Evolution And Construction: A Research On China's Contemporary Photography (1976-2010)

As is known to all, since 1976 a big revolution has taken place in China's social structure, culture and artistic arena, during which photography, a visual medium, has been playing an essential role. With the passage of time and social progress, photography with Chinese characteristics, distinctly different from the west, has taken shape. Looking back into the past century, photography has brought huge impact on the transformation of Chinese people's traditional visual experience. However, lack of attention to the valuable cultural resource makes it a blind spot in the research of fine art history. Since 1976, China's contemporary photography has not only engaged in the overall context of contemporary cultural account but also become a new genre in the contemporary artist arena. Today, it is hard to imagine photography is excluded from a large-scale art exhibition or photo biennial and triennial.The dissertation is a decoding of China's contemporary photography since 1976, among which "Documentary Photography", "Conceptual Photography" and the recent "retro movement in photography" are the highlight, deserving to be deeply explored. Based on the observation of photography vs. social reality, and photography vs. art, against the background of 30 years of reform and opening up, the thesis discusses how photography is involved in the context of contemporary cultural accounts and social construction as an effective cultural, social and artistic carrier; It also explores how Chinese people reconstruct their relations with the reality and their self-being through photography, and reflect upon the two movements of "Documentary Photography" and "Conceptual Photography", in order to signify the realistic importance of "retro movement in photography". The purpose of writing is to produce a photographic theoretical framework and writing model through analyzing Chinese people's learning process of photography so as to contribute to researches on China's contemporary art and photography.The dissertation is composed of three parts. The first part analyzes how photography is transformed from a national ideology to a grass root form of account with the focus on the period between 1976 and 1989. The second part makes a deep exploration of the movements of "Documentary Photography" and "Conceptual Photography" with the focus on the 1990s. The third part summarizes development of the first ten years of this century and probes some new phenomenon and problems. Then conclusion is followed.