For ten years, beginning in 1990, the photographer captured, in wide-angle black and white, the crowds in two commercial streets in Chengdu, the city where he was himself the owner of a boutique. Cutting sharply into the crowd, emphasizing faces and clothes with a flash, he delivers a document unique in presenting the way westernized clothing was replacing the traditional uniformity of Chinese apparel. Far from anecdotal or heavily symbolic images often produced by western reporters who oppose the old and the new in the Middle Kingdom, he guides us through a complex world in which he gives back individuality to his subjects.
Born in 1958 in Chengdu, China. A multidisciplinary artist, this photographer, interior architect and painter explores the social and communitarian dimensions of the city in his work. Going from panoramic to squares, he treats the subjects of the street and the presence of nature in the city, the dilapidation of old neighborhoods, destruction, and, in color, the appearance of graffiti and identity portraits that imitate celebrities—a new iconography of youth. His project People on the Qingnian Road—Lost Desire, won the special jury prize at the International Festival of Lianzhou in 2010.
