1. 摄影节：接力开幕的各地摄影节

把摄影节放在篇首来写，是因为这种过节的形式是汇集最多最广摄影类艺术家的方式。不管是官方的各级摄影家协会、爱好沙龙影像的摄影家爱好者，还是我们本文中主要讨论的以摄影为手段创作当代艺术的艺术家们，都会在摄影节上投稿和举办展览，偶尔进行集体创作。可以说摄影节在国内如统一战线般弥合了不同的摄影家阵营。

2014年，中国遍布大江南北的摄影节和摄影大展接力开幕，平遥、连州等老牌摄影节追求着更高的学术和策展水平，首届深圳国际摄影周、（青海）三江源国际摄影节、黟县摄影大展、阿尔山中蒙俄国际影节等以旅游目的为依托的摄影活动的数量则迅速增长。在各省基本都拥有一个摄影节和摄影大展的情况下，摄影活动之间学术水平的差距也拉大了。从学术上来看，“风景”成为一个创作和讨论热点。就地域而言，台湾摄影家、摄影评论家和大陆的交流更加频繁。

2014年的平遥国际摄影大展以“影像生活  梦想世界”为主题，共分为五大板块、十九个单元，共有来自32个国家和地区的2100余位摄影师参加大展，展出作品20000幅。作为国内创办最早的平遥国际摄影大展在2014年已经举办到了第14届，也因其无限包容、超大规模以及数量众多、水平各异的展览和活动等，曾被称作摄影集市。有评论家注意到，与庞大的参展作品数量和参展艺术家相比，今年平遥展览的人气和平遥景区门票收入却下滑了。[1] 本次摄影大展中话题最多的两个展览分别是独立摄影网站四月风的吴强策划的《中国呼吸》和新华社高级编辑陈小波女士策划的《女性·花朵的释放》。前者扣住了中国备受关注的雾霾问题，邀请46位摄影师使用影像记录所在城市的空气变化；后者因新颖的空间营造获得了本届摄影节的策展人飞马奖，但和当下的许多以女性为主题的艺术展览类似，展览聚集了女性艺术家以女性为题材的作品，却未指明作品如何与女性主义发生关联、处理女性在今天的社会面对的新问题。有名气的策展人因在理论方面不够扎实而写出语焉不详的导语，而在校生也在追随着这种风气。高校展区中展出的院校作品除了一些纪实题材的作品阐释和展览前言比较规范外，观念性和实验性作品的阐释和前言大多空泛俗套、不知所云。“这再一次提醒我们国内的高等摄影教育普遍存在着的重技术轻观念，重历史轻文化所引发的结构性问题。”[2]

第十届连州国际摄影年展以“再造奇遇”为主题，由段煜婷担任年度艺术总监，鲍昆任学术主持，梳理“中国当代摄影十年”展览和同名书以十年间不同的艺术探索角度来展开叙述，同时引入了法国摄影家雅克·亨利·拉蒂格的作品，成为《拉蒂格在户外》展览。摄影家戴翔的《清明上河图》获得新摄影年度奖。戴翔以宋代张择端的长画《清明上河图》为蓝本，摆拍当今社会的种种事件后替换到原画中，以此改编来表现中国古今之变以及今天中国社会的人间风貌。在2014年阿尔勒摄影节上获得发现奖的张克纯的《北流活活》，和黎朗的《父亲》一同获得评委会特别奖。

连州摄影年展走过十年，虽然比平遥摄影大展起步晚，但却以专业高度和研究精神为追求，因此相比之下与当代艺术有更多的连结。如艺术家王宁德评价，“‘连州摄影年展’这个名字本身已经说明了它的态度 ，它是一个大部分作品都经过策划人整理和编辑的展览，而不是一个尽量堆积摄影作品的节日，所以它是一个有着当代艺术理念的单一媒介群展，通过历届策展人的梳理和积累，不仅勾勒出了当下创作者共同结构的摄影面貌，也把问题延伸到摄影以外，图像的语言、图像的可能性以及图像与其他艺术形式的关系，在每年的展览里都有涉及，它探讨影像的可性，同时也实验摄影展览的可能性。”[3] 中山大学传播与设计学院副院长杨小彦曾参与到第一届连州年展的工作中，在2014年接受采访时他说，“连州国际摄影年展已经成为中国当代摄影发展一个很重要的指标。从本届年展出版的《中国当代摄影十年》这本作品来看，它已经可以大致呈现出中国过去十年摄影界影像发展的成果。”[4] 连州和平遥两地摄影节的氛围差别也被观察者发现，“国内摄影节有两种鲜明倾向，一种像平遥摄影节，有一种民粹主义倾向，特别看重本土性甚至是本地方的作品，每年都有大量山西本地市县级摄协作品。另一种是像连州，大戏都是西洋戏，无论是观念力量还是展览数量，经常是西风压倒东风。”[5] 段煜婷则的苦衷则是中国本土的优秀摄影艺术家和研究者太少，但她强调连州年展作为一个有明确自我意识的中国摄影年展，在引进国外摄影资源时必须让展览能和中国摄影当下的问题能够对接。另外，连州摄影年展每届会聘请一位特邀策展人，从鲍昆、栗宪庭到高士明、费大为，都使得连州年展在中国当代艺术界有了更大影响。但段煜婷认为最适合来做摄影节策展的，应当是做摄影研究但对整个当代艺术与文化有了解的策展人，因为摄影和当代艺术毕竟有一定分野。

2014年第五届济南国际摄影双年展的学术主题为“影子的影子——当代语境下的东方向度”, 在本次双年展中，骆伯年、金石声、张照堂三人的作品展是本届双年展中具有致敬意味的三个展览。骆伯年是民国时期的著名“摄影爱好者”，作品充满了形式美感。在那个年代，骆伯年结合了西方现代主义，做了许多美学上的实验。金石声则是从民国起活跃于上海的“业余摄影师”，创办摄影杂志《飞鹰》，如林路所言，“起步于画意摄影，最终趋归现代主义”[6]。而台湾近半个世纪来最重要的摄影师之一张照堂先生已71岁高龄，他的影像创作以自己独特的风格推动了台湾的文化解放。除展览外，济南双年展邀请张照堂做了由毛卫东主持的分享会。双年展除展览王庆松、塔可、严明等摄影艺术家的作品外，还策划了一个明确的主题展“华山论”。华山“新风景”项目，是第五届济南国际摄影双年展前期开展的影像实验，十几位摄影家同上西岳华山进行创作。[7] 这些展览回扣着双年展的学术主题“东方向度”，然而，有观察方质疑，“展览中归纳于‘东方向度’概念之下的风景，几乎清一色的是东方人所拍的东方风景。那么所谓的“东方向度”是否只是简单的地理+乡愁的符号叠加？在这个东西方文明融汇的时代里，如何在快速变迁中的中国，找到所谓的东方？”[8]

中国·云南·罗平（国际）摄影节，举办了由顾铮主持的以“自然的风景、社会的风景与当代影像建构”为主题的罗平风景摄影论坛，梳理有关风景影像的发展脉络，廓清长期存在的对风景影像的混乱认识，寻求有关风景影像未来呈现的新的可能性。台湾中生代的一些摄影师如吴正璋、沈昭良的风景摄影作品被展出。曾璜策划了“遗失的风景”展览，挑选了7位民国在华拍摄的重要外国来华摄影家在福州拍摄的照片。

2014年，鲍利辉主持的大理国际影会停办，除罗平外，云南的摄影节还有在元阳举办的首届红河哈尼梯田世界文化遗产国际摄影双年展，以及西双版纳国际影像展2014·在水一方·金孔雀双年展。

2014年10月份，北京国际摄影周在中华世纪坛举办。展览引进了许多国际名家原作，也比较偏重主流，《华赛十年：国际新闻摄影比赛获奖作品回顾展》、《中国梦-人民生活与社会变迁》等展览更多呈现的是纪实摄影。而上海先在9月举办了“PHOTO SHANGHAI”，10月又举办了上海国际摄影艺术展。哈里·卡拉汉（HarryCallahan）原作展、日本著名摄影大师原直久的《时间的遗产》摄影作品展、张祖道作品致敬展等44个邀请展都汇集上海，但因为缺乏整体的摄影节主题，因此展览虽多却没有一个核心主题，而讨论的声音也不多，比起PHOTO SHANGHAI的热闹，国际摄影艺术展有些冷清。

目前中国各地的摄影节或摄影大展基本上都是由当地人民政府、摄影家协会、文教机构等联合举办，而学术水平较高的基本上都是另聘学术主持或艺术总监，以更好地把控展览主题，调动更广泛的艺术家前来参展。其实，当地政府不能只把摄影节当成吸引游客的旅游资源，文宣部门和摄影协会也不能只在摄影活动中起到物质和组织支持工作。要真的探讨中国摄影当下存在的问题，梳理每一年摄影创作的大事和特点，需要一些学术的功夫。只有把这一点做好，才能再去谈摄影节作为一个城市向世界开放的节庆活动以及摄影节对当地居民的艺术教育。

2. 名家新作与新锐摄影师

本章节优先记录以摄影为媒介的成名艺术家的新作品，其次记录在2014年中获得关注的新艺术家。值得注意的是，越来越多的艺术家不再局限于摄影这一单独的媒介，即便以摄影为基础，在呈现新作品时往往也会结合动态影像（moving image）和装置。

荣荣&映里的个展“妻有物语”在北京三影堂摄影艺术中心举办，这也是“妻有物语”系列首次在中国展出。作为三影堂的创始人，这次他们在三影堂的身份转变为艺术家。《妻有物语》系列取景于日本的越后妻有地区。从2012年荣荣&映里受邀参加在日本新泻县举办的越后妻有艺术三年展开始，“越后妻有”系列的创作持续至今，荣荣和映里的个人生活也在这里和摄影创作融合在了一起。在这些影像中，荣荣、映里和他们的三个孩子身着和服，在这个与世隔绝的环境中从社会角色中逃开了，透露出一种自在又温柔的家庭气氛。此外，也有许多他们在渺茫天地间面对浩瀚自然的影像。艺术史学家唐冠科（John Tancock）观察到，“荣荣&映里仿佛不自觉地采取了“背影”(Rṻckenfigur)的主题，这一主题时常出现在德国浪漫主义风景画家卡斯帕·大卫·弗里德里希(1774年-1840年)的作品中……贯穿荣荣全部作品的浪漫主义气质自1997年的《婚纱》系列及相关作品起开始出现，而在2001年的《在奥地利巴德·古森》系列尤为明显。回到妻有地区进行创作仿佛巩固了他的这一艺术创作倾向。”[9] 而为了达到效果，荣荣和映里采用黑白底片和大画幅相机拍摄的银盐照片，在暗房冲洗时使用减少对比而强调细微色调效果的传统手工制作工艺。

2014年引起争论最多的影像类个展应该是在北京艺门画廊举办的刘铮个展“Selfie”。“自拍 Selfie”，是艺术家刘铮在移动互联网中发起的摄影自拍项目。通过互联网，他号召陌生人自拍自己的裸体，传递给他，在双方都同意的前提下，由他把这些照片发送到公开的社交网络中，例如微信、instagram。挪用现成影像，例如Google Earth、人们发布在互联网上的照片等形式已经被国内外许多艺术家使用。中国“观念摄影”的代表人物刘铮此时把时下最热的“自拍”与“互联网”组合在一起。策展人杜曦云认为，刘铮不再原创，却通过互联网让更多普通人与艺术相接，也让艺术更加开放和民主。[10]但也有评论人认为，刘铮除了在网络上传播作品外，在艺门画廊的展览和当下的大多数展览一样有出资方、策展人、前言和开幕酒会，依然透露出精英、霸权和资本的气息。[11]换言之，在挪用时代，作者性（authorship）并不再固定于作品的创作，反而与艺术体制合作，能够最大化利用作品的人反而成为实际作者。

当代艺术画家刘小东在上海民生现代美术馆举办展览“儿时朋友都胖了——刘小东1984-2014影像展”。展览展出千余幅艺术家在这三十年里拍摄的照片，以时间为轴，以艺术家与家庭、朋友、社会的关系为线索，把艺术家的个体成长史、生活体味、社会洞察呈现于观众，为观众搜寻这三十年社会生活及时代变迁的轨迹提供个体性的样本。刘小东并不从专业角度来评判照片，而是从个人的无意识的记录出发，让人们“看到活生生的生命是怎么滚过来的。”[12] 陈丹青则认为，“他的电影与绘画，彼此作为正果，如犯案的物证——他所定格的每一画面并非纯然出于画眼，而是摄影眼。”[13]

张克纯的摄影展“北流活活”在北京三影堂+3画廊展出，由欧宁担任策展人。北流活(guo)活(guo)的名称源自《诗经》中描写黄河流水的声音的诗句，“河水洋洋，北流活活”。受到张承志的小说《北方的河》的启发，张克纯以黄河及其周边物、土、人、情为叙事线索拍摄的一系列作品。同时，张克纯也凭《北流活活》系列作品获得2014年阿尔勒发现奖（Discovery Award）。不过，张克纯镜头下的黄河，从影调和构图上都被人们争论着是与纳达夫·坎德尔（Nadav Kander）的《长江》（the Yangtz River）的相似和不同。但可以观察到的是，一种大画幅胶片拍摄、低饱和度的影调、沿道路或河流的景观摄影正在成为中国艺术摄影里一种主流的图片趣味。

杨泳梁2014年在荷兰Sophie Maree Gallery举办个展。2014年他的新作《来自新大陆》等仍然是通过电子技术把现代都市中的高楼大厦作为细节拼贴为中国传统山水画卷轴的图式。杨泳梁在2014年制作的高清视频《起雾了》以画框配合视频的形式呈现拼贴视频，作品整体仍似静态拼贴图片，但在微小细部有动态，例如潺湲流淌的溪水、川流不息的车辆等。这些十分缓慢地运动着的细节给了作品以生气，也保留了作品与中国卷轴画的相似气质。

艺术家蒋鹏奕的个展在上海香格纳画廊举办，展览展出了三个系列作品：《幽暗之爱》、《止相之时》与《亲密》。这三个作品系列是艺术家在前人物影摄影法基础上的试验和探索的产物，在不使用相机的情况下试图控制图像和色彩的呈现，并试图将其标准化。如让萤火虫在涂了感光乳剂的胶片上爬行，如何使胶片与吸光放光的荧光纸接触得到绚丽的色彩等。刘张铂泷评论道，“蒋鹏奕的萤火虫留下的光轨能让观者追溯时间流逝的曲线，这些由光形成的错综复杂的线路也暗示着在生活中存在的关系网络，看似无序与混乱之中又暗含着各种交织与纠缠。在多数物影摄影的创作之中，光源只是解决照片曝光所需的必要条件，而非物影摄影所要研究的对象，蒋鹏奕使用萤火虫作为光源是有意把时间这一维度引入照片当中。顾铮对此写道：‘这一张张胶片，在成为了光的画板的同时，也成为了时间的容器。光依托时间这个媒介，在光学、化学的作用之下被转化为一种物质性的存在。’”[14]

王宁德在上海M97画廊举办个展“有形之光”，展出全新大画幅三维摄影装置作品。王宁德使用照片的影子去呈现人们熟悉的白云、树枝和光晕，但实际上是探讨摄影本体。[15]

艺术家莫毅于2014年5月在香港举办个展“虚幻中的记忆”。《虚幻中的记忆》是莫毅自2011年起在两年间陆续创作的装置作品，最早于2013年在北京+3画廊展出，主要呈现一些人们眼熟能详的经典政治人物及“具有代表性意义”事件的图像。“莫毅说创作这一系列是因为国内两三年前兴起唱红歌，激发他去找出很多文革时期遗留下来的资料。作品背景图像虽被打了格(pixelated)﹐近看变得模糊，远看时却连不熟识中国政治历史的人都可以一眼认出来，例如邓小平坐在沙发上﹑毛泽东或在挥手或在检阅或在游泳、毛泽东与林彪﹑华国锋等‘亲密战友’在一起﹑雷锋头像等等，都是以往政治宣传(propaganda)的图像。这些格用了特别订做的瓷砖砌成﹐就是要仿照以前中国各地乡村城镇最普及的。”[16] 这些原本颇具纪实性的照片和文字以或顺序或打乱或颠倒的方式使其具象的叙事性被抽去，成为了只具某种抽象效果的画面。莫毅也以《拍摄三影堂我展览用的灰墙，为了那个没有了结的日子》 参加了三影堂首届实验影像开放展。

韩磊个展“螺旋“在上海M97画廊举办。近两年间，韩磊尝试使用了光栅板创作立体图像。在本次展览中，韩磊整合了一些类型化影像，佚名者的影像或更接近摄影的图像。孙彦初在北京现在画廊举办个展“沉溺”，作品主要是他2004年到2011年的黑白快照，而2014年他则开始涉足拼贴艺术以及摄影与绘画的结合，这体现在他的新作《摩托女郎》和《姿态》中。洪磊在南京举办“或此或彼”展出新作，展出作品不仅限于静态摄影图像，还包括了艺术家的影像作品与丝绸绘画等独特的创作方式。摄影家杨延康在2014年举办了巡展“心象-杨延康摄影原作展”，包括他历时二十多年拍摄的两个主题系列的原作：西北乡村天主教和藏传佛教。这两个系列是他迄今为止几十年摄影生涯里最具代表性的作品。

摄影艺术家储楚在三影堂+3画廊举办“储楚摄影：物非物2014”个展。物非物系列是储楚从2006年开始的拍摄项目。本次展览的《物非物·刀身系列》首次将刀身作品与艺术家手稿书法相结合。她通过数码影像输出作为远置景观，与前景实体物品虚构于同一空间之中。再由传统大幅相机拍摄，用传统银盐乳剂胶片在暗房冲洗生成。储楚2014年另一个展“齐物之语”在上海鲲鲤国际影廊举办。

留德青年艺术家唐晶在上海鲲鲤国际影廊举办个展“生长”。自2002年起，唐晶的作品中展现出了对建筑空间和日常生活两者的特别关注，并持续至今。多年来，他一直试图从内外空间这两个向度，来探讨当代中国人的生活处境。其中，“内部空间”所关联的，是他长期以来一直在进行的“年轻人”系列，主要为环境肖像。而“外部空间”，则是他近年来对中国城市建设和建筑营造的观察。

任航2014年4月在瑞典马尔默举办了个展“In Addition to Sleep”，8月在北京三影堂+3画廊举办个展“身体的边界”。作为一名年轻摄影师，任航已经拥有成熟的个人风格和国际范围的知名度，而“身体的边界”可以说是他自2008年后的创作总结。他2014年影响最大的一组作品是他和媒体Vice的采访合作[17]。他把原本对准年轻男女胴体的镜头对准了自己东北家乡的妈妈，而他证明了自己摄影中的戏剧性、夸张、荒诞和挑战身体等元素并没有因为拍摄的是母亲而躲藏起来。任航和编号223（林志鹏）、九口走召一样，虽然他们镜头中的青春和性在当下的中国社会仍然敏感，但这些照片中坦率直白的态度却吸引了许多摄影圈外的年轻人。2014年，编号223在意大利的 Loppis Galleria举办个展。他多年来拍摄自己的私人生活，和任航一样用135相机在夜晚使用闪光灯拍摄。身体对于编号223和任航来说都可以算是私人生活的记录以及“实验的场所”[18]，不同于任航的编号223的九口走召，专注于拍摄女性身体，他认为自己在用摄影记录当下女性自我意识的觉醒。2014年九口走召完成了《Masturbation》系列，使用长时间曝光拍摄女性自慰从开始到高潮的整个过程。他也在微博上发起了一个和粉丝共同创作的项目——在#昨晚我梦到九口了#这个标签下，是许多人对梦到九口走召的记录，而九口依据描述来创作照片。

新锐及年轻摄影师方面，我们可以通过几个重要奖项来大致了解。通过梳理可以看出，许多年轻摄影师都有在海外的艺术院校学习摄影的经历。而他们的创作的方法和对象如何被影响，是个可以继续探讨的话题。

2014年第六届三影堂摄影奖的国际评委会由艺术家坎迪达·赫费尔（Candida Höfer）、中国摄影艺术家刘铮、美国圣迭戈州立大学艺术系教授阿瑟·奥尔曼先生（Arthur Ollman）、中国摄影家及三影堂摄影艺术中心创办人荣荣先生、日本摄影艺术家佐藤時啓先生（Tokihiro Satō）组成。朱岚清以摄影手工书《负向的旅程》获得大奖。朱岚清从大学开始拍摄位于福建漳州南端的故乡东山岛，这些照片在《负向的旅程》中划入了四个章节：八尺门、家、土地、海洋，然而归根究底，这是一个“对于自己土地、文化的认同”和处理“让人失忆的城市化还是不合实际的海洋旅游开发”[19]。《负向的旅程》是OFPiX在2013年发起的手工书项目“故乡书”的一部分，此项目邀请摄影师们拍摄家乡并制作一本有关家乡的手工书。“故乡书”项目发起人任悦认为“当我们面对一本真正的摄影书，并不亚于进入一个展厅，照片彼此相连，形成一种特别的气氛。这一气场的形成不仅在于照片的编排，还有赖于纸张、装订、设计、印刷，甚至是它和文字之间的关系。”[20] 朱岚清的获奖当然也与她在三影堂摄影奖提名作品展上的作品编排和呈现有关。但朱岚清获奖后，网络上有许多质疑声音[21]，认为朱岚清的作品在形式和色调上有他人的影子或这种“小清新”的创作对中国的现实缺乏意义。然而网上的口水虽多，对朱岚清作品的严肃批评却仍然缺乏。

毕业于清华大学和纽约视觉艺术学院的刘张铂泷获得了三影堂资生堂摄影奖，他的作品通过拍摄科学实验室来探讨科学和艺术的关系。入围三影堂奖的奖的其他留美艺术家还有陈天心、郑培堃、张文心等。郑培堃作品《失物招领》拍摄美国沙漠中举行的“火人节”，超现实的荒诞感弥漫其中。作为一个成熟的艺术家，郑培堃已签约跨国画廊Magda Danysz画廊（2014年他和莫毅，张晓，杨泳梁在上海Magda Danysz画廊举办了展览“风景”）。张文心除入选三影堂摄影奖外，也参加了2014年的济南双年展。她的作品《五夜，水族馆》、《瀑布招待所旁的巨兽》都是以摄影虚构故事。

色影无忌2014年度中国新锐摄影师发现之旅由龚晓跃、刘铮、马良、任悦、严志刚、言由、严明、柴晋宁任评委，评选出了陈卓、罗希、刘卫、何雄、张兰坡、戴建勇、刘涛、贾朔、孙略、朱锋十位新锐摄影师。香港摄影师刘卫的《<此>和<相册>》“由两个仍在进行中的项目交织而成：以七十年代从内地移民香港的父母、住屋及家庭生活为拍摄主线的《此》和以整理几代人的老照片并加以重组为主的《相册》。两者影像风格迥异，但凭借刘卫出彩的编辑手法，两组照片产生了化学作用，并最终成为新的整体。”[22] 刘涛则是在三影堂摄影奖时已引起许多网络关注的合肥摄影师，他的本职工作是抄水表的工人。他的街拍既有古典摄影师街拍中的隽永和幽默，又结合了当下中国语境中的讽刺。在被接连报道后，他和他的照片迅速走红微博。[23]

“下一站•鲲鲤”是上海鲲鲤国际影廊一年一度的活动，这个平台是面对中国年轻摄影家以及以摄影为媒介进行创作的年轻艺术家的，为他们创作的优秀作品，提供展览之地。2014年的青年摄影家们是陈灿荣、陈晓峰、戴建勇，范顺赞。陈晓峰同时也入围了2014年的三影堂奖。他的作品《植物置物》关注的是室内形形色色的绿色摆设植物。

苏杰浩在2014年在美国洛杉矶举办个展《In Search of Home: Jiehao Su’s New Work》，展出他的新作《边界》。《边界》是他在失去母亲后在中国旅行时拍摄的照片，这些诗意的山、海、树木、土地和人们一方面是有关中国的景观，另一方面也是他内心的映照。[24]在2014年苏杰浩在国际摄影节和摄影杂志的曝光迅速增加，他也是2014年APA/Lucie基金奖学金的最终入围者之一。

三、综合展览

综合展览主要是在摄影节之外，由大的艺术机构举办的群展或者档案展。

上海民生现代美术馆在2014年9月举办由王璜生担任总策划的“中国当代摄影2009-2014”，展出52位/组艺术家的摄影、装置及影像作品。展览共设三大单元，依次为“边界/漂移”、“景观/日常”及“社会/身体”， 时也希望这样的单元设置，能够更为清晰地梳理、展现2009年至2014年间中国当代摄影发展的大致脉络与走向，给出一个相对宏观却又不失具体性的描述。

《乘物游心——1839-2014直接摄影原作展》作为中国美术馆“国际摄影典藏系列”的开篇之作，试图通过安塞尔·亚当斯、爱德华·韦斯顿等五十余位摄影大师的两百余幅作品，再现摄影史上一条清晰的脉络，对直接摄影这一流派的发展进行梳理。展览以直接摄影这一流派为主线，分为三大篇章：对等与再现（1839-1917）；自在与灵光（1917-1977）；融合与思变（1977-2014），探讨以纯艺术为目的的这一摄影流派的诞生、流变与发展过程。

三影堂首届实验影像开放展在3月开幕，汇集了近40位艺术家，涵盖摄影、装置、行为、录像艺术等领域。但在展览作品丰富、形式多样的同时，也暴露出了一些问题。“去策展人化”意味着无主题、自由选择媒介、艺术家每人七米展线、位置抽签决定。最终的结果是作品之间缺乏协调，展览欠缺贯穿始终的逻辑。评论家葛沛认为在今天当代艺术不能在追求形式语言之新，而应该探讨问题，而“提问的态度是需要贯彻在语言当中的。”[25]

《当真——瑞象馆开幕联展》在上海开幕，标志着瑞象馆成立了自己的实体展览空间。瑞象馆成立6年来一直耕耘着摄影文论网站“瑞象视点”，发布专稿和译介，筹办“大师名对面”等一系列摄影艺术及影像文化的普及教育活动。研究对象涉及国内外重要摄影师和年轻艺术家创作实践的介绍和作品解读、影像的文化和历史研究，以及各类摄影活动和现象的梳理和分析。

2014年12月6日，第二届中国摄影年度排行榜作品展在中国丽水摄影博物馆开幕。共有八件作品入围了本届排行榜，他们是：杜子的《瘢痕》、刘铮的 《selfie》、李朝晖的《大体》、魏壁的《梦溪II》、王宁德的《有形之光》、杨抒怀的《上帝给了我们一张沙发》、 叶文龙的《曾经沧海》、张克纯的 《北流活活》。

4. 艺术家书

2014年，摄影艺术出版机构假杂志出版了五本艺术家书：朱墨的《空日》、张克纯的《北流活活》、张晓的《海岸线》、张巍的《人工剧团》、杨圆圆的《在克拉科夫的十日》，另外还有艺术家唐晶的明信片《美丽新世界》，均由言由担任编辑和监制。五本书中“有三本书被不同的摄影书网站或博客列入2014年度摄影书的名单：Photo-eye 提名了《北流活活》，Jörg M. Colberg 的摄影博客 Conscientious 提名了《回家》，Peter Evans 的摄影博客 microcord 提名了《海岸线》。”[26] 可以说，经营摄影类独立出版的假杂志是和中国新生代摄影师一起成长起来的，每一本书都是一个摄影师的个人项目的总结。假杂志出版社目前正在筹划出版《假杂志》，内容为“影响中国摄影师的人、物”。[27]

Same Paper是上海的艺术家书出版工作室，由王义军和袁小鹏发起，2014年出版了《Food Issue》、《Trend Issue》和《lifestyles》。和假杂志不同，Same Paper更以创作者们共同感兴趣的话题为导向。例如，《Food Issue》是艺术家任航的“有一些是他拍照时不经意露出了脚，或是用脚给男孩们喂食和踩脸的照片”，看似无关紧要的小动作引起了Same Paper的注意，于是Same Paper把这些照片编辑成一本关于脚的合集。[28] 《Trend Issue》则是关注的国内年轻男性中流行的服装品牌A&F和Hollister的风潮，而喜欢这两个衣服品牌的男孩们有许多是同性恋。Same Paper从几个热门社交软件中寻找穿A&F和Hollister热门款的男孩，以旅行和自拍为线索进行编辑。《lifestyles》同样是一本以图片为语言的zine，使用包括Charlie Engman、Jeremy O'Sullivan、咖小西、谌利、袁小鹏、王义军和许正东在内的七位国内外年轻摄影师的作品。“lifestyle应媒体为炒作消费而诞生，是一个在当下常常被时尚媒体滥用的词汇。以上来自我们身边和所关注的摄影师，都惯于从自己的生活中轻松获取画面，但每个人的观看方式几近雷同，构图和关注点等拍摄喜好高度重合。所以时常很难辨认哪张照片是出自于谁，如同大家都在追赶一种“时髦”的lifestyle。”[29]

编号223（林志鹏）的独立个人影像Zine《Versitile》出版了第二本《beautiful things out of the dust》。在这一系列里缩减了223往常的情色调性，选片比较日常，均为胶片摄影作品。

五、摄影类艺术批评和学术出版

著名摄影前辈袁毅平曾说，“我们每一届金像奖，有不少好的作品，但是很少有让你印象深刻的。是不是经典的、优秀的东西没有了？并不是没有，而是缺少评论。”“但是多年来，中国的摄影界评论一直偏弱，所以有人叫做’中国摄影的跛足现象’，创作是一条好腿，评论是一条不健康的腿。”[30]

中国的摄影类艺术批评目前还是太孱弱，缺乏有专业知识和批评精神的观察家。但中国已经慢慢形成了几个大的发布平台。除《中国摄影》《中国摄影报》等杂志外，“瑞象馆”“影艺家”等媒体都在评论、报道和翻译上有所建树，并且依托微信公众号的形式借助新媒体传播。但是目前的主要内容生产仍然是采访、报道、翻译多，对具体艺术家和具体作品的分析和批评少。

杨小彦的《摄影与物性：作为人与自然关系的一种视觉隐喻》一文梳理了摄影中“物性”的含义以及物性作为人与自然关系的视觉隐喻——“呈现人在面对物自体时的立场、观点和态度”。荷兰静物画派的兴起缘于欧洲宗教革命后圣像系统遭到摒弃因而静物成为“基督的暗示，显现了上帝眷顾人类的恩典”，而摄影中20世纪30年代的美国“F64小组”也是以对细致影纹的追求表现对上帝的虔诚信仰。因此在西方，质感、影纹和作为一种审美上的精神性表达的物性是一体的思维。但中国艺术的思维方式却是和西方不同的，郎静山和陈复礼等画意摄影的刻意模糊影纹质感是因为艺术家在刻意忽视摄影本身的物性。此外，摄影作为一种技术发明、一种肉眼和机器合一的观看、一种物质化的记忆、一种拍摄行为等让摄影持续揭示着人与对象的关系。杨小彦分析了陈晓峰、董文胜、洪浩、封岩、蒋鹏翼、刘张铂泷等中国当代摄影中的物，许多作品中的物都是创作者身体的隐喻，或对日常生活的理解。[31]

中国摄影出版社出版社在2014年推出了泰瑞·贝内特的《中国摄影史：中国摄影师1844-1879》，译者为芝加哥大学艺术史博士徐婷婷。本卷为《中国摄影史》的第三卷。“中国摄影史”系列丛书对自摄影术传入中国至19世纪末期在中国进行过摄影活动的摄影师做出了详细的考证和研究。

摄影研究者毛卫东在2014年翻译出版了几部作品。《摄影理论：历史脉络与案例分析》的作者是希尔达·凡·吉尔德和海伦·维斯特杰斯特。本书以媒介比较研究的方法为基础，讨论摄影常被人提及的特征，从历史脉络的角度来进行研究或从再现、时间、地点和功能等等核心概念出发，对摄影术诞生以来的摄影理论，通过案例研究的方式，进行了细致、严谨的梳理。另一本译著是伊安·杰弗里的《怎样阅读照片》，由中国民族摄影艺术出版社出版。作者在书中对布列松、尤金·阿杰等一百多位大师的照片进行了分析，是一部引人入胜的导读。毛卫东还翻译了美术史家巫泓的英文著作《荣荣的东村：中国实验艺术的瞬间》。巫鸿以荣荣镜头下的东村作为特定视角，串联起其“东村”系列的三组摄影作品：1993—1994年原生态环境中的东村艺术家及其艺术创作；东村艺术家群体被迫解散后，1994—1998年继续的行为艺术项目；荣荣从“东村”到以后日子里的自摄像。

2014年，中国摄影家协会理论研究部发起“中国摄影文化抢救计划”，北京电影学院朱炯老师带领研究生进行袁毅平口述历史及摄影研究。生于1926年的袁毅平拍摄过著名摄影作品《东方红》，但自20世纪50年代至21世纪初中国摄影发展的历程中，袁毅平是摄影师，也是图片编辑、摄影理论研究者、摄影批评人、摄影协会领导者、摄影活动组织者等。经过一年多的口述采访、整理照片，朱炯认为“在他众多身份中，我觉得首先应该全面肯定和充分展现的时他作为摄影师的一面，这也是他之后从事编辑、摄影理论与批评研究、行业领导等领域工作重要的出发点和依据”。基于研究和整理，2014年6月 “往事散记——袁毅平摄影回顾展”在中国摄影展览馆举办，8月朱炯编著的《被遗忘的影像记忆：袁毅平摄影》出版[32]，9月的平遥国际摄影大展致敬展致敬袁毅平。

浙江摄影出版社出版了台湾影像文化学者郭力昕的《阅读摄影：郭力昕摄影批评》（即台版《再写摄影》），该书呈现了郭力昕这十五年间关心当代摄影实践与发展的相对完整的批评性思考的轨迹记录。《阅读摄影:郭力昕摄影批评》由三个单元构成，分别是“写摄影议题”、“写摄影家”以及“写摄影书”。此外，还收入作者访谈英国视觉文化评论家约翰·伯杰的文字为附录。这三个部分的构成，正好对应了摄影赖以生存与发展的三个重要的基本面向。作者回顾了近十五年来两岸摄影艺术发展，认为台湾年轻摄影师关注主题较为细碎，而大陆年轻创作者中，“似乎扩散着一种唯美、私密、唯物质性或纯视觉性的创作取向”[33]。作者也在书中深入评述了台湾的张照堂、陈敬宝、沈昭良、游本宽、吴政璋等摄影师的艺术创作。

摄影师严明在2014年出版了影像随笔集《我爱这哭不出来的浪漫》，这也是中国内地首部摄影师创作手札。严明在成为职业艺术家前曾做过十年摇滚乐手、十年记者，是否冲出体制、是否全职创作不仅是严明个人的内心挣扎，也是今天很多报道摄影师的尴尬处境。这种挣扎也不仅在报道摄影师中间引起了巨大共鸣，和单向街书店的合作，让这本随笔在年轻人中间也成了一个颇有热度的话题。

六、摄影收藏与拍卖

2014年，影像艺术拍卖在中国出现了整体上升的趋势。大部分拍卖行都涉足了影像艺术品交易，一些还专门举办了影像专场拍卖。自从2003年广东美术馆开启了国家机构收藏摄影作品的历史，摄影类的机构收藏也逐渐兴起。而许多专注于摄影的民间收藏机构也正在兴建，可以预见，未来中国摄影收藏将会有巨大市场。然而，华辰影像作为目前中国最大的中国影像艺术品交易平台，在2014年的交易额却经历了建立9年来的第一次下滑，2200万元较2013年的2500万元下滑了10%[34]。

2014年9月，上海艺术影像展Photo Shanghai吸引了大批摄影人士。此次博览会主要由全球各大摄影类画廊组成，香格纳画廊、M97、前波画廊、CAMERA WORK、Fahey/Klein Gallery、Flowers等国内外著名画廊均受邀参加。其面向群体主要是收藏群体，但本次博览会可能是因为媒体的大力宣传，摄影爱好者和发烧友成为了展场观众的主力军。“国外画廊的选作反映出对中国观众和藏家的试探，经典和’美丽'的照片居多，并鲜有新作，传统工艺、拍摄工具和制作手法也占绝大多数，几乎没有灯箱、屏幕等呈现装置。”[35]《第一财经日报》的评论写道：“有着10多年历史的巴黎摄影展，每年有200~300家画廊参展，相比之下，此次42家画廊参展的上海艺术影像展只是一个起点。而在这个起点与成熟的彼岸之间，则横亘着艺术史梳理、美术馆馆藏、藏家与公众教育等诸多领域的差别。”[36]

目前国内流通的摄影作品，主要集中在老照片、纪实摄影和观念摄影三个范畴。而老照片的市场，仍是国内主流。这背后的原因一是公众对当代艺术的理解不足，另外一方面在经营上当代摄影的艺术家不够成熟。大多数摄影师没有签约画廊或经纪人，没有合理控制版数[37]和输出质量，也缺乏了依托专业画廊进行商业运作的机会。而国内摄影类画廊目前在推介摄影师方面，更多的还是停留在买卖作品中间人的角色，而在推介摄影师方面则不专业。摄影类画廊为艺术家提供的服务不仅应包括向藏家推荐作品，还可以有替艺术家包装作品、申请创作基金、向摄影类比赛奖项投递作品、在艺术博览会上展出艺术家作品等。

在线摄影收藏网站浮图网针对大众市场，主要推广大限量（每个作品100个版数等）作品，降低作品价格，使大众能够买得起摄影。但因为缺乏数据，笔者无法进行具体的市场分析。

收藏群体方面，毛卫东认为中国摄影作品的消费群体大体可以分成三类：拥有大量资本的收藏家、新兴的白领阶层以及艺术家群体。其中在市场中起主要作用的是第一类。中国摄影艺术市场的真正繁荣需要建立中国本土市场，摆脱西方为主的定价体系，形成合理的交易价格，让摄影的消费群体扩大到大众。而培养普通消费者的艺术消费习惯，则需要艺术教育。当下的问题在于，“在中国，目前美术馆和艺术机构无法发挥在西方那样确立艺术品价值和认知度的作用，‘精英’阶层的价值判断又无法和普通公众的价值判断相联系。” [38]

七、总结

2014年，摄影书的潮流在中国逐渐显现，艺术家们都意识到以书为艺术载体，是比展览更长久和更私人的艺术呈现方式。景观和身体仍然是艺术家们创作的两个主要议题。而在宏观的摄影活动组织方式上，目前我们仍然没有看到太大的改变。刘铮建立“蝴蝶效应”大微信群，组织艺术家们在一同交流，开设微信群讲座，为摄影活动和摄影教育的在线化提供了好的途径。但微信群作为艺术界的组织和沟通方式，是否足够有效、民主、接纳批评，却仍然值得观察：当代摄影目前在公共平台上欠缺的批评，在微信群这种私人领域会有更大的空间吗？

本文未涉及对摄影教育的考察，虽然国内各艺术院校、三影堂等艺术机构均有摄影类课程及培训，但我们能接触到的信息非常有限，不便进行详细的分析，还请读者原谅。

1. 《平遥，为了再聚的再见：2014平遥国际摄影大展散记》，宋志鹏，《中国摄影》，2014年11期，第56-68页。

2. 同上

3. 《连州十年：摄影在中国小城的生存》，黑麦，《芭莎艺术》2014年11月刊。

4. 《粤北小城与当代摄影的十年“奇遇”》，杨逸，《南方日报》，2014年11月28日。

5. 《连州：十年怒放——对话连州国际摄影年展艺术总监段煜婷》，段煜婷、鲍昆、王宁德、南无哀、段琳琳，《中国摄影家》，2014年12期。

6. 《光影惊沧——金石声摄影展》，林路，林路的博客，http://blog.voc.com.cn/blog_showone_type_blog_id_747417_p_1.html，2015年8月30日。

7. 《华山论》，王征编，中国民族摄影艺术出版社，2014年11月。

8. 《济南摄影双年展笔记 何谓东方向度？》，吴栋，PhotoFans, http://article.photofans.cn/article-32608-2.html，2014年11月7日。

9. 《荣荣&映里<妻有物语>》,唐冠科，好戏网，http://www.mask9.com/node/171376，2015年8月30日。

10. 《自拍 Selfie-刘铮个展》，雅昌艺术网， http://exhibit.artron.net/exhibition-27793.html，2015年8月30日。

11. 《以互联网之名，以艺术之媒》，赵刚，《中国摄影》9月刊，第80-81页。

12. 《刘小东：活生生的生命是怎么滚过来的》，韩见，《外滩画报》，2014年5月刊。

13. 《像狗，或者像兔子：刘小东的摄影》，陈丹青，南方周末，http://www.infzm.com/content/101236，2014年6月6日。

14. 《刘张铂泷：由物至影——当代摄影中的物影摄影》，《中国摄影》2014年10刊。

15. 《无忌对话艺术家王宁德：我们聊聊摄影没有留下什么》，色影无忌，http://info.xitek.com/xitekzl/201409/05-160652.html，2014年9月5日。

16. 《虚幻中的记忆——莫毅》，燃点，http://www.randian-online.com/zh/np_event/mo-yi-illusory-memories/?disp=print，2015年8月30日。

17. 《VICE v.s. 任航：不许拍裸照》，VICE，http://www.vice.cn/read/vice-challenges-ren-hang-no-naked-photos，2014年4月17日。

18. 《Artist’s Showcase: 編號223》，錢怡安、编号223，《Voice of Photography》, 2012年，总第6期。

19. 《【女摄】朱岚清：一次对故乡的低吟浅唱》，影艺家， http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzA3NjI2NzQyOA==&mid=205007644&idx=1&sn=7d1d6659b4abb1eba212039783204c4b&scene=1&srcid=ZOACrzxcGgG87xwhfmvx&key=dffc561732c22651990d7bef0c0795d7c667a58c5a07fe0e9a3176c9c9fa297980ec625af9c05ab9eab08442d575d845&ascene=0&uin=MzAwNzExODc1&devicetype=iMac+MacBookPro10%2C2+OSX+OSX+10.10.2+build(14C109)&version=11020113&pass_ticket=ydXg%2BlcnzQyZpnoNHFZEzdquTuhWPQzkFLoMPzeKiL73Gn2HulzVUja2xX9IEeaY，2015年3月26日，。

20. 《摄影与书，奇遇还将继续》，任悦，1416教室，http://1416.me/15071.html，2013年11月15日。

21. 《三影堂摄影大奖颁给90后朱岚清引发微博大战，小资格调低？荣荣独家回应》，墙报，http://www.wallpost.cn/article-4850-1.html，2014年4月28日。

22. 《可追忆的和不可追忆的家庭往事》，胡昊，图虫网，http://indiefoto.tuchong.com/t/12589213/，2015年5月18日。

23. 《一个抄水表工的摄影修养》，刘敏，三联生活周刊，http://weibo.com/1191965271/BsKAHA5H4?from=page_1002061191965271_profile&wvr=6&mod=weibotime&type=comment#_rnd1441015147010，2014年10月22日。

24. 《China’s land, sea, and sky. In Search Of Home by Jiehao Su at Actual Size LA》，Olivia Fales

    ,Droste Effect Magazine，March, 2014

25. 《在问题之外，我们还能实验些什么？》，葛沛，《中国摄影报》，2014年4月1日。

26. 《十本半，及新年红包》，言由，“假杂志”豆瓣小站，http://site.douban.com/120159/widget/notes/4144773/note/474354357/，2014年12月26日。

27. 《色影无忌专访假杂志言由》，色影无忌，http://vision.xitek.com/interview/201412/17-167314.html，2014年12月17日。

28. 《Food Issue》, Same Paper, http://www.samepaper.com/Food-Issue。

29. 《Lifestyles》，Same Paper，http://www.samepaper.com/lifestyles-1，2014年春。

30. 《袁毅平谈摄影》，《中国摄影》，2014年6月刊，第51-53页。

31. 《摄影与物性：作为人与自然关系的一种视觉隐喻》，杨小彦，《中国摄影》，2014年4月刊。

32. 《被遗忘的影像记忆：袁毅平摄影》，朱炯，中国摄影出版社，2014年8月。

33. 《郭力昕：具反身性意识的书写摄影》，顾铮，《中国摄影》，2014年4月刊。

34. 《回望2014中国影像拍卖市场》，曾璜，《中国摄影报》，2014年12月23日。

35. 《商业之手和艺术之眼：“上海艺术影像展”观察笔记》，姚瑶，《中国摄影》，2014年第11期，第54至55页。

36. 《繁荣到来？此时断言还太早》，孙行之，第一财经日报，http://www.yicai.com/news/2014/09/4016512.html，2014年9月9日。

37. 《为什么老照片比当代摄影行情要好？》，雅昌艺术网，http://photo.artron.net/20140923/n656552_1.html，2014年9月23日。

38. 《如何构建人人买得起的摄影市场》，毛卫东，《中国摄影报》，2014年12月9日。

Machine translation (AI) of the Chinese original, not yet reviewed by the author. Please cite the original.

1. Photography festivals: one opening after another across the country

I begin with photography festivals because, as festivals, they are the way the largest and widest range of photographic artists gather. Whether it is the official photographers’ associations at every level, the enthusiasts who love salon photography, or the artists this review mainly discusses – those who make contemporary art with photography – everyone submits work and holds exhibitions at photography festivals, and occasionally makes work collectively there. You could say that in China the photography festival acts like a united front, bridging the different camps of photographers.

In 2014 photography festivals and large photography exhibitions opened one after another all over China. Long-established festivals such as Pingyao and Lianzhou pursued higher academic and curatorial standards, while the number of tourism-driven photography events grew fast: the first Shenzhen International Photography Week, the Three-River-Source International Photography Festival (Qinghai), the Yixian Photography Exhibition, the Arxan China–Mongolia–Russia International Photography Festival and more. With almost every province now having its own photography festival or major exhibition, the gap in academic quality between events has widened. In terms of ideas, “landscape” became a hot topic for both making and discussion. Geographically, exchanges between photographers and photography critics from Taiwan and the mainland became more frequent.

The 2014 Pingyao International Photography Festival took “Image Life, Dream World” as its theme. It was divided into five sections and nineteen units, with more than 2,100 photographers from 32 countries and regions taking part and 20,000 works on show. The Pingyao festival, the earliest founded in China, reached its fourteenth edition in 2014. Because of its boundless inclusiveness, its enormous scale and its huge number of exhibitions and events of uneven quality, it has been called a photography bazaar. One critic noted that, compared with the vast number of works and artists, this year’s visitor numbers at Pingyao and ticket revenue at the Pingyao scenic area actually fell.[1] The two most talked-about exhibitions at this edition were “China Breathing” (“中国呼吸”), curated by Wu Qiang of the independent photography website Siyuefeng (“April Wind”), and “Women: The Release of Flowers” (“女性·花朵的释放”), curated by Chen Xiaobo, a senior editor at Xinhua News Agency. The former seized on smog, a problem that has attracted a great deal of attention in China, inviting 46 photographers to record the changing air in their cities. The latter won the festival’s Pegasus Award for curators for its novel treatment of space. But, like many current art exhibitions on the theme of women, it gathered works by women artists on female subjects without making clear how the works relate to feminism or deal with the new problems women face in society today. A well-known curator, lacking a solid theoretical grounding, wrote a vague introduction – and students are following the same trend. In the college section, apart from some documentary works whose statements and introductions were fairly standard, the statements and introductions of the conceptual and experimental works were mostly empty clichés that made little sense. “This reminds us once again of the structural problems caused by the general tendency of higher photographic education in China to value technique over ideas, and history over culture.”[2]

The tenth Lianzhou Foto Festival took “Re-creating Encounters” (“再造奇遇”) as its theme, with Duan Yuting as artistic director for the year and Bao Kun as academic director. The exhibition “Ten Years of Chinese Contemporary Photography” and the book of the same name surveyed the decade from different angles of artistic exploration, and the festival also brought in the work of the French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue in the exhibition “Lartigue Outdoors”. The photographer Dai Xiang won the New Photography Award of the Year for his Along the River During the Qingming Festival. Taking Zhang Zeduan’s Song-dynasty handscroll of the same name as his model, Dai Xiang staged and photographed all kinds of events from contemporary society, then swapped them into the original painting, using this adaptation to show how China has changed between past and present, and the human landscape of Chinese society today. Zhang Kechun’s The Yellow River (《北流活活》), which won the Discovery Award at the 2014 Rencontres d’Arles, and Li Lang’s Father both received the Jury’s Special Award.

Lianzhou has now been going for ten years. Although it started later than Pingyao, it has aimed for professional excellence and a spirit of research, and so has more connections with contemporary art. As the artist Wang Ningde put it, “The name ‘Lianzhou Foto’ [literally ‘Lianzhou Annual Photography Exhibition’] already expresses its attitude. It is an exhibition in which most works have been selected and edited by curators, not a festival that piles up as many photographs as possible. So it is a single-medium group exhibition with a contemporary-art sensibility. Through the work and accumulated efforts of its successive curators, it has not only outlined the shared landscape of today’s photographers but also extended its questions beyond photography: the language of images, the possibilities of images, and the relationship between images and other art forms are all touched on in each year’s exhibition. It explores the possibilities of the image, and at the same time experiments with the possibilities of the photography exhibition.”[3] Yang Xiaoyan, deputy dean of the School of Communication and Design at Sun Yat-sen University, was involved in the first Lianzhou festival. In an interview in 2014 he said: “Lianzhou Foto has become a very important indicator of the development of Chinese contemporary photography. Judging by the book Ten Years of Chinese Contemporary Photography published for this edition, it can already give a broad picture of what Chinese photography has achieved over the past decade.”[4] Observers have also noticed the different atmospheres of Lianzhou and Pingyao: “There are two distinct tendencies among Chinese photography festivals. One, like Pingyao, has a populist tendency and particularly values work that is home-grown, even local – every year there is a great deal of work from the city- and county-level photographers’ associations of Shanxi. The other is like Lianzhou, where the big shows are all Western shows; whether in conceptual power or sheer number of exhibitions, the west wind often prevails over the east wind.”[5] Duan Yuting’s difficulty is that China has too few outstanding photographic artists and researchers of its own. But she stresses that Lianzhou, as a Chinese photography festival with a clear sense of itself, must make sure that when it brings in photographic resources from abroad, the exhibitions connect with the current questions facing Chinese photography. In addition, each year Lianzhou appoints a guest curator – from Bao Kun and Li Xianting to Gao Shiming and Fei Dawei – which has given the festival greater influence in the Chinese contemporary art world. But Duan Yuting believes that the curators best suited to curating a photography festival are those who research photography yet understand contemporary art and culture as a whole, because photography and contemporary art are, after all, somewhat distinct.

The academic theme of the fifth Jinan International Photography Biennale in 2014 was “Shadow of Shadows: The Eastern Dimension in a Contemporary Context”. The exhibitions of work by Luo Bonian, Jin Shisheng and Chang Chao-tang were three shows with the air of tributes. Luo Bonian was a celebrated “photography enthusiast” of the Republican era whose work is full of formal beauty; in those years he combined Western modernism with his own practice and made many aesthetic experiments. Jin Shisheng was an “amateur photographer” active in Shanghai from the Republican period onwards who founded the photography magazine The Flying Eagle (《飞鹰》); as Lin Lu puts it, he “started in pictorialism and ultimately arrived at modernism”.[6] Chang Chao-tang, one of the most important Taiwanese photographers of the past half-century, is now 71; with his distinctive style, his photography has helped drive cultural liberation in Taiwan. Besides the exhibition, the Jinan Biennale invited Chang to give a talk, chaired by Mao Weidong. As well as showing work by photographic artists such as Wang Qingsong, Taca Sui and Yan Ming, the biennale also organised a clearly themed exhibition, “On Mount Hua” (“华山论”). The Mount Hua “New Landscape” project was an image experiment carried out in the run-up to the fifth Jinan Biennale, in which a dozen or so photographers climbed Mount Hua, the Western Sacred Mountain, together to make work.[7] These exhibitions tied back to the biennale’s theme of the “Eastern dimension”. Yet one observer asked: “The landscapes gathered under the concept of the ‘Eastern dimension’ in the exhibition are almost without exception Eastern landscapes shot by Easterners. So is the so-called ‘Eastern dimension’ simply geography plus nostalgia, one symbol stacked on another? In an age when Eastern and Western civilisations are merging, how are we to find the so-called East in a China that is changing so fast?”[8]

The China Yunnan Luoping (International) Photography Festival held the Luoping Landscape Photography Forum, chaired by Gu Zheng, on the theme “Natural Landscape, Social Landscape and the Construction of Contemporary Images”. It set out to trace the development of landscape photography, clear up long-standing confusion about the landscape image, and look for new possibilities for how landscape might be presented in future. Landscape work by some of Taiwan’s mid-career photographers, such as Wu Cheng-chang and Shen Chao-liang, was shown. Zeng Huang curated the exhibition “Lost Landscapes”, selecting photographs taken in Fuzhou by seven important foreign photographers who worked in China during the Republican era.

In 2014 the Dali International Photography Exhibition, run by Bao Lihui, was suspended. Besides Luoping, Yunnan’s photography festivals included the first Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Cultural Heritage International Photography Biennale, held in Yuanyang, and the 2014 Xishuangbanna International Image Exhibition, the Golden Peacock Biennale, under the title “On the Other Side of the Water” (“在水一方”).

In October 2014 the Beijing International Photography Week was held at the China Millennium Monument. It brought in many original prints by famous international names and leaned towards the mainstream: exhibitions such as “Ten Years of Huasai: A Retrospective of Award-Winning Works from the China International Press Photo Contest” and “The China Dream: People’s Lives and Social Change” mostly showed documentary photography. Shanghai, meanwhile, held Photo Shanghai in September and then the Shanghai International Photographic Art Exhibition in October. Forty-four invited exhibitions – including original prints by Harry Callahan, the exhibition “The Legacy of Time” by the celebrated Japanese photographer Naohisa Hara, and a tribute exhibition of Zhang Zudao’s work – all converged on Shanghai. But because there was no overall festival theme, there were many exhibitions yet no core idea, and little discussion; compared with the buzz of Photo Shanghai, the International Photographic Art Exhibition felt rather deserted.

At present, photography festivals and major exhibitions around China are mostly co-organised by local people’s governments, photographers’ associations, and cultural and educational bodies. Those of higher academic quality generally appoint an outside academic director or artistic director to keep better control of the theme and to draw a wider range of artists. In fact, local governments shouldn’t treat photography festivals merely as tourism resources for attracting visitors, and propaganda departments and photographers’ associations shouldn’t confine their role to providing material and organisational support. To really examine the current problems in Chinese photography, and to take stock of each year’s major events and trends in photographic practice, takes some scholarly work. Only when this is done well can we go on to talk about the photography festival as a celebration through which a city opens itself to the world, or about the festival’s role in the art education of local residents.

2. New work by established names, and new photographers

This section records first the new work of established artists who use photography as their medium, and second the new artists who drew attention in 2014. It is worth noting that more and more artists no longer confine themselves to photography alone; even when their work is based on photography, new work is often presented in combination with moving image and installation.

RongRong & inri’s solo exhibition “Tsumari Story” was held at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing – the first time the Tsumari Story series had been shown in China. As the founders of Three Shadows, this time they appeared there as artists. The series was shot in the Echigo-Tsumari region of Japan. Since RongRong & inri were invited to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale in Niigata Prefecture in 2012, they have continued the series to this day, and there their personal life and their photography have merged. In these images, RongRong, inri and their three children, dressed in kimono, have slipped away from their social roles in this secluded setting, giving off a relaxed, tender family atmosphere. There are also many images of them facing vast nature in a boundless landscape. The art historian John Tancock observes: “RongRong & inri seem to have unconsciously adopted the motif of the figure seen from behind (Rückenfigur), which recurs in the work of the German Romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840)… The Romantic quality that runs through all of RongRong’s work began to emerge with the Wedding Gown series and related works of 1997, and is especially evident in the 2001 series In Bad Goisern, Austria. Returning to Tsumari to make work seems to have consolidated this tendency.”[9] To achieve their effects, RongRong & inri made gelatin silver prints from black-and-white negatives shot on a large-format camera, and in the darkroom used traditional hand-printing techniques that reduce contrast and bring out subtle tonal gradations.

The most controversial photographic solo show of 2014 was probably Liu Zheng’s “Selfie” at Gallery Yimen in Beijing. Selfie is a photographic self-portrait project that Liu Zheng launched on the mobile internet. Via the internet he called on strangers to photograph themselves naked and send him the pictures; with both sides’ consent, he then posted the photos on public social networks such as WeChat and Instagram. Appropriating ready-made images – from Google Earth, say, or photos people post online – is something many artists in China and abroad have already done. Now Liu Zheng, a leading figure of Chinese “conceptual photography”, brought together the two hottest things of the moment: the “selfie” and the internet. The curator Du Xiyun argued that although Liu Zheng no longer makes original images, he uses the internet to connect more ordinary people with art, making art more open and democratic.[10] But some critics felt that, apart from circulating the work online, the exhibition at Gallery Yimen was like most exhibitions today – with funders, a curator, a preface and an opening reception – and still gave off an air of elitism, hegemony and capital.[11] In other words, in the age of appropriation, authorship is no longer fixed in the making of the work; rather, whoever works with the art system and can make the most of the work becomes its real author.

The painter Liu Xiaodong held the exhibition “My Childhood Friends Have All Got Fat: Liu Xiaodong’s Photographs 1984–2014” at the Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai. It showed more than a thousand photographs the artist had taken over these thirty years. Arranged along a timeline, and following the artist’s relationships with family, friends and society, it presented his personal growth, his experience of life and his social observations, offering viewers an individual sample through which to trace the social life and changing times of the past three decades. Liu Xiaodong doesn’t judge the photographs from a professional standpoint. He starts instead from personal, unconscious recording, letting people “see how a living life rolls along”.[12] Chen Danqing, for his part, observes: “His films and paintings are each other’s fruits, like the physical evidence of a crime – every image he freezes comes not purely from a painter’s eye but from a photographer’s eye.”[13]

Zhang Kechun’s photography exhibition “The Yellow River” (“北流活活”), curated by Ou Ning, was shown at Three Shadows +3 Gallery in Beijing. The Chinese title, Bei liu guo guo, comes from a line in the Book of Songs describing the sound of the Yellow River’s waters: “The river’s waters are vast and wide, flowing north, rushing and roaring.” Inspired by Zhang Chengzhi’s novel The Rivers of the North, Zhang Kechun made a series that takes the Yellow River and the things, land, people and feelings around it as its narrative thread. With this series he also won the 2014 Discovery Award at Arles. Still, people have argued over the similarities and differences, in tone and composition, between Zhang Kechun’s Yellow River and Nadav Kander’s Yangtze – The Long River. What can be observed, though, is that a certain kind of landscape photography – shot on large-format film, with desaturated tones, following roads or rivers – is becoming a mainstream pictorial taste in Chinese art photography.

In 2014 Yang Yongliang held a solo exhibition at Sophie Maree Gallery in the Netherlands. His new works of 2014, such as From the New World, still use digital techniques to collage the high-rises of the modern city, as details, into the format of the traditional Chinese landscape scroll. His 2014 high-definition video Rising Fog (《起雾了》) presents a video collage in a picture frame. The work as a whole still looks like a static collage, but tiny details move – a gently flowing stream, an endless stream of traffic. These very slowly moving details bring the work to life while keeping its affinity with the Chinese scroll painting.

The artist Jiang Pengyi’s solo exhibition at ShanghART Gallery in Shanghai showed three series: Dark Addiction (《幽暗之爱》), The Suspended Moment (《止相之时》) and Intimacy (《亲密》). These series grew out of the artist’s experiments building on earlier photogram techniques, trying without a camera to control – and even standardise – how image and colour appear: letting fireflies crawl over film coated with photosensitive emulsion, for instance, or working out how to obtain brilliant colours by bringing film into contact with fluorescent paper that absorbs and emits light. Liu Zhangbolong comments: “The light trails left by Jiang Pengyi’s fireflies let the viewer trace the curve of passing time, and these intricate paths of light also hint at the networks of relationships in our lives – seemingly disordered and chaotic, yet full of hidden interweavings and entanglements. In most photogram work, the light source is merely the necessary condition for exposing the image, not the object of study. By using fireflies as his light source, Jiang Pengyi deliberately introduces the dimension of time into the photograph. As Gu Zheng writes: ‘Each sheet of film, in becoming a canvas for light, also becomes a container of time. Light, carried by the medium of time and acted on by optics and chemistry, is transformed into a material existence.’”[14]

Wang Ningde held the solo exhibition “Form of Light” at M97 Gallery in Shanghai, showing new large-format three-dimensional photographic installations. Wang uses the shadows of photographs to present familiar clouds, branches and halos, but what he is really exploring is the ontology of photography.[15]

In May 2014 the artist Mo Yi held the solo exhibition “Illusory Memories” in Hong Kong. Illusory Memories is an installation series Mo Yi made over two years from 2011 and first showed at +3 Gallery in Beijing in 2013. It mainly presents images of famous political figures and “representative” events that everyone knows. “Mo Yi says he made the series because the craze for singing ‘red songs’ that started in China two or three years ago prompted him to dig out lots of material left over from the Cultural Revolution. The background images are pixelated, so close up they blur; but from a distance even someone unfamiliar with Chinese political history can recognise them at a glance – Deng Xiaoping sitting on a sofa, Mao Zedong waving, reviewing troops or swimming, Mao with ‘close comrades-in-arms’ such as Lin Biao and Hua Guofeng, the head of Lei Feng, and so on – all images from past political propaganda. The pixels are made of specially commissioned ceramic tiles, deliberately imitating the kind once most common in towns and villages all over China.”[16] These photographs and texts, originally rather documentary, are arranged in order, scrambled or reversed, so that their concrete narrative is drained away and they become pictures with only a certain abstract effect. Mo Yi also took part in Three Shadows’ first Experimental Image Open Exhibition with Photographing the Grey Wall Used for My Exhibition at Three Shadows, for That Unfinished Day (《拍摄三影堂我展览用的灰墙，为了那个没有了结的日子》).

Han Lei’s solo exhibition “Spiral” was held at M97 Gallery in Shanghai. Over the past two years Han Lei has been experimenting with lenticular sheets to make three-dimensional images. In this exhibition he brought together some generic images, images by anonymous makers, and pictures closer to photography. Sun Yanchu held the solo exhibition “Addicted” (“沉溺”) at Now Gallery in Beijing. The work was mainly his black-and-white snapshots from 2004 to 2011, but in 2014 he began venturing into collage and combining photography with painting, as seen in his new works Motorbike Girl and Pose. Hong Lei showed new work in “Either This or That” in Nanjing, including not only still photographs but also the artist’s video works and paintings on silk and other distinctive ways of working. In 2014 the photographer Yang Yankang held the touring exhibition “Mind Images: Original Prints by Yang Yankang”, which included original prints from his two thematic series shot over more than twenty years: Catholicism in the villages of north-west China, and Tibetan Buddhism. These two series are the most representative work of his decades-long career so far.

The photographic artist Chu Chu held the solo exhibition “Chu Chu Photography: Things Non-Things 2014” at Three Shadows +3 Gallery. Things Non-Things is a project Chu Chu began in 2006. In this exhibition, Things Non-Things: Blade Series combined her blade works with her own manuscripts and calligraphy for the first time. She uses digital prints as a distant backdrop and sets them in a single fictional space with the physical objects in the foreground. The scene is then shot with a traditional large-format camera and developed in the darkroom on traditional silver-emulsion film. Chu Chu’s other solo show of 2014, “The Language of Equal Things” (“齐物之语”), was held at the Kunli International Photography Gallery in Shanghai.

The young, German-trained artist Tang Jing held the solo exhibition “Growing” at the Kunli International Photography Gallery in Shanghai. Since 2002 his work has shown a particular concern with architectural space and everyday life, which continues today. For years he has tried to explore the living conditions of contemporary Chinese people from two directions, interior and exterior space. “Interior space” relates to his long-running Young People series, mainly environmental portraits; “exterior space” to his recent observations of urban construction and architecture in China.

In April 2014 Ren Hang held the solo exhibition “In Addition to Sleep” in Malmö, Sweden, and in August the solo exhibition “The Boundaries of the Body” (“身体的边界”) at Three Shadows +3 Gallery in Beijing. Although still a young photographer, Ren Hang already has a mature personal style and international recognition, and “The Boundaries of the Body” can be seen as a summation of his work since 2008. His most influential set of pictures in 2014 came from an interview collaboration with the media outlet Vice.[17] He turned the lens he usually points at young men’s and women’s naked bodies onto his own mother back home in the north-east – and proved that the theatricality, exaggeration, absurdity and bodily daring of his photographs didn’t go into hiding just because his subject was his mother. Ren Hang, No.223 (Lin Zhipeng) and 9mouth (九口走召) have this in common: although the youth and sex in their pictures are still sensitive in Chinese society today, the frank, direct attitude of their photographs has attracted many young people outside photography circles. In 2014 No.223 held a solo exhibition at Loppis Galleria in Italy. For years he has photographed his own private life, and like Ren Hang he shoots with a 35mm camera, at night, with flash. For both No.223 and Ren Hang the body can be seen as a record of private life and as a “site of experiment”.[18] Unlike Ren Hang and No.223, 9mouth concentrates on photographing the female body; he believes he is using photography to record the awakening of women’s self-awareness today. In 2014 he completed the series Masturbation, using long exposures to capture the whole process of women masturbating, from beginning to climax. He also launched a project on Weibo to make work together with his fans: under the hashtag #IDreamtAbout9mouthLastNight# (#昨晚我梦到九口了#), many people recorded their dreams about 9mouth, and he made photographs based on their descriptions.

As for new and young photographers, we can get a rough picture through a few important awards. Looking through them, it is clear that many young photographers have studied photography at art schools abroad. How their methods and subjects have been influenced by this is a question worth pursuing further.

The international jury of the sixth Three Shadows Photography Award in 2014 was made up of the artist Candida Höfer; the Chinese photographic artist Liu Zheng; Arthur Ollman, professor in the School of Art at San Diego State University; the Chinese photographer and Three Shadows founder RongRong; and the Japanese photographic artist Tokihiro Sato. Zhu Lanqing won the grand prize with her handmade photobook A Journey in Reverse Direction (《负向的旅程》). Zhu began photographing her home, Dongshan Island at the southern tip of Zhangzhou in Fujian, when she was at university. In A Journey in Reverse Direction these photographs are divided into four chapters – Bachimen, Home, Land and Sea – but at bottom the book is about “identification with one’s own land and culture” and about grappling with “amnesiac urbanisation or unrealistic ocean-tourism development”.[19] A Journey in Reverse Direction is part of Hometown Books (“故乡书”), a handmade-book project launched by OFPiX in 2013, which invited photographers to photograph their home towns and make a handmade book about them. The project’s initiator, Ren Yue, believes that “facing a real photobook is no less than walking into an exhibition hall. The photographs connect with one another and create a particular atmosphere. That atmosphere comes not only from the sequencing of the photographs but also from the paper, binding, design and printing, and even the relationship with the text.”[20] Zhu Lanqing’s win was of course also related to how she sequenced and presented her work in the Three Shadows Photography Award nominees’ exhibition. But after she won, there was a great deal of criticism online:[21] some said her work echoed others in form and tone, or that this kind of xiaoqingxin – soft-focus, “fresh and pretty” – work had little meaning for Chinese reality. Yet for all the online mudslinging, serious criticism of Zhu Lanqing’s work was still lacking.

Liu Zhangbolong, a graduate of Tsinghua University and the School of Visual Arts in New York, won the Three Shadows Shiseido Photographer Prize. His work explores the relationship between science and art by photographing scientific laboratories. Other US-trained artists shortlisted for the Three Shadows Award included Chen Tianxin, Zheng Peikun and Wenxin Zhang. Zheng Peikun’s Lost and Found (《失物招领》) photographs the Burning Man festival held in the American desert, suffused with a surreal absurdity. Already an established artist, Zheng Peikun is represented by the international Magda Danysz Gallery (in 2014 he exhibited with Mo Yi, Zhang Xiao and Yang Yongliang in “Landscape” at Magda Danysz Gallery in Shanghai). Besides being shortlisted for the Three Shadows Award, Wenxin Zhang also took part in the 2014 Jinan Biennale. Her works Five Nights, Aquarium (《五夜，水族馆》) and The Giant Beast by the Waterfall Guesthouse (《瀑布招待所旁的巨兽》) both use photography to tell fictional stories.

The judges of Xitek’s 2014 Discovery of New Chinese Photographers were Gong Xiaoyue, Liu Zheng, Ma Liang, Ren Yue, Yan Zhigang, Yan You, Yan Ming and Chai Jinning. They selected ten new photographers: Chen Zhuo, Luo Xi, Lau Wai, He Xiong, Zhang Lanpo, Dai Jianyong, Liu Tao, Jia Shuo, Sun Lue and Zhu Feng. The Hong Kong photographer Lau Wai’s Here and Album (《〈此〉和〈相册〉》) “is woven from two ongoing projects: Here, which centres on his parents, who migrated from the mainland to Hong Kong in the 1970s, their home and their family life; and Album, which gathers and reassembles old photographs from several generations. The two differ greatly in style, but thanks to Lau Wai’s brilliant editing, the two sets of pictures react with each other and in the end become a new whole.”[22] Liu Tao is a Hefei photographer who had already drawn a lot of online attention at the time of the Three Shadows Award; his day job is reading water meters. His street photography has the lasting charm and humour of classic street photographers, combined with irony drawn from today’s Chinese context. After a string of media reports, he and his photographs quickly went viral on Weibo.[23]

“Next Station: Kunli” (“下一站•鲲鲤”) is an annual event at the Kunli International Photography Gallery in Shanghai. The platform is aimed at young Chinese photographers and young artists working in photography, offering them a place to exhibit their best work. The young photographers of 2014 were Chen Canrong, Chen Xiaofeng, Dai Jianyong and Fan Shunzan. Chen Xiaofeng was also shortlisted for the 2014 Three Shadows Award. His work Plant Placement (《植物置物》) looks at the assorted green potted plants people keep indoors.

In 2014 Su Jiehao held the solo exhibition “In Search of Home: Jiehao Su’s New Work” in Los Angeles, showing his new series Borderlands (《边界》). Borderlands consists of photographs he took while travelling in China after losing his mother. These poetic mountains, seas, trees, fields and people are, on the one hand, landscapes of China and, on the other, a reflection of his inner world.[24] In 2014 his exposure at international photography festivals and in photography magazines grew rapidly, and he was one of the finalists for the 2014 APA/Lucie Foundation Scholarship.

3. Survey exhibitions

By survey exhibitions I mean the group or archival exhibitions held by major art institutions outside the photography festivals.

In September 2014 the Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum held “Chinese Contemporary Photography 2009–2014”, with Wang Huangsheng as chief curator, showing photographs, installations and video works by 52 artists and groups. The exhibition had three sections – “Border/Drift”, “Spectacle/Everyday” and “Society/Body” – and the hope was that this structure would more clearly map and present the broad course and direction of Chinese contemporary photography between 2009 and 2014, offering a description that was fairly panoramic without losing specificity.

“Journey of the Heart: Exhibition of Straight Photography Original Prints 1839–2014” (“乘物游心——1839-2014直接摄影原作展”), the opening show of the National Art Museum of China’s “International Photography Collection” series, used more than two hundred works by over fifty masters, including Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, to retrace a clear line through the history of photography and to chart the development of straight photography as a school. Taking straight photography as its main thread, the exhibition was divided into three chapters – Equivalence and Representation (1839–1917); Freedom and Aura (1917–1977); Fusion and Change (1977–2014) – exploring the birth, evolution and development of this school of photography pursued as pure art.

Three Shadows’ first Experimental Image Open Exhibition opened in March, bringing together nearly forty artists working across photography, installation, performance and video. But while the works were rich and the forms varied, the exhibition also exposed some problems. “De-curating” meant no theme, a free choice of medium, seven metres of wall for each artist and positions decided by lot. The result was a lack of coordination between works, and an exhibition with no logic running through it. The critic Ge Pei argued that contemporary art today cannot simply chase novelty of formal language; it should explore questions, and “the questioning attitude needs to be carried through into the language”.[25]

“Taking It Seriously: Ray Art Center Opening Group Exhibition” (“当真——瑞象馆开幕联展”) opened in Shanghai, marking the move of the Ray Art Center (瑞象馆) into a physical exhibition space of its own. In the six years since it was founded, the Ray Art Center has cultivated the photography criticism website “Ruixiang Viewpoint” (“瑞象视点”), publishing commissioned essays and translations, and organising a series of educational events on photographic art and image culture, such as “Face to Face with the Masters” (“大师名对面”). Its research covers introductions to and readings of the work of important photographers and young artists in China and abroad, cultural and historical research on the image, and the mapping and analysis of all kinds of photographic events and phenomena.

On 6 December 2014 the exhibition of the second China Photography Annual Ranking opened at the Lishui Photography Museum. Eight works made this year’s list: Du Zi’s Scars (《瘢痕》), Liu Zheng’s Selfie, Li Zhaohui’s Cadaver (《大体》), Wei Bi’s Dream Stream II (《梦溪II》), Wang Ningde’s Form of Light, Yang Shuhuai’s God Gave Us a Sofa (《上帝给了我们一张沙发》), Ye Wenlong’s Once the Sea (《曾经沧海》) and Zhang Kechun’s The Yellow River.

4. Artist’s books

In 2014 the photography publisher Jiazazhi published five artist’s books: Zhu Mo’s Empty Days (《空日》), Zhang Kechun’s The Yellow River, Zhang Xiao’s Coastline (《海岸线》), Zhang Wei’s Artificial Theater (《人工剧团》) and Yang Yuanyuan’s 10 Days in Krakow (《在克拉科夫的十日》), as well as the artist Tang Jing’s postcard set Brave New World (《美丽新世界》), all edited and produced by Yan You. Of the five books, “three were named in 2014 best-photobook lists by different photobook websites or blogs: photo-eye picked The Yellow River, Jörg M. Colberg’s photography blog Conscientious picked Going Home (《回家》), and Peter Evans’s photography blog microcord picked Coastline.”[26] You could say that Jiazazhi, an independent photography publisher, has grown up together with China’s new generation of photographers, each book summing up one photographer’s personal project. Jiazazhi is currently preparing to publish Jiazazhi the magazine, on “the people and things that influence Chinese photographers”.[27]

Same Paper is a Shanghai studio for artist’s books, founded by Wang Yijun and Yuan Xiaopeng. In 2014 it published Food Issue, Trend Issue and lifestyles. Unlike Jiazazhi, Same Paper is driven more by topics that its makers share an interest in. Food Issue, for example, draws on photographs by the artist Ren Hang, “some in which his foot happened to appear in the frame while he was shooting, or in which he used his foot to feed boys or step on their faces”. These seemingly trivial little gestures caught Same Paper’s attention, and they edited the photographs into a collection about feet.[28] Trend Issue looks at the craze for A&F and Hollister among young Chinese men; many of the boys who love these two brands are gay. Same Paper searched several popular social apps for boys wearing the hottest A&F and Hollister items, and edited the pictures around the threads of travel and selfies. lifestyles is likewise a zine whose language is the image, using work by seven young photographers from China and abroad: Charlie Engman, Jeremy O’Sullivan, Ka Xiaoxi, Chen Li, Yuan Xiaopeng, Wang Yijun and Xu Zhengdong. “‘Lifestyle’ is a word born of the media’s need to hype consumption, and today it is constantly abused by fashion media. The photographers above, from among the people around us and those we follow, are all used to taking images effortlessly from their own lives, yet their ways of seeing are almost identical, and their tastes in composition and focus overlap heavily. So it is often hard to tell who took which photo – as if everyone were chasing a ‘fashionable’ lifestyle.”[29]

The independent personal photo zine Versatile by No.223 (Lin Zhipeng) published its second issue, beautiful things out of the dust. This series tones down No.223’s usual erotic register; the selection is more everyday, and all the pictures were shot on film.

5. Photography criticism and scholarly publishing

The eminent veteran photographer Yuan Yiping once said: “Every edition of the Golden Statue Awards has quite a few good works, but very few leave a deep impression. Is it that classic, outstanding work has disappeared? It’s not that there isn’t any – what’s lacking is criticism.” “But for many years criticism in Chinese photography has been weak, which is why some people call it ‘the limp of Chinese photography’: practice is a good leg, criticism an unhealthy one.”[30]

Photography criticism in China is still far too feeble, short of observers with professional knowledge and a critical spirit. But several major publishing platforms have gradually taken shape. Besides magazines and newspapers such as Chinese Photography and China Photography News, outlets such as the Ray Art Center and Yingyijia (“影艺家”) have achieved something in criticism, reporting and translation, and use WeChat public accounts to spread their content through new media. For now, though, most of what is produced is interviews, reports and translations, with little analysis or criticism of specific artists and specific works.

Yang Xiaoyan’s essay “Photography and Thingness: A Visual Metaphor for the Relationship between Humans and Nature” traces what “thingness” means in photography, and how thingness works as a visual metaphor for the relationship between humans and nature – “presenting the positions, views and attitudes people take when facing the thing-in-itself”. Dutch still-life painting arose because, after the Reformation in Europe, the system of religious images was rejected, and the still life became “a hint of Christ, revealing the grace of God’s care for humankind”; in photography, the American Group f/64 of the 1930s likewise pursued fine detail and texture as an expression of devout faith in God. So in the West, texture, fine detail and thingness as an aesthetic expression of spirituality form a single way of thinking. But Chinese art thinks differently: the deliberately blurred texture of pictorialist photographers such as Long Chin-san and Chen Fuli came from their deliberate disregard for photography’s own thingness. Moreover, photography – as a technical invention, as a way of seeing in which the naked eye and the machine become one, as materialised memory, as an act of taking pictures – keeps revealing the relationship between people and their objects. Yang Xiaoyan analyses the things in Chinese contemporary photography by Chen Xiaofeng, Dong Wensheng, Hong Hao, Feng Yan, Jiang Pengyi, Liu Zhangbolong and others; in many of these works, things are metaphors for the maker’s body, or for an understanding of everyday life.[31]

In 2014 China Photographic Publishing House brought out Terry Bennett’s History of Photography in China: Chinese Photographers 1844–1879, translated by Xu Tingting, who holds a PhD in art history from the University of Chicago. This is the third volume of Bennett’s History of Photography in China. The series offers detailed research on the photographers active in China from the arrival of photography until the end of the nineteenth century.

The photography researcher Mao Weidong published several translations in 2014. Photography Theory in Historical Perspective is by Hilde Van Gelder and Helen Westgeest. Based on a comparative study of media, the book discusses the characteristics commonly attributed to photography, approaching them historically or through core concepts such as representation, time, place and function, and uses case studies to give a careful, rigorous account of photographic theory since the invention of the medium. Another translation is Ian Jeffrey’s How to Read a Photograph, published by China Nationality Art Photograph Publishing House. In it Jeffrey analyses photographs by more than a hundred masters, including Cartier-Bresson and Eugène Atget – an absorbing introduction. Mao Weidong also translated the art historian Wu Hung’s English-language book Rong Rong’s East Village. Taking RongRong’s view of the East Village as a particular vantage point, Wu Hung links together the three groups of photographs in the East Village series: the East Village artists and their work in their original environment in 1993–94; the performance projects that continued from 1994 to 1998 after the East Village group was forced to disband; and RongRong’s self-portraits from the East Village days onwards.

In 2014 the Theory Research Department of the China Photographers Association launched the “Project to Rescue Chinese Photographic Culture”, and Zhu Jiong of the Beijing Film Academy led graduate students in an oral history of Yuan Yiping and research on his photography. Born in 1926, Yuan Yiping took the famous photograph The East Is Red. But across the development of Chinese photography from the 1950s to the early 2000s he was not only a photographer, but also a picture editor, a researcher of photographic theory, a photography critic, a leader of the photographers’ association and an organiser of photographic events. After more than a year of oral-history interviews and sorting through photographs, Zhu Jiong concluded: “Among his many roles, I think what must first be fully affirmed and fully shown is his side as a photographer. This was also the crucial starting point and basis for his later work in editing, photographic theory and criticism, and leading the field.” Building on this research, “Scattered Notes on the Past: A Yuan Yiping Photography Retrospective” opened at the China Photography Exhibition Hall in June 2014; in August Forgotten Visual Memories: The Photography of Yuan Yiping (《被遗忘的影像记忆：袁毅平摄影》), edited by Zhu Jiong, was published;[32] and in September the Pingyao International Photography Festival paid tribute to Yuan Yiping with a tribute exhibition.

Zhejiang Photographic Press published Reading Photography: Kuo Li-hsin’s Photography Criticism (《阅读摄影：郭力昕摄影批评》) by the Taiwanese visual culture scholar Kuo Li-hsin – the mainland edition of his Writing Photography Again (《再写摄影》) – which traces, fairly completely, his critical thinking over fifteen years about contemporary photographic practice and its development. The book has three parts: “Writing on Photographic Issues”, “Writing on Photographers” and “Writing on Photobooks”, with an appendix of the author’s interview with the British critic of visual culture John Berger. These three parts correspond neatly to three basic aspects on which photography depends for its existence and development. Looking back over fifteen years of photographic art on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Kuo argues that young Taiwanese photographers tend to focus on rather fragmented subjects, while among young mainland makers “an aesthetic, private, materialist or purely visual approach seems to be spreading”.[33] The book also discusses in depth the work of Taiwanese photographers including Chang Chao-tang, Chen Chin-pao, Shen Chao-liang, Yu Pen-kuan and Wu Cheng-chang.

In 2014 the photographer Yan Ming published a collection of photographic essays, I Love This Romance That Can’t Cry (《我爱这哭不出来的浪漫》), the first photographer’s working notebook published in mainland China. Before becoming a professional artist, Yan Ming spent ten years as a rock musician and ten as a journalist. Whether to break out of the system, and whether to make work full-time, is not only Yan Ming’s personal inner struggle but also the awkward situation of many photojournalists today. This struggle struck a deep chord not only among photojournalists: thanks to a collaboration with the One Way Street bookshop (OWSpace), the book also became something of a hot topic among young people.

6. Photography collecting and auctions

In 2014 auctions of photographic art in China showed an overall upward trend. Most auction houses dealt in photographic works, and some held dedicated photography sales. Since the Guangdong Museum of Art began collecting photographs in 2003 – the first state institution to do so – institutional collecting of photography has gradually grown. Many private collecting institutions devoted to photography are also being built, and it is foreseeable that photography collecting in China will become a huge market. Yet Huachen Auctions’ photography sales, currently China’s largest trading platform for Chinese photographic art, saw their first fall in turnover in the nine years since they began: 22 million yuan in 2014, down 10% from 25 million in 2013.[34]

In September 2014 the art photography fair Photo Shanghai drew large numbers of photography people. The fair was made up mainly of leading photography galleries from around the world; well-known galleries from China and abroad such as ShanghART, M97, Chambers Fine Art, CAMERA WORK, Fahey/Klein Gallery and Flowers were invited to take part. Its target audience was mainly collectors, but perhaps because of heavy media promotion, photography enthusiasts and hobbyists made up the bulk of the visitors. “The foreign galleries’ selections reflected a testing of the waters with Chinese audiences and collectors: mostly classic, ‘beautiful’ photographs, with few new works; traditional processes, cameras and printing methods made up the vast majority, with almost no light boxes, screens or other display installations.”[35] A review in China Business News put it this way: “Paris Photo, with a history of more than ten years, has 200 to 300 galleries every year. By comparison Photo Shanghai, with 42 galleries, is only a starting point. And between this starting point and the far shore of maturity lie differences in many areas – art-historical scholarship, museum collections, the education of collectors and the public.”[36]

The photographs currently circulating in China fall mainly into three categories: old photographs, documentary photography and conceptual photography. The market for old photographs is still the mainstream. One reason is the public’s limited understanding of contemporary art; another is that contemporary photographic artists are not yet mature in business terms. Most photographers have no gallery or agent, do not control edition sizes[37] or print quality sensibly, and lack the chance to work commercially through a professional gallery. As for China’s photography galleries, when it comes to promoting photographers they mostly remain middlemen in the buying and selling of works, and are unprofessional at promoting artists. The services a photography gallery provides should include not only recommending works to collectors, but also packaging artists’ work, applying for grants on their behalf, submitting work to photography competitions and awards, showing artists’ work at art fairs, and so on.

Futu (浮图网), an online photography collecting site, targets the mass market. It mainly promotes works in large editions (100 per work, for example) at lower prices, so that ordinary people can afford photography. But for lack of data I cannot offer any concrete market analysis.

As for collectors, Mao Weidong believes that the buyers of photographic works in China fall roughly into three groups: collectors with large amounts of capital, the emerging white-collar class, and artists. Of these it is the first that plays the main role in the market. For the Chinese photography market to truly flourish, China needs to build its own domestic market, break free of a pricing system dominated by the West, arrive at reasonable prices, and widen the pool of buyers to the general public. And cultivating ordinary consumers’ habit of buying art requires art education. The problem at present is that “in China, museums and art institutions cannot yet play the role they do in the West in establishing the value and recognition of artworks, and the value judgements of the ‘elite’ cannot connect with those of the general public”.[38]

7. Conclusion

In 2014 a photobook trend gradually emerged in China, as artists realised that the book, as a vehicle for art, is a more lasting and more intimate way of presenting work than the exhibition. Landscape and the body remained the two main themes of artists’ work. But in the way photographic activity is organised at large, we have not yet seen much change. Liu Zheng set up “Butterfly Effect” (“蝴蝶效应”), a big WeChat group that brings artists together to talk and hosts lectures within the group, offering a good route for taking photographic activity and education online. But whether WeChat groups are an effective, democratic and criticism-friendly way for the art world to organise and communicate still remains to be seen. Will the criticism that contemporary photography currently lacks on public platforms find more room in the private sphere of the WeChat group?

This review does not cover photography education. Although art schools across China and art institutions such as Three Shadows all offer photography courses and training, the information available to us is very limited and does not allow detailed analysis; we ask for the reader’s understanding.

1. Song Zhipeng, “Pingyao, Goodbye until We Meet Again: Notes on the 2014 Pingyao International Photography Festival” (《平遥，为了再聚的再见：2014平遥国际摄影大展散记》), Chinese Photography, 2014, no. 11, pp. 56–68.

2. Ibid.

3. Hei Mai, “Ten Years of Lianzhou: How Photography Survives in a Small Chinese City” (《连州十年：摄影在中国小城的生存》), Bazaar Art, November 2014.

4. Yang Yi, “A Small City in Northern Guangdong and Its Ten-Year ‘Encounter’ with Contemporary Photography” (《粤北小城与当代摄影的十年“奇遇”》), Nanfang Daily, 28 November 2014.

5. Duan Yuting, Bao Kun, Wang Ningde, Nan Wu’ai and Duan Linlin, “Lianzhou: Ten Years in Full Bloom – A Conversation with Duan Yuting, Artistic Director of Lianzhou Foto” (《连州：十年怒放——对话连州国际摄影年展艺术总监段煜婷》), China Photographers, 2014, no. 12.

6. “Light and Shadow, Startling Change: The Jin Shisheng Photography Exhibition” (《光影惊沧——金石声摄影展》), Lin Lu, Lin Lu’s blog, http://blog.voc.com.cn/blog_showone_type_blog_id_747417_p_1.html, 30 August 2015.

7. Wang Zheng (ed.), On Mount Hua (《华山论》), China Nationality Art Photograph Publishing House, November 2014.

8. Wu Dong, “Notes on the Jinan Photography Biennale: What Is the Eastern Dimension?” (《济南摄影双年展笔记 何谓东方向度？》), PhotoFans, http://article.photofans.cn/article-32608-2.html, 7 November 2014.

9. John Tancock, “RongRong & inri: Tsumari Story” (《荣荣&映里<妻有物语>》), mask9.com, http://www.mask9.com/node/171376, 30 August 2015.

10. “Selfie: Liu Zheng Solo Exhibition” (《自拍 Selfie-刘铮个展》), Artron, http://exhibit.artron.net/exhibition-27793.html, 30 August 2015.

11. Zhao Gang, “In the Name of the Internet, through the Medium of Art” (《以互联网之名，以艺术之媒》), Chinese Photography, September 2014, pp. 80–81.

12. Han Jian, “Liu Xiaodong: How a Living Life Rolls Along” (《刘小东：活生生的生命是怎么滚过来的》), Bund Pictorial, May 2014.

13. Chen Danqing, “Like a Dog, or Like a Rabbit: Liu Xiaodong’s Photography” (《像狗，或者像兔子：刘小东的摄影》), Southern Weekly, http://www.infzm.com/content/101236, 6 June 2014.

14. “Liu Zhangbolong: From Object to Shadow – The Photogram in Contemporary Photography” (《刘张铂泷：由物至影——当代摄影中的物影摄影》), Chinese Photography, 2014, no. 10.

15. “Xitek in Conversation with Wang Ningde: Let’s Talk about What Photography Doesn’t Leave Behind” (《无忌对话艺术家王宁德：我们聊聊摄影没有留下什么》), Xitek, http://info.xitek.com/xitekzl/201409/05-160652.html, 5 September 2014.

16. “Illusory Memories – Mo Yi” (《虚幻中的记忆——莫毅》), randian, http://www.randian-online.com/zh/np_event/mo-yi-illusory-memories/?disp=print, 30 August 2015.

17. “VICE vs Ren Hang: No Nude Photos Allowed” (《VICE v.s. 任航：不许拍裸照》), VICE, http://www.vice.cn/read/vice-challenges-ren-hang-no-naked-photos, 17 April 2014.

18. Qian Yi’an and No.223, “Artist’s Showcase: No.223” (《Artist’s Showcase: 編號223》), Voice of Photography, 2012, issue 6.

19. “[Women Photographers] Zhu Lanqing: A Soft Song for Home” (《【女摄】朱岚清：一次对故乡的低吟浅唱》), Yingyijia, http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzA3NjI2NzQyOA==&mid=205007644&idx=1&sn=7d1d6659b4abb1eba212039783204c4b&scene=1&srcid=ZOACrzxcGgG87xwhfmvx&key=dffc561732c22651990d7bef0c0795d7c667a58c5a07fe0e9a3176c9c9fa297980ec625af9c05ab9eab08442d575d845&ascene=0&uin=MzAwNzExODc1&devicetype=iMac+MacBookPro10%2C2+OSX+OSX+10.10.2+build(14C109)&version=11020113&pass_ticket=ydXg%2BlcnzQyZpnoNHFZEzdquTuhWPQzkFLoMPzeKiL73Gn2HulzVUja2xX9IEeaY, 26 March 2015.

20. Ren Yue, “Photography and the Book: The Encounter Continues” (《摄影与书，奇遇还将继续》), Classroom 1416, http://1416.me/15071.html, 15 November 2013.

21. “Three Shadows Photography Award Goes to Post-90s Zhu Lanqing, Sparking a Weibo War: Petit-Bourgeois Taste Too Low-Brow? RongRong Responds Exclusively” (《三影堂摄影大奖颁给90后朱岚清引发微博大战，小资格调低？荣荣独家回应》), Wallpost, http://www.wallpost.cn/article-4850-1.html, 28 April 2014.

22. Hu Hao, “Family Pasts That Can and Cannot Be Recalled” (《可追忆的和不可追忆的家庭往事》), Tuchong, http://indiefoto.tuchong.com/t/12589213/, 18 May 2015.

23. Liu Min, “The Photographic Cultivation of a Water-Meter Reader” (《一个抄水表工的摄影修养》), Sanlian Life Week, http://weibo.com/1191965271/BsKAHA5H4?from=page_1002061191965271_profile&wvr=6&mod=weibotime&type=comment#_rnd1441015147010, 22 October 2014.

24. China’s land, sea, and sky. In Search Of Home by Jiehao Su at Actual Size LA, Olivia Fales, Droste Effect Magazine, March 2014.

25. Ge Pei, “Beyond Questions, What Else Can We Experiment With?” (《在问题之外，我们还能实验些什么？》), China Photography News, 1 April 2014.

26. Yan You, “Ten and a Half Books, and a New Year Red Envelope” (《十本半，及新年红包》), Jiazazhi’s Douban site, http://site.douban.com/120159/widget/notes/4144773/note/474354357/, 26 December 2014.

27. “Xitek Interviews Yan You of Jiazazhi” (《色影无忌专访假杂志言由》), Xitek, http://vision.xitek.com/interview/201412/17-167314.html, 17 December 2014.

28. Food Issue, Same Paper, http://www.samepaper.com/Food-Issue.

29. Lifestyles, Same Paper, http://www.samepaper.com/lifestyles-1, spring 2014.

30. “Yuan Yiping on Photography” (《袁毅平谈摄影》), Chinese Photography, June 2014, pp. 51–53.

31. Yang Xiaoyan, “Photography and Thingness: A Visual Metaphor for the Relationship between Humans and Nature” (《摄影与物性：作为人与自然关系的一种视觉隐喻》), Chinese Photography, April 2014.

32. Zhu Jiong, Forgotten Visual Memories: The Photography of Yuan Yiping (《被遗忘的影像记忆：袁毅平摄影》), China Photographic Publishing House, August 2014.

33. Gu Zheng, “Kuo Li-hsin: Writing Photography with Reflexive Awareness” (《郭力昕：具反身性意识的书写摄影》), Chinese Photography, April 2014.

34. Zeng Huang, “Looking Back at China’s Photography Auction Market in 2014” (《回望2014中国影像拍卖市场》), China Photography News, 23 December 2014.

35. Yao Yao, “The Hand of Commerce and the Eye of Art: Notes on Photo Shanghai” (《商业之手和艺术之眼：“上海艺术影像展”观察笔记》), Chinese Photography, 2014, no. 11, pp. 54–55.

36. Sun Xingzhi, “Has the Boom Arrived? It’s Too Early to Say” (《繁荣到来？此时断言还太早》), China Business News, http://www.yicai.com/news/2014/09/4016512.html, 9 September 2014.

37. “Why Do Old Photographs Sell Better than Contemporary Photography?” (《为什么老照片比当代摄影行情要好？》), Artron, http://photo.artron.net/20140923/n656552_1.html, 23 September 2014.

38. Mao Weidong, “How to Build a Photography Market Everyone Can Afford” (《如何构建人人买得起的摄影市场》), China Photography News, 9 December 2014.