Chinese Modern Photography _ [Professional Amateur and Emerging Modernity : Luo Bonian and His Contemporaries 1930-1940s]

Exhibition poster. Courtesy TAIKANG SPACE.

From a broad perspective, we sort paintings as Western or Oriental. Each has a unique technique and style accumulated for a long time in its region. This sorting applies to other genres as well. For example, chord and harmony in Western and Oriental music are different, and the style of architecture is dissimilar to each other. Like these, the way of expression has been developed based on its local and historical uniqueness. You may find the character of each country if you study further in each region. These characters  include not only visual appearance but also philosophy within.

However, in the case of photography, it is not the same. Photography was invented first in 1839, France - to be accurate, acquired the title of the authorized invention - has grown up centering around Europe and America. It had struggled to be an independent medium for art there. First, it was just a means of dismal copies for painters. Then, at last, it became an art in the modern Western world. However, it is not well known that how photography was accepted and developed in the East. Thus it is not available to classify as a Western or Eastern photo. And it is reasonable that the history of photography is stated based on Western photographers and their images. 

Installation view. Courtesy TAIKANG SPACE.

But, though we do not know our history of photography, it has been here. It is also necessary to study our pre-modern/modern photography to understand our contemporary photography better. The exhibition at TAIKANG SPACE is the answer to this question. The gallery shows the photography of modern China through various artworks and documents.

In the history of photography, modern photography generally means straight photography from Alfred Steiglitz to Paul Strand. Also, sur-realism images by Man Ray and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy fell in this category. The modern era of photography sat between the late 19th century of pictorialism and the mid-20th century of contemporary photography departed from Robert Frank. 

Luo Bonian, Pattern, Gelatin Silver Print, 24.5×18.8cm, 1930s. Courtesy TAIKANG SPACE.

Then how would photography in China be during this time? This new technology - camera and photography - was first introduced during the mid-19th in Hong Kong. Some Western photographers opened studios there, and other photographers came to take pictures of exotic people, cultures, and landscapes. Then Chinese photographers learned from them turned up. During the early to mid 20th century, photography was for a documentary, reportage, or propaganda most of the time. Meanwhile, the country went through the Great Cultural Revolution, and this status continued until the 1970s. One editor stated that “It is not an exaggeration to say there was no ‘personal’ photography in China at this time.”1)

But, during this period, some photographers pursued photography as a tool for artistic expression. They were the members of Beijing Light Society(北京光社) in the 1920s and some amateur photographers active in Shanghai during the 1930s-40s. They embraced photography as fine art instead of the means for documentary and propaganda. The subject of the current exhibition is the latter, Luo Bonian and his contemporaries from Shanghai. Most of them belonged to the middle class and took photos as a leisure activity. But, though they defined themselves as amateurs, their level of achievement was close to professionals. They had a firm view on aesthetics and did various activities such as exhibitions and issue of yearbooks. 

Luo Bonian, Untitled, Gelatin Silver Print 10.7x10.7cm, 1930s. This image was included in the exhibition at Tate Modern. Courtesy TAIKANG SPACE.

Among them, Luo Bonian distinguished himself. He took photographs intensively while he worked for a bank in Shanghai during the 1930s-40s. He published his works in magazines and participated in several shows. One of his abstract patterns from the 1930s was included in the exhibition [Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art] at Tate Modern Gallery in 2018.

The works of Luo cover a broad span of the spectrum. He made simple still-life pictures, patterns by various repetition, pictorial photos similar to the Chinese literary art, and hyper close-up images influenced by surrealists. Jin Youming, who collected and studied his works (Jin is his great-grandson.), said it was partly because of Luo’s career. While he worked in Shanghai and Hong Kong, he could contact with the flow of Western photography, and thus Chinese pictorialism could have coexisted with Western modernism.

Luo Bonian, Untitled, Gelatin Silver Print 10.7x10.7cm, 1930s.  Courtesy TAIKANG SPACE.

Luo Bonian, Make Up to Leave the Mundane, 37.8x29.7cm, 1935.

This image shows how Western pictorialism is reflected to Chinese photography. Courtesy TAIKANG SPACE. 

By the way, one of the reasons that most of Luo’s works are well reserved is ironic. When the Great Cultural Revolution occurred, he lived in Hangzhou. But he rarely took photos since the 1950s, so people didn’t know his past activity. It is why he could hide and keep his photos safely.

The introduction said that photography in China might not be changed without the activities of Luo and his contemporaries. So, to some extent, this exhibition is a dedication to these amateurs. Ideological or commercial logic could not restrain them. Instead, they explored the artistic originality of photography. They said, “our goal is to create beauty, not to facsimile existing beauty.”2) It shows how sincere they were about photography. Thus it may not be an exaggeration that photography in China would acquire the title of art thanks to these photographers from Shanghai.

Catalogue of the third exhibition of Shanghai Photographic Society, 1937 ©TAIKANG COLLECTION

“Selected Pattern”, Shidai, issue 7, no.11, 1935. Courtesy TAIKANG SPACE