Images taken by Taiwanese photographer Chang Tsai 張才(1916-1995) in Shanghai between 1942-46.
Chang was a pioneer of photography in Taiwan. In 1934 his brother arranged for him to study photography in Japan and on his return to Taiwan in 1936, he opened the Ying Xin Photography Studio on Taiyuan Road in Taipei City. Between 1942 and 1946, Chang traveled to Shanghai three times in the 1940s and documented the urban street scenes of Shanghai during that era. After the Chinese Nationalist government moved to Taiwan following their defeat in the Chinese Civil War, he was unable to return to Shanghai, and instead took part in field survey of Taiwan’s indigenous people with anthropologists, and took a celebrated series of photos of the aborigines and Lanyu Island.
Image 2: Condiment Shop (1943), Shanghai. Collection of Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
Image 3: Pawnbroker, Shanghai, 1942-1946
Images via: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, pabloli
Robert Rauschenberg’s draft of a statement on photography
(Source: robertrauschenberg, via photographsonthebrain)
KAO Chung-li (高重黎)
Slideshow Cinema II (幻燈簡報電影系列II) , 2012
Mark Lewis, We Are The World (You Are The Third World), 1988
from the book Oppositions: Commitment and cultural identity in contemporary photography from Japan, Canada, Brazil, The Soviet Union and The Netherlands, 1990
Cover image is a parodic reference/critique to Edward Steichen’s 1955 landmark exhibition The Family of Man.
This catalogue of the second Fotografie Biënnale Rotterdam shows the latest developments in documentary ’committed’ photography from Japan, Canada, Brazil, the Soviet Union, and the Netherlands.
Forty photographers were selected by the Biënnale’s curator, Bas Vroege, to illustrate the theme ’critical contemporary photography’. The choice from each of the above countries was not only based on an assumed social commitment stemming from economic dependence, political repression, or cultural oppression. Curiosity regarding the unknown, and the degree of cultural isolation in which more traditional forms of photography could be preserved, also played a role when making the selection. This lavishly illustrated catalogue, which contains introductory essays by Bas Vroege, Gosewyn van Beek, Linda Roosenburg, and John Tayler, comprises an extensive selection of photographs from the five countries.
