IHT
A cultural history framed in a Chinese artist's lens
By Alexandra A. Seno International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2005

HONG KONG In the 1940s, a young Chinese merchant working in Vietnam
began to take photographs. In the decades that followed, he and his
camera would create poetry.

China reveres Chen Fuli as one of the great visual artists of his time.
His works are carefully crafted images that celebrate the beauty of the
human condition and the majesty of nature. Also known as Tchan Fou-li,
he received recognition and renown not only from his homeland, but also
from his peers from around the world. He won some 200 prizes in the
international salon photography competition circuit when he was most
active from the 1950s to the '70s.

Chen gained his stature not only with his talent and technical genius,
but also with his ability to play the contest game well. He studied what
worked at these worldwide salon competitions and made photos that stood
out in the few seconds that judges had to look at them. At home in Hong
Kong, Chen was highly instrumental in establishing a genre that was
rooted in ancient Chinese arts, yet defined by the cutting-edge
technology of the day.

"People who have grown up in Hong Kong and who can read and write will
have run into his work. His images have been published a zillion times,"
said Alexander Hui Yat-chuen, a curator at the University of Hong Kong
museum and an organizer of the exhibit "A World in Black and White,
Photos by Chen Fuli."

Owing to the university's chronic budget issues and a museum program so
packed that it is booked chockablock with exhibits for the next two
years, the underpublicized but superb show has the regrettably short run
of only a few weeks. It opened on Nov. 9 to little general fanfare and
is scheduled to close Sunday.

The exhibit was mounted in conjunction with the publication of Chen's
latest book, so far only in Chinese. In English called "Tchan Fou-li: My
Heartfelt Poetic Moments" (it doesn't sound as twee in Mandarin), the
hefty volume is a collection of the 89-year-old's photos and essays.

To fully appreciate Chen's art, however, his images must be seen in an
exhibit like "A World in Black and White." It not only showcases dozens
of vintage photographs for which he is most famous, but also provides
context through a display of some of his negatives on a light box, and
the reproduction of the full frames as big, modern digital prints.

The old pictures have an enduring and unparalleled refinement to them.
The machine that can create images with the same quality of tones,
textures and smoothness as that produced in the darkroom has yet to be
made available in the market.

Many of Chen's best-known works are of landscapes and scenes that evoke
the aesthetics and values of traditional Chinese ink painting. His
series of circa-1962 images of Mount Huangshan, a fabled mainland scenic
spot in Anhui Province, clearly references scroll paintings.

In a style favored by artistically inclined Chinese photographers of the
period, Chen wrote his own words and stamped his red ink seal on these
photographs. Sometimes, he would write a poem, just like in traditional
Chinese paintings that are often an amalgamation of verse, calligraphy
and a picture.

One of his favorite photographs was taken the year he came to Hong Kong.
It is of a dog in the once-notorious Triangle Wharf district, where new
immigrants worked unloading food off boats from the mainland. The
weathered cobblestones undulate in a rhythmic pattern, presented from
dark to light grays, and the composition is dramatic.

Chen is now retired and living part-time in China. He says he stopped
taking pictures that he considers "worthy of exhibits" about five years
ago. In an e-mail message typed out in Chinese by a friend, he said: "I
never received formal art training, but my father liked paintings and
calligraphy. I loved paintings but could not paint, photography allowed
me to create pictures."

The meaning and rituals of photography were different in Chen's heyday.
Back then, in so many ways, pictures were "made" rather than "captured."
He would create images with great patience and planning, taking photos
with his medium-format Rollei camera. Sometimes he would combine the
negatives in the darkroom. Chen processed his own film and usually made
his own prints. He controlled what would be the final result by adding
or subtracting elements, cropping, choosing certain techniques over
others and selecting the kind of paper to use. One of the main strengths
of Chen's works is how he used tones like an ink-painting master.

While his approach to photography had never been anything less than
serious, through all the years and all the accolades, he technically
remained an amateur. Chen says: "Using photography to make a living was
not easy then; it was next to impossible." He remained in business to
support his family and his art. "He represents an entire generation of
people from Hong Kong for whom photography was their No. 1 passion
outside of work," said Hui of Hong Kong University.

Chen was admitted as a member to the prestigious China Federation of
Literature and Arts Circle and to the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference. In late October, Chen and his photography were
honored with a symposium held at no less than the Diaoyutai State
Guesthouse, a compound reserved for the use of high-ranking foreign
dignitaries and the mainland's power elite.

Chen was born in 1916 in southern China's Guangdong Province. As a young
man he lived in Vietnam where he set up his own trading enterprise. In
his late 20s, he learned to take pictures. In 1955, a year after the
Geneva Peace Accord split Vietnam into North and South, Chen moved to
Hong Kong, where there was a thriving group of devoted hobby photographers.

Aside from being of delicate beauty, Chen's work also gives plenty to
the cultural history of Hong Kong and China. The hauntingly lovely
"Below Amah Rock," from 1957, is of a local Hong Kong landmark in the
misty distance with a few rustic village buildings and trees in the
foreground; the general area today is densely populated.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/25/features/chen.php

 

__________________

with kind regards,

Matthias Arnold
(Art-Eastasia list)

http://www.chinaresource.org
http://www.fluktor.de

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