Arts Listings

Wang Gangfeng Photos of China at Alta Galleria

By Robert McDonald, Special to the Planet
Friday June 29, 2007

A dense and dazzling, vertically and horizontally rectilinear installation of color photographs by contemporary Chinese artist Wang Gangfeng awaits visitors at the entrance to Alta Galleria in Berkeley (2980 College, Suite #4, near Ashby Avenue). The show closes July 10. 

Additional color and random black-and-white photographs fill the other walls of the gallery. The self-taught artist escaped from a job at the Shanghai Net and Rope Factory, where he was expected to spend the remainder of his working life, in 1980, when his sister gave him a camera. He knew then that the camera would be his career and that the common people of China would be the focus of his interest. 

The images throughout the exhibition are as varied as the dishes of a Chinese banquet. Indeed, one of the most engaging is that of a group of young women gathered at a table to enjoy a meal together. Those of us who live here at the Portal to Asia may vicariously enjoy the flavors, fragrances, textures and colors that have the attention of the young women. 

Other subjects are farmers’ markets; village rooftops; a young woman carrying baskets on a yoke crossing her shoulders; a mass of bicycles moving to the viewers’ right except for one in the middle moving perversely to the left; a girl holding clumps of fiber; cityscapes; young Buddhist monks frolicking; and other subjects typical of China. Wang, who has exhibited internationally, has enjoyed great commercial success as well as critical acclaim. All of his photographs, which he prints himself, possess a grace and authenticity characteristic of a committed artist, as, for example, the sinuous, curvilinear forms of a rice paddy.  

The finest work of art in the exhibition (to my eye) is a black-and-white image of an urban scavenger bent double beneath an immense load of empty containers on his back, presumably destined for recycling. The subject and those passing him in the street seem indifferent to the noble poetry he conveys. A comparison to the great photographer of American distress Dorothea Lange comes easily to mind. 

At an opposite pole is Wang’s black-and-white image of two boys, about five years of age, sitting on the first of several ascending stone steps. Their grins from ear to ear are totally seductive. This is, incidentally, Wang’s most popular photograph in China. The artist did not come by the boys’ pose easily. One of the boys was recalcitrant until his father said, “If you smirk, you don’t have to go to school today.” 

The exhibition of photographs by Wang Gangfeng at Alta Galleria has had a long gestation period. When Alta Gerry visited Shanghai six years ago, it had not yet occurred to her that she might become the owner of an art gallery. Nevertheless, when she visited Wang’s studio, ironically named “The Gang of One” for China’s foremost freelance photographer, in contrast to the infamous “Gang of Four,” she was immediately seduced by his work, recently organizing this exhibition which continues through July 12. 

 

Photograph: Photographer Wang Gangfeng’s varied images of China, including “Weight,” above, and “Swamp,” below, are on display at the Alta Galleria.