Artwork Page for An Actress of Heibei Opera, Huoshentai, Henan Province

Details / Information for An Actress of Heibei Opera, Huoshentai, Henan Province

An Actress of Heibei Opera, Huoshentai, Henan Province

2000

Liu Zheng

(Chinese, b. 1969)
Culture
China, late 20th century
Medium
gelatin silver print
Measurements
Paper: 45.7 x 45.7 cm (18 x 18 in.); Matted: 71.1 x 66 cm (28 x 26 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2012.106
Copyright
Courtesy of the artist and Eli Klein Gallery © Liu Zheng
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Liu Zheng worked for a newspaper in 1991–97, creating images that were supposedly documentary but instead presented a fictional, idealized view of life in China. The burgeoning individual prosperity and increasing openness to the West, meanwhile, was contributing to the rise of the photographer-artist in China, whose work fulfilled personal expressive needs rather than governmental ends. In 1994, Liu took on this new role as he began The Chinese, a seven-year independent project chronicling Chinese society that may have been inspired by German photographer August Sander’s comprehensive catalogue of his country’s people. Like American portraitist Diane Arbus, Liu emphasized dispossessed and marginalized citizens, the type of subjects he had been forbidden to shoot as a photojournalist.
Black-and-white photograph close up to the face of a person in an ornate opera costume, head turned and tilted slightly to their left while their eyes shift sideways to look directly out at us. Wisps of dark hair extend from underneath a headdress adorned with fake jewels, white frills, and beaded flowers. Wispy feathers run diagonally from our left through the person's mouth and down towards the lower right corner.

An Actress of Heibei Opera, Huoshentai, Henan Province

2000

Liu Zheng

(Chinese, b. 1969)
China, late 20th century

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