CHINA: 50 Years Inside the People's Republic - Hardcover

Yang, Rae

3.5

6 ratings by Goodreads

9780893818623: CHINA: 50 Years Inside the People's Republic

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0893818623 ISBN 13: 9780893818623

Publisher: Aperture, 1999

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Photographs by Robert Capa, Lois Conner, Stuart Franklin, Zhang Hai-er, Wu Jialin, Wang Jinsong, Hiroji Kubota, Sebasti�o Salgado, Liu Heung Shing, and Others

A stirring tribute to china's land and people, and a lasting vision of the country within.

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Aperture is publishing Imaging China. This magnificent volume unfolds a series of in-depth portfolios by twenty of the most important Chinese and Western photographers of the era, conveying the extent of their involvement in politics, culture, and everyday life. Together with texts by leading thinkers, writings by the photographers, and selections of ancient and modern poetry, this collection offers profound insight into a country that has been closed to the West for more than half of its existence.

Drawn to China by its dramatic upheavals and its rich cultural legacy, the world's greatest photographers offer thrilling proof of the power of photography to explore-and convey-the human experience. From France's Henri Cartier-Bresson, present at the creation of the Republic in 1949, to China's Liu Heung Shing, who chronicled a society in transition following the death of Mao Tse-tung, to Wu Jialin and Stuart Franklin working today, the image makers represented here have created visions of China as broad and diverse as the country and its society. Imaging China is an extraordinary visual exploration of an extraordinary place and time.

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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.

From Booklist:

To mark this anniversary, Aperture has collected the images of 20 Chinese and Western photographers that convey China's political, cultural, and social life and bound those materials together with an essay by Rae Yang (The Spider Eaters, 1997) that discusses China's Communist past and its evolving present. The work is stunning, including the haunting and exhilarating photographs of Robert Capa (e.g., Female Nationalist Army Cadets, 1938) and Owen Lattimore; the captivating immediacy of Lin Heung Shing's work; Sebastiao Salgado's expressionistic compositions; and the painterly images of Hiroji Kirbota. An exhibit of the photographs opened in New York, will travel this month to Canada, and then come back to the U.S. from April 2000 until 2004. Bonnie Smothers

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