In 2007, Jean Loh acquired a space in Tianzifang, Shanghai, for an exhibition in collaboration with the Galerie VU. After a few weeks of no news from Paris, he decided to use to space to exhibit the work of talented and unknown Chinese photographers. Jean Loh is a willful and poetic rebel, striving to achieve the impossible and speak the unspeakable.
A photograph that has a special importance in his life…
Hôpital Psychiatrique, San Clemente, Italie 1979 by Raymond Depardon.
For Jean Loh, this iconic photograph questions the art of the portrait. If a portrait is supposed to reveal the soul of the subject, then what about the image of a mentally handicapped person hiding in his jacket?
A fond memory?
During the exhibition of Li Zhensheng on the Cultural Revolution, a man came into the gallery, took a careful look at the pictures one by one, then asked if it would be alright for him to sing. He explained that, seeing these pictures, a whole period of his time came back to him in the form of songs that he could sing nowhere else. Jean Loh invited him to sing and spoke to me of the last song: “I Want to Go Back Home” is a gentle song, like a folk song, with hopeful lyrics, written by the Red Guards taken far away from their homes, like thousands of Chinese.
“That’s the magic of photography,” says Jean Loh.
Read the full interview on the French version of Le Journal.
Stéphanie de Rougé
Jean Loh – Galerie Beaugeste, Shanghai
