” and what kind of “reality” to record are the questions. If there are 10,000 creators, then there will be 10,000 explanations. We follow the norms, recording reality: daily lives, a look, a beam of light and a shadow, a simple scene that attracts us. | 
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Wang Wei-Yi is the curator of a video art show titled Sit Tight, featuring artists Mo Yi, Wang Wei-Yi, Shi Xin, and Zhang Meng.
Wang Wei-Yi, On the Train, 2000. Film photography as acid-free paper print, 30.85 x 43.85 cm. Courtesy of the artist.What photography is regarded as a kind of contemporary art? It should have more than a single face. Instead of using only one way to take photographs, we choose many different styles and methods. Since contemporary art is controlled by the system, the contemporary art that we see is no longer lovely. Contemporary artists—the characters who are inside the show—are more like trained workers on the production line. They are tirelessly making (duplicating) a large quantity of contemporary art objects, such as photographs. As “ideal photography” is well known by everybody, it seems that the act of “posing for a shot” has already become a synonym of “ideal photography,” which is considered as contemporary art. It is said that politics influence the freedom of art creations. Everything is all driven by huge car wheels, art galleries, plan makers, auction houses, collectors, critics, cultural officers, and certainly we can’t leave out the artists. All these people have become an interest group, and to what they need, the art object has become a derivative of financial investment.
Just like what Chen Dan-Qing said, the contemporary art abroad is an ecosystem and so is photography. We never went through the baptism of the “image culture” after photography was invented. Looking back on our photography history, people who followed the style of Lang Jing-Shan’s “beautiful painting idea” of photography could enter the main photography circle. Lang was always honored as a master by our countrymen. His photography is considered as “conceptual photography” by some people. Can we compare these Chinese photographers’ achievements with someone who keeps the spirit of humanism as the American photographer, Smith, do? Fang Da-Ceng, a Beijing non-professional young photographer who was living during the anti-Japanese war, is looked upon as an outsider. At the same time, the majority is obsessed with “Master Lang,” just complacently playing with “scholarly interest” that has no vitality, and seems to blindly inherit the traditional culture.
What is the real meaning of photography? It is not an advertisement or mainstream news photography. We should remember that contemporary art “accepts” photography initiative, not photography actively walking into the contemporary art field. The meaning of contemporary art is changing. So is the meaning of photography, but the basic meaning of photography never changes. It still continues to record the reality—a wider range of reality.
How to “record” and what kind of “reality” to record are the questions. If there are 10,000 creators, then there will be 10,000 explanations. We follow the norms, recording reality: daily lives, a look, a beam of light and a shadow, a simple scene that attracts us. The only thing we can do is to record and watch.
If photography can be classified as a sort of contemporary art, then it is not just a way of communication; it is also a kind of vindication and explanation for the photographer. Photographs can record and express even an insignificant scene, but it is mainly about spirit and instinct. It reaches far beyond what we perceive with our own eyes. Then what is meaning of photography? Maybe therein the question lays the real meaning of photography.
