The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 24, 2025
Third Front—Train
2006
Location: Not on view
Description
In the 1960s, Mao Zedong ordered construction of the Third Front: a massive build-up of military and industrial manufacturing in remote areas of southwest China. In the 1980s, when the Cold War ended and China shifted its focus from defense to economic development, those factories and towns were largely abandoned. Early in his career, architect Chen Jiagang designed and built an atomic plant on the Third Front. After he turned to photography in 2001, his first major series used the Third Front ghost towns as the settings for staged, theatrical scenes. Young women dressed in cheongsam (form-fitting dresses popular in China from the1920s to the 1940s) wander through mid-century industrial ruins, serving as spirits of an even more distant past.- "Exhibitions Through November 2025.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 65, no. 3 (2025): 16-17. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 17 archive.org
- Refocusing Photography: China at the Millenium. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 8-November 16, 2025).
- {{cite web|title=Third Front—Train|url=false|author=Chen Jiagang|year=2006|access-date=24 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2012.114