China: The Photographs of Lois Conner - Hardcover

Geremie Barme; Lois Conner

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 093511257X ISBN 13: 9780935112573

Publisher: Callaway, 2000

Synopsis

Presents the photographer's fifteen years of work in China, during which she captured on landscape-sized film the nation's ancient and geological terrains as well as its contemporary social and political upheavals.

About this title

From Booklist:

Conner arrived in China on the first of many journeys in 1984, cherishing an affinity for traditional scroll paintings. Hoping to create images that emulated the scrolls' striking blend of pristine detail and panoramic scope, she used a seven-by-seventeen-inch banquet camera (quite a bulky contraption to haul across the rugged countryside and through bustling cities), but her stunning black-and-white photographs--printed full-size on fine paper with a platinum process that gives them, in her words, an "ethereal subtlety"--ended up being far more mysterious and complex. Each lustrous image, whether it depicts the abruptly vertical mountains of Guangxi, or a profusion of lotus leaves, or a group portrait, draws the eye deeper and deeper as it discloses layer after layer of reflections and shadows. Conner has climbed to great heights to frame immense vistas of breathtaking, even divine beauty, and focused on a more human scale to absorb tactile nuances, achieving at every range a remarkable and thrilling degree of dimensionality and drama. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Library Journal:

Since 1985, Conner has hauled a 40-pound banquet camera around China. This camera produces 7" x 17" negatives, which give her a panoramic view of the large, visually complex nation. The foreword by Jonathan Spence (sinology, Yale Univ.) is both an appreciation of Conner's work and a useful guide to the politics, culture, and economics that lie beneath her photographs. China, as presented here, is both a dusty relic and a carelessly patched together place full of dangling wires, unfinished projects, and flimsy-looking architecture that is an enduring eyesore. The Chinese, who move in and out of these images, are not camera shy; they appear ready for the modern world while often dwelling where it intersects with a muddy path through a shantytown. There is little beauty here, but there are carefully composed and lovingly textured images of a China that has mysteries yet to be revealed. Conner has made an important visual contribution for all Westerners interested in China. Expensive but recommended.DDavid Bryant, New Canaan Lib., CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Callaway
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 093511257X
• ISBN 13: 9780935112573
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 152