From October 5 through December 30, Phot’Aix in Aix en Provence is welcoming China. Five Chinese photographers are exhibiting opposite five French photographers, in the former Preacher’s College and in the heart of Aix-en-Provence. There, Li Zhi is presenting his series Voyage en montagne (Mountain Voyage).
In the summer, I traveled from Taihang to the Nanshiyang gorges while passing through the Yan Mountains. I crossed the ten mountain cols and climbed Baishi Mountain. I traversed more than 150 kilometers between Mount Yan and Wutai to see the snow-covered summits. On this journey of over 600 kilometers, I saw the mountains in sun, rain, snow, and moonlight. Everywhere, I crossed landscapes coming out of the canvases of the masters, simple and solemn, deserted and calm. Our people have lived on this land for millennia, and I often think that the breath animating the works of the old masters is the breath of this land.
When I photograph landscapes, I concentrate on my emotions, and I enter into symbiosis with the universe that surrounds me. I take a photo when I feel admiration, sorrow, or compassion for these places. In these landscapes, I see abstractions in movement. Each of them arouses different emotions in me, and I don’t worry, at the precise moment, about focus. I only take it into account after having taken the photo.
Certain photographers from the preceding generation have classified my work as “Eastern painting” or “geographic photography”. Certainly, I studied painting and calligraphy. However, my photos are actually observations of nature. The way that my being and the universe complete each other is not directly linked to painting or to “geographic photography”, but, perhaps, my work is a prolongation of this Eastern painting and “geographic photography”.
The artist is always isolated, but his soul finds consolation in nature. It becomes the wisest, most intelligent, and most active part of him.
Buddha does not speak. He simply smiles because he has traveled through the mountain’s long paths. I walk and speak only because I’m still progressing through these paths. I walk, I think, and I speak like a voyager on the road to enlightenment.
Li Zhi
Li Zhi was born in 1975 into an agricultural family in Fengqiu, which is situated in a rural area of the Henan province. Today, he is a practicing artist in Beijing. His work concerns both painting and photography.
Phot’Aix
From October 5 through December 30, 2017
In the streets of Aix-en-Provence
France
https://www.fontaine-obscure.com/pages/photaix_parcours.htm
