What is conceptual photography?

[Edit this paragraph] Basic introduction of conceptual photography There are many forms of conceptual photography in China art world, such as avant-garde photography, new photography, avant-garde photography, experimental photography, conceptual photography and so on. Conceptually speaking, conceptual photography should be a kind of conceptual art creation with photography as the medium. Its essence is the extension and evolution of conceptual art in the medium, and it is a relatively independent creative means and form separated from art. The main purpose of conceptual photography is to get rid of the shallow and meaningless exploration process through some concepts conveyed by photography, and try to show the analysis of human living conditions through photography, put forward some meaningful topics and trigger more and deeper thinking. Therefore, conceptual photography often does not give an answer, but there are many possibilities for the audience to realize themselves. From the perspective of reception aesthetics, it also meets the needs of aesthetics. The appearance of conceptual photography subverts the unshakable position of traditional artistic photography standards and provides many new possibilities for photography to reveal contemporary life. The deviation between conceptual photography and traditional artistic photography has opened up a new space for photography. Many artists make continuous efforts in the development of photography itself, and integrate different visual experiences into conceptual photography. It is precisely because of the novelty of conceptual photography that conceptual photography cannot establish rigid judgment standards like traditional art photography, and it also makes conceptual photography more experimental. The potential determinant of experimental art is a brand-new life experience. Good art will never be a vassal of technology, but a creator of thought and life. Today in the 2 1 century, conceptual photography is becoming such a creator. [Edit this paragraph] The history of conceptual photography originated from western conceptual photography, and there was a sense of "concept" at the beginning of photography, but the industry has never given a clear definition to this term. There are many incontrovertible examples in the history of photography: oscar gustave rejlander's Two Lifestyles, Henry Pitch Robinson's Autumn and Dying should be regarded as the earliest origins of conceptual photography. These works show that conceptual photography has been used and developed since the beginning of photography. Conceptual photography is the product of an era, and the works of that era have the characteristics of concepts and cannot be regarded as conceptual photography. Conceptual photography is an art form that originated in the western post-modern society and spread around the world. Compared with the origin of western conceptual photography, in a sense, some people who appeared in China 1976, such as Meng Minsheng and Wang Qiusheng, used their photographic works to reflect on the Cultural Revolution, and satirical works can also be classified as conceptual photography. 1979 The April Film Festival in Beijing and the subsequent Fission Group, Beijing Modern Photography Salon, Shanghai North River Alliance, Xiamen's Five Ones, Harbin's Obelisk and Guangzhou's Shadow Festival are all concepts in photography. However, these are not the origins of China's conceptual photography. They still reflect on the reality in a documentary way, and do not enter the context of thinking, evaluation and narration of contemporary art, so the distance and gap between them is getting bigger and bigger. In China, the concept art (also called idealism) clearly appeared for the first time in the field of contemporary photography. It was an article "Our Works Wait for the Test of Society" in the 44th issue of Photographic Newspaper on April 28th, 1988. The signatures were Wang Hu, Wang, Chen, and Wang, then students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Because this type of photography did not appear on a large scale in China at that time, and it did not form a wide recognition. China Photography Press 199 1 translated and published ICP Photography encyclopedia americana, which introduced the concept of "conceptual photography" for the first time. The term conceptual photography first appeared in "New Images: Conceptual Photography Art Exhibition" planned by Shimazi in 1997 in China, and then Zhu Qi planned "Image Similarity: China New Concept Photography Art Exhibition" in 1998. Because the two exhibitions used the name "conceptual photography" in unison, this name has become a reference for this kind of works for a long time. From 1997 to 1998, the conceptual art of photography officially began to enter the category of avant-garde art criticism in the name of conceptual photography. Conceptual photography was first popular only once in the art world. As works of art spread in art publications, domestic mainstream photographic media almost turn a blind eye. It was around 1999 that concept photography gained international recognition and began to enter the sales channels of avant-garde galleries and collectors. China concept photographers have gradually become frequent visitors to various international avant-garde photography exhibitions and comprehensive international art exhibitions. [Edit this paragraph] Artistic expression of conceptual photography 1. Photographers are subjectively oriented in conceptual photography. In the transformation from documentary to concept, the two photography methods are not mutually exclusive, but there is an additional technique in the expression of photography, which enriches the language of photography. When using "photography" to express "thoughts", we should consider whether photography plays the role of a "recording" tool or a "language" tool. If the former is not conceptual photography, if the latter is acceptable, because photography is only necessary as a "language" tool to express a certain concept, and it is closely related to the concept. Photography must be the result of concept, not a recording tool. Since it is language, it is used to express the subjective intention of artists or photographers. Then the photographer's subjective expression is combined with the preconceived director's composition. There are two misunderstandings about conceptual photography. First, some people regard recording images of performance art as conceptual photography, which is just a purely objective recording method. It endows this kind of performance art with a humanized recording method. Second, some people call all works with subjective intentions conceptual photography. Any photography creation, as long as the shutter is pressed, will have the photographer's subjective intention and personal preference. According to this standard, all works can be called conceptual photography. In conceptual photography, the photographer is a subjective orientation with a strong tendency in the image. In contemporary art, the subject matter being directed at present is not only photography, but the whole art. The former director is still the carrier of photography, and the director's behavior serves photography itself. Now the director is serving the art, and photography is just a bearing tool and means. With the director's idea and strong personalized concept, the form of expression is not important, what matters is the concept or content of expression. Photography is a form of expression, sculpture is a form of expression, and painting is also a form. At the same time, traditional documentary photography has not disappeared from photography, but will only be more classic and more exciting. 2. The main feature of conceptual photography is to satirize all human discourse patterns, which can be summarized as "metaphorical patterns". There are only four kinds: metaphor, metonymy, metonymy and allegory. Among them, metonymy and metonymy are complementary to metaphor. For example, photography is a metonymy, but it also emphasizes metaphor, especially documentary photography, which takes "authenticity" and "likeness" as the judging criteria and emphasizes to the extreme (using titles and not disturbing the subject, etc.). ). Fable is anti-metaphor, subverting and disassembling metaphor. The key to conceptual photography or new photography lies not in its "concept" and "novelty", but in its use of anti-metaphorical rhetoric based on fables. Traditional photography (especially documentary photography) emphasizes the literal meaning of images, that is, the realism of images, which constitutes a metaphorical relationship with the so-called reality (of course, there are many ironic elements); Conceptual photography, on the other hand, is a mockery and parody of reality, and more uses the extended meaning of images. It is not so much related to reality as to other related texts, which constitutes an allegorical relationship. This kind of photographic text can be intertextual, parody and subverted with its related texts (social text, historical text, advertising text, etc.). ), so as to be in a free play without a long history, no beginning and no end. [Edit this paragraph] The representative figure of conceptual photography 1, Jerry Usaman (USA) Jerry Usaman's works Jerry Usaman was born in Detroit, USA. /kloc-entered the university to study photography at the age of 0/9. Four years later, Youseman got a bachelor's degree. However, diligent, he once again entered Indiana University to study teaching and art history, and obtained a master's degree. At the age of 26, he joined the faculty of the Art Department of the University of Florida as a teacher and devoted himself to the promotion of new photography concepts. In Usaman's works, the most commonly used image symbols are: female body, hands, rocks, trees, houses, sky, lakes, oceans and so on. All the symbols used by Youseman are real-world scenes, but he just wants to make them into unrealistic images. Obviously, he can't be satisfied with the world order, trying to break this balance through collage and express his subjective thoughts more strongly, instead of letting reality control his thinking. 2. Rafael Navarro (Spain) Rafael Navarro was born in the 1940 s and is good at showing nude and abstract works. His works have been collected by major art galleries and institutions in western Europe, but his low-key style has made him unknown in Asia. Navarro puts soft silk, hard stones and other substances next to women's skin, and explores specific parts of the human body from a strange and "private" perspective. Another of his personal skills is photo splicing: not only will photos of the same theme be spliced together like playing cards to form another pattern, but also two photos will be printed on the same substrate, and finally a foldable and fantastic "double picture" will be presented. 3. Zheng Liu (China) Zheng Liu, born in Hebei in 1969, studied at Beijing University of Technology before 1997 and worked as a photojournalist in Workers Daily. Zheng Liu's works actively and cautiously cover farmers, monks, vagrants, prisoners, rich people, beggars, actors, dancers, poets, widows, disabled people, transsexuals, dead bodies, mummies, wax figures and sculpture figures. Life and thought activate each other and disintegrate each other. His works list the heavy history, the shadow of death and war, the dislocation of lust, desire and emotion, deep boredom, the pain of years, superficial worldly pleasures and the spiritual poverty of modern people. The existence of these broad horizons and complex contents is not a documentary, but it cannot be separated from a documentary; It is not a performance, but it is intertwined with the performance; Not a symbol, but a symbol everywhere. 4. Xu Heng (China) Xu Heng, 1983, a native of Hubei Province. As a cutting-edge photography artist born in 1980s, he began to explore his own photography art when he was a photography major at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. At school, he won the PIEA Award and the Graduation Creation Award from the United States, and his works have been exhibited and collected in museums and art galleries in China, the United States, Spain, Germany, France, Australia and other countries. After graduation, he aimed at the famous contemporary artists in China in his long-term cooperation with Beijing Today Art Museum. This project has accumulated a lot of precious video materials of the most influential artists in China. His personal creation has the courage to try, and his metaphysical thinking has injected his works into his familiar video games: imagination, exquisiteness, classicality, illogical, and noble with some distance from reality. Through the phenomenon that he pretends to be a classic female image in the eyes of men, he puts the two sexes in the same context, presents them in a classic form, and reveals the hidden lyric spirit through illogical elements. His work, 17 My Before and After, takes a male subject as a scattered point, continuing and splicing the female images, showing a radial happy dance composed of interludes. The deconstruction and reconstruction of one's own image and traditional ideas is a respect for many possibilities of "being a man" and is full of dramatic and classic opera spirit. Cosplay, appearing in "New and New Humans", is an act of using clothes, trinkets, props and makeup to play a role. What matters is not how a person looks, but a spiritual substitution or exchange after clothes are produced and packaged. New and new human beings' alternative thinking on gender patterns reflects the thinking of the times on cultural diversity and spirituality.