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眼角镜余

王豫明的图像呓语及其它

杨小彦

王豫明：热爱生活(节选)

莫妮卡·德玛黛

 

Cornes of ‘Eyes’, Edges of ‘Lens’

-- Wang Yuming’s photographic dream-talk and beyond

 

By Yang Xiaoyan

 
When Walter Benjamin described the meaning of photography, he stated, that nature told different words in front of our eyes and lenses. When I interpreted this notion I think, that his initial meaning was to point out how the photographs, as results of shooting, cannot prove the believe that “we see what we capture”; that is to say, cameras document nature, but it also filter nature as well. Hence the two extreme commentaries on photography, which is, either the absolutely objective documenting or subjectively personal, are wrong from both sides.  Photographs are not (and will not be) the only surviving visual resource of mankind, but it has its significance. It could slightly change the way we perceive our surroundings. A photographer shoots nature. A photographer also selectively shoots nature, which means the photographs are the evidence of the filtering process. It is the latter one what can be categorized as “artwork”.
 
​A new perspective on the history of photography immediately will be established if the above are agreed.There is no need to particularly illuminate the utilizing machines to document the materialized world, as there have been so many examples; meanwhile, the “artwork” and its “form” are the prerequisites of any photographic series, which is verisimilar to the visual prerequisites of fine art, we can refer the history of photography to the history of art. As a result of the association, the history of photography, then gains values in a matter of humanism and aesthetics. However, once this opinion is accepted by the majority, a potential danger is to erase the former with the latter, which is only to understand the photography’s history in an aesthetic manner, and that explains why photographers, especially photographers in China are obsessed of the so-called salon photography.
 
It’s absolutely not a phenomenon occurs only in China. The western photography shares the similar situation.
 
​An understanding of the phenomenon above will lead us to be able to thoroughly seeing through this occurrence. Because once photography is put in the realm of art history, so easily the Avant-garde turns to be normal, and in an era that innovation is highly worshiped, the fate for the normality is inevitable elimination.
 
​I fancy that WANG Yuming subconsciously adopted the Avant-garde concept, or at least partially; otherwise it falls into an absurdity in the attempt to interpret some of his series. Yuming started his individual debut on photography with an ordinary context. The passing ten years saw the mainstream of this context, and in my opinion, it has to do with the documentary photography movement. Many, I mean those of alert to trends and political climates, had more or less abandoned the very dominated domestic “CHAN Fooklai” trend, had ignored the chatter about “the art of photography”, and switched their focus to the lower classes, which are massively existent. I assume, even without supportive statistics, that the eventful moments taken by photographers from this three decades is rapidly transcending any other eras in China’s history. Some of Yuming’s photograph series singularly reflected this movement of documentary photography.
 
​He immersed in this movement and he is one of the Avant-garde. This combination fundamentally determines the documentary elements in his art, despite his abstract approach. Take his Murmur series as an example, the subject is cities at night and his process is rather spontaneous. Instead of the mainstream shooting method, which is to firstly is settling down the subject and the settings, then elucidating with following photographs, he let himself walking around without a clean idea. Or to be precise, he became a somnambulist, who captures the moments by clicking the shutter subconsciously. Going against the majority’s taste, he abandoned normal meaning, normal effects, normal textures and all normal exciting objects; he may not even look at his viewfinder in order to against any kind of shooting habits. “Murmuring” is a perfect word that frames the state he expected, though I don’t think he wasn’t aware of this activity; when facing the accustomed traditions on photography and a large amount of photographs on city view, his action was seemingly like visual nonsense yet his answer was the clear definition of murmuring and its imagery.
 
​ In his Morning and Evening series, the infrared ray effects gleam phosphorescence in the villagers’ eyes, of what dramatically creates a phantom-like tension. It is terrifying for the audiences, but he found, and very much pleased with this special effect, for not only it fits the imagery of “murmur”, but also it creates a city and people in another dimension. He was longing this imagery, and once he accidently discovered the infrared ray effect and its potentials as “visualized phantoms”, he never loses his interest of this technique. For him, craftsmanship has vanished in those attempts of visualizing murmurs; what are essential are the shimming moments of those real souls. For me, those who appear in his lenses are just byproducts from his viewfinders; those are definitely not portraits. Compare to normal photographers who will “cut off” nature through their viewfinders, Yuming’s approach is to cut off this “cut off” action by switching his focus to his viewfinders.
 
​The defense series and the official portrait series prove the documentary photography influence of him. The former captured the insanity occurs in a village during SARS period while the latter captured profiles of idols on many altars. People worship those idols without looking at them; the awe they hold preventing them from questioning the craftsmen’s intention. For them, those deified statues are stereotypes; they never really imagine the varied characteristics finalized by craftsmen; not to mention the idea of those idols as foils of our society. WANG Yuming closely observed those idols and frankly captured their deified yet uncanny characters. By using the form of the official portrait, he separated their halos and extracted their earthliness. He also subtly captured the villagers being overwhelmed and their desperate yet illusory defense of the real happening SARS. Their activities became a certain symbol and standard stereotype, which create a queer symbolic implication to the whole series. It is not to say that the substance and the symbolization are completely detached from each other; in another angle, in where a domestic epidemic was infected and it happens to be in the nation where medical system was destructed, the solemn defenders of SARS and the aloof idol co-possess the inherent similarities.
 
Until reaching this point WANG Yuming stopped using his signature visual murmur; because for him, the reality is more like nonsense than any murmur, he intended to create; consequently any distinctive lenses would no less capture his astonishments. When WANG Yuming’s photographs dissolve into a massive panorama of photography, he murmurs, I guess, will be a group, or a whole salon’s murmur.  
 
Walter Benjamin was right, nature told different words in front of our eyes and lenses, yet he didn’t expound what a personal experience it is. Let us recall the moment of shooting, actually no anyone else can hear what nature tells the photographer; only the photographs, of which gained their independent existence, convey the words from nature to the audiences. They made their own history.


 

Wang Yuming: In Love with Life

 
I have often seen Wang Yuming laugh, toast his glass, sing, and jestingly incite others to merrymaking. Sometimes I’ve caught him in a sad and serious mood. His cheerfulness is certainly laden with optimism and great inner strength, yet it is also imbued with the melancholy and resignation of those who know that the human condition can be difficult and full of hardships, and that it is wiser to face even its less pleasurable aspects by experiencing them intensely, like gulping down a glass of some sour liquid rather than feigning a superficial indifference or convenient detachment.
“Comrade Wang,” as I teasingly like to refer to him, recalling a time in which the term was ubiquitously used, and was invested with a value that went beyond pure form, etiquette, or custom, is a person who would give everything for his friends, who lives a very intense social life, and is always ready to consider the needs of others before his own. At times this attitude turns against him, even affecting his physical well-being, while at others his warm-hearted, generous nature must endure the blows of a fast-paced, busily industrious daily routine and his lack of regard for his physical health.
 
Wang Yuming was born in Chongqing of Sichuanese father and later moved to Henan, an “ancient” province, from which I think he has absorbed a few deeply traditional aspects. Henan is a region I especially love, partly because of its quite numerous extant examples of Han art, of which I am an enthusiast. The tumuli scattered throughout the countryside,   which mark where the tombs of the nobility once stood, seem to conjure up the voices of a great civilization. This is a province whose people still live according to modes of behaviour that are based on deep mutual respect. When such modes do not result in the mere empty or hypocritical enactment of the rules of etiquette, which can happen anywhere, such forms of interaction are an expression of human warmth, courtesy, attention, and consideration for others. Those who have grown up in a similar environment seem to be invested with a natural nobleness of spirit.
Yet Wang Yuming does not have the reticence and certain reserve that nonetheless distinguish most of Henan’s people. He is an extroverted, not diffident, person and has a welcoming nature rather than a self-absorbed one.
The warm affection he showers upon his friends and acquaintances is completely genuine and sincere. It is not spoiled by self-serving calculations or worries about protecting his own interests, jealousy, or envy. Wang Yuming is aware of the Machiavellian rules that dictate interpersonal relationships in all societies and which, given its ancient civilization, are expressed more subtly in China, yet he consciously avoids their pettier implications, preferring to mitigate the captiousness that informs such rules by playing them down through an appeasing toast or hearty laugh. It is not a question of simulated naiveté or even of the ascetic denial of worldly pleasures: Wang Yuming is perfectly able to deal with functionaries and those holding the reins of power, whose language and codes of behaviour he’s aware of, while nonetheless remaining pure in spirit.
And this is demonstrated by the fact that, despite his being close to many highly-placed individuals, his standard of living has always remained unchanged, and his devotion to artistic creation overrides everything else.
 
Perhaps some will wonder about the reason behind such a detailed portrayal of a “person” in an essay by a self-described “art critic.” I am convinced that a person’s “depth” is a fundamental ingredient in determining the intrinsic value of the works he produces; in Wang Yuming’s case the human qualities he is endowed with inform his work so intensely as to constitute its primary element and guiding assumption.
I met Wang Yuming seven or eight years ago and, through the years, our acquaintance developed, gradually becoming closer, so that only now has “Comrade Wang” decided that the time is ripe to request that I write an essay about his work.  
 
A Bit of Everything
 
Two years ago I attended a solo show of Wang Yuming’s in Luoyang, entitled Country Folk, City Folk, Landscapes and Flowers . I laughingly asked him, “Why not entitle it A Bit of Everything?”. I think that such a title on one hand reflects Wang Yuming’s extensive interest for his surrounding environment; on the other, it reflects his lack of pretentiousness, his naturally easygoing nature, devoid of all rhetoric and self-presumption.
I have here, lying on my desk, a few small black-and-white catalogues covering  his works over the last six years. They are all slim, plain volumes, yet creatively and carefully put together.
 
As far as I know, like many of his colleagues, Wang Yuming “came into his own” as a photographer beginning in 1989, through his particular interest in documenting Henan’s rural culture, with its many fairs, public celebrations, and folklore, or even just its simple authenticity. Until some time ago, the most well-known and widely recognized role of photography in China was that of documenting or providing a testament of reality. Moreover, given that the dictates The Great Helmsman addressed to intellectuals included that of “experiencing life” , understood as the life led by farmers, or (in smaller measure) workers, it is easy to understand why dozens of amateurs equipped with cameras combed China’s most remote rural areas, and still do so today, in search of rituals, customs, and expressions that have become obsolete in urban areas. I imagine that when he decided to repeatedly take part in the many festivities of the farmers’ Moon Festival, Wang Yuming, who had just been through a number of experiences common to all Chinese persons of his age and social extraction, such as being sent to the countryside to farm the land, subsequently working in a factory and thereafter as a teacher, was animated by a curiosity mixed with a certain sense of familiarity, by an outsider’s viewpoint, which was also simultaneously the sympathetic one of someone participating in what he was witnessing.
Little by little, he abandoned this purely documentary viewpoint, allowing for a more subjective approach and unusual perspectives, less standard cropping, and “unfocussed” effects that were far more evocative than descriptive.
 
The catalogue Morning & Evening , which won him a prize at the International Festival in Pingyao (I still remember his exultation upon receiving it), is the most obvious expression of a change in the artist’s direction, which now becomes entirely devoted to his personal vision. Immersed in a disquieting darkness and wrapped up in heavy jackets , scarves, and berets, farm men and women of all ages, whose irises appear phosphorescent (thanks to the technical expedient of using the infrared mode), seem to be engaging in arcane rituals. Their expressions almost never appear complete, still, and aware of being immortalized; instead, the photographer has caught them in “transitional” moments, with semi-closed eyes, unsure lips, and half-turned heads. The shots taken from below (by holding the camera against his abdomen, Wang Yuming manages to take many pictures without being noticed), which are very frequent, distort the balance between the whites of the eyes with respect to the irises, making them appear almost frightening. Nonetheless, the photographer is not seeking overly dramatic effects, but rather a feeling of pathos, motion, and intensity, which is akin to that actually felt by those partaking in  divinatory rites. Even to an outside observer, the trance-like expressions of these seers, along with the fervour of the beggars and the rites they all seem engaged in, make for a highly enthralling effect. I would say that, instead of limiting himself to offering a kind of “inventory,” or description of a situation, the artist here literally engulfs viewers within it: he emotionally involves them in the situation, pulling them in.   
As the man “of passions” he is, Wang Yuming finally steps down from the pedestal of neutrality and “objectivity” upon which photography is often relegated.
 
I recall a sequence of photographs all taken within a single day, during a popular festivity, and subsequently presented as a short video with a soundtrack (an expedient which is often used in Henan and which I suppose was inspired by the French photographer and curator, Alain Jullien), entitled Lunar Month . Wang Yuming has here chosen to photograph a group of bystanders along the side of a road, as they observe an event, which I suppose is a procession, unfolding before them. One can imagine the photographer following, preceding, or mixing with the train of people, thus capturing the curious, amused, or interested expressions of whole families of spectators. In this case as well, we the viewers, become in our turn members of the crowd and are granted the chance to move and look about.  
 
I also remember a series of photographs taken during the S.A.R.S. emergency, during which Wang visited many provincial villages, which were barred from all “foreigners” by volunteers who stood guard alongside makeshift barriers made of tree trunks and sundry objects, so as to avert the danger posed by close contact which could lead possible infection. The photographer was himself denied access to these areas, and asked that he be allowed to take pictures so as to provide a “testament” of the work being done. He was thus able to photograph a varied array of people who became the improvised guardians of their own and others’ safekeeping; a popular spirit , spontaneous and unofficial in nature, which is conveyed in its genuine innocence and which the viewer almost directly confronts.  
 
City Folk, Country Folk
 
Upon comparing Wang Yuming’s “country folk” with his “city folk”, what I notice is that, aside from the differences in the gestures, clothing, and environments - in short, the objective elements – they convey a feeling of overcrowding, close contact, and near-promiscuousness in the former case, and one of indifference, detachment, and closure in the latter, which the photographer surely meant to emphasize.
Wang Yuming shows us the eyes and looks – even though they are directed elsewhere – of the “country folk.” He portrays them as attentive and interested in something, as focussed, involved, and curious. They are, for the most part, interacting with each other.
In the images of the city folk, Wang has instead deliberately photographed them from behind or from the side. He underscores their inexpressive faces, as if they were forced to create an inner silence for themselves so as to fend off the overload of external stimulation. While standing at a bus stop, their eyes are lowered as they speak on their cell phones, look at the ground, or clutch a bag. As they ride the bus, their gazes are directed outside so as to avoid meeting those of others. They all seem to be making an effort to limit contact with those around them, who are close enough to exchange glances or words with, and to feel the urgent need to reach a familiar, “safe” environment, different from the one they find themselves in, in which they may relax and feel at ease.
 
In a mosaic of photographs that Wang Yuming has mounted and paired with a soundtrack, much like a series of slides on a carousel projector, and ironically entitled Picture ID , the photographer has accomplished a further step: from the documentary photographs with which he began his relationship with the camera, to the development of an approach halfway between the documentary and the conceptual. He has photographed the faces of  dozens of divinities found in temples or other sacred sites around the countryside, mainly in the Henan and Shanxi (山西) provinces. The painted terracotta or plaster heads, both in good or bad state, constitute a rich gallery of physiognomic expressions. They are, for the most part, not genuine works of art, but rather the sometimes admirable, sometimes-cheap handiwork of artisans. They are extremely colourful: the faces are gold, turquoise, red, ashen…while the eyes range from icily austere slits to astounded spherical apertures. Perhaps it is merely my own interpretation, but I see an entire repertoire of humanity in them. Yet I think that, in light of what has been described above, they more fittingly represent the variegated array of country folk rather than the more predictable, standardized city folk.
 
Landscapes
 
Besides being a passionate photographer, Wang Yuming is also acquainted with classical culture; he writes poems and  practices traditional ink on paper calligraphy and painting.
Perhaps also because of this, his passionate nature is coupled with a natural predilection for beauty. After the images steeped in pathos of Morning and Evening, and the deliberately direct and simple Avian Flu series, we find several Landscapes  whose lunar beauty is achieved through the use of often symmetrical compositions, depths of field, and sometimes vast backgrounds, coupled with the special effect obtained through the infrared mode, which emphasizes the lighter surfaces, making them appear white. These images almost never include people, yet are filled with plentiful, imposing signs of their presence. They consist of powerfully humanized, yet desolate, environments, and it is precisely this paradox, which is one of the reasons for the mesmerizing attraction they emanate. There are chrysanthemum flower beds framed by curtains of weeping willows, coupled with traditional buildings. Or landscapes that have been carved from the land, farmed, and then left to languish in a state of semi-abandonment, along with scenic views of rivers and lakes, or bird’s eye views of industrialized rural areas. It is the sense of suspension they emanate, the still silence, the alienating and unusual whiteness of the foliage, which transform these ordinary environments into epic landscapes. I personally particularly love this series for the timeless, alienating, suspended atmosphere it conveys.
 
Light
 
I remember having seen a series of photographs at an exhibition held in Pingyao in 2003, if I’m not mistaken, in which light was the true protagonist amid the whiteness and – especially – blackness of the urban night scenes. This often took the form of illuminated windows upon a dark background, or reflections cast upon the houses facing them, or even the sudden, stark prominence of light, sharply delineated areas upon a blurred surrounding surface – these were rare, suspended images based on the sudden, violent contrast of black against white. I recall that, many years ago, as an art history student, we discussed the expert use of light Caravaggio conceived and his ability to render painting dramatic and full of pathos. Caravaggio to this day remains my favourite painter. Within the world of contemporary Chinese photography, which is still tied to a very “realistic” stance, or its attempts at a conceptual approach, which were rather forced and not at all poetic, I was struck by Wang Yuming’s sensitive, open vision, who – I imagine – during his nightly walks, perhaps returning home from work after a long day, had managed to capture revelatory flashes of light within his city and its daily bustle, and had shown us another vision of reality, made up of black and white strokes and unnaturally sharp lines coupled with blurred areas. His vision is interesting not because it tells a story (I don’t think he’s interested in gossip), but because it holds its own particular beauty which is shaped into abstract compositions that recall the alternation of blacks and whites on the paper of an ink painting rather than the life and volumes of a city at night.  
 
In other words, I think the great talent and special quality of Wang Yuming lies in his ability to capture the beauty, pathos, and humanity present in every corner of his surrounding world. And knowing how to express it with an immediacy that is devoid of all rhetoric and emphasis. It is an expression similar to the one always found in his small, but infinitely lively and passionate eyes.
 
Monica Dematté
Vigolo Vattaro, 24 August 2008