"Wang Shuzhou: Chinese rural images in the 1970s" photography works Appreciation
"Wang Shuzhou: Chinese rural images in the 1970s" is a record of the basic appearance of photographer Wang Shuzhou of the rural society in the 1970s. He used systematic video language to tell the story of several major historical events that happened thirty or forty years ago in the rural Henan where he lived, Huixian , as well as the people at the center of the incident. These images bring that distant era into the current vision and build people's concrete memories and thoughts about that era.
China's 1970s was a decade full of crisis and turbulent. It continued under the shadow of the "Cultural Revolution" that began in the mid-1960s, and was constantly facing more disasters, more chaotic political and power struggles. As the basis of Chinese social form, rural society is also difficult to resist the progressive and straightforward approach of political movements. The traditional rural life of farmers is brought into an excited and insolent situation by the slogan "Yugong moved mountains and transformed China". Huixian, Henan Province, located at the southern foot of the Taihang Mountains by Wang Shuzhou, can be regarded as a microcosm of China's rural areas in this era. The red flags, slogans and the critical movement that appeared in the photos injected formalistic fanaticism into this region. The feat of fighting against the sky and the earth under the guidance of bold slogans has become a landmark picture of rural China in this era. However, for poor farmers, fighting for survival with their hands and simple tools is their more substantial demand for getting rid of their destiny of poverty than for political propaganda. The photos record that the people of Huixian County, relying on iron hammers, steel drills, baskets, and wheelbarrows, digging holes when they meet mountains, building bridges when they meet rivers, building dams to store water, changing soil to build fields, greening barren mountains, and building railways, "rearranging Huixian's rivers and mountains." The tenacity and courage shown by these living individuals in the struggle to conquer and transform nature exists independently of political expression. Although the photos are filled with obvious ideological colors, a large part of the scenes and the expressions and movements of the characters have been deliberately designed and arranged, this form has been internalized as the way people viewed and expressed at that time. If you look at this connection as a whole, you can feel a bantering and funny contrast between the optimistic and uplifting emotions in the photos and the heavy era background that people were carrying at that time. The knowing and positive smile and serious figure also appear profound because of the difficult sense of the times.
Through these photos, we can look back at the suffering and shocks experienced in rural China in the 1970s, and also find a historic response in today's real life. Therefore, we can better understand why that dark era pushed the demand for social change and transformation to the inevitability. It was at the end of this decade that the rational light that broke free from the hyper-fanity and finally returned to people's understanding of values and truth that China embarked on the journey of reform and opening up in through doubts and reflections. Wang Shuzhou's photos retain visual memory of that era and provide a reference for our current understanding of the historical process. The people and slogans in the photo are out of place with the current development, and it is in this strong sense of distance that traces of historical fluctuations have been deposited, which is also the power of image records.
Review the past and learn the new, and history always advances in change.
Photographer profile
Wang Shuzhou was born in Huixian, Henan Province in 1951. In 1970, he was transferred to the Huixian Revolutionary Culture Propaganda Station. Under the guidance of Zhou Zhenhua and Wang Shilong, he began to learn photography, traveling between various water conservancy and transportation construction sites and political activity venues, and then started his photography career. In 1985, he joined the Chinese Photographers Association and was admitted to the Department of Art Photography of Shenyang Luxun Academy of Fine Arts. In 1988, we began to focus on shooting the folk customs and natural scenery of Taihang Mountain. In 2007, the exhibition of "The Militia of the 1970s" on Pingyao International Photography Exhibition . In 2008, the works "The Taihang Mountain Man in the Fields of the Wasteland" and "The Militia of the 1970s" were shot at the Beijing Huachen Spring Auction."Group Portraits of the Seventies" were exhibited at the 2009 Pingyao International Photography Exhibition and the 2011 Los Angeles Photography Festival. In 2012, he published the album of "China Rural Image Report in the 1970s" and won the 2012 Pingyao Photography Festival Outstanding Photography Album Award.
works Appreciation
Yugong professional team members listen to important news on China Radio. In 1976,
studied and implemented Chairman Mao’s latest instructions.
construction in 1971.
young students were at the memorial service. In 1973, the first Shi Girl team was formed in the
floor village. In 1973, the militia of Huixian Foundry conducted sports shooting training. 1975
Huixian Machinery Factory Communication Militia. In 1975,
, the first medium-sized reservoir in Huixian, Chenjiayuan Reservoir. The dam is 80 meters high, 205 meters long, and has a total storage capacity of 13.7 million cubic meters. A group photo of migrant workers who built fields in wasteland in 1972. In 1974,
Hongzhoucheng land construction site criticized the "Gang of Four". In 1976,
militia in Guo Liang used the unique geographical location of the Taihang Mountains to conduct mountain shooting training. In 1974,
fought in Hongzhou City, and swearing to turn the deserted beach into a fertile land. 1973
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