My Beauty Wang Yiqun
Wang Yiqun, Born in Shanghai, China, is a writer and photographer living in New York City. This project, My Beauty, began in the summer of 2007 and ended in the spring of 2008 with photographs taken in New York City and Nevada. Selected works from this project have been exhibited in New York (4: Photo Group Show, CAAC Gallery 456, 2008) and Shanghai (Goodnight, Beauty, Osage Gallery, 2008). Wang’s An Ordinary Assault Case, published in 2009 was a result of the collaboration of ONEs Press.
© 2011 by Wang Yiqun All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, Wang Yiqun tanksolo@gmail.com
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ONEs Press has dedicated itself to an imagerelated book publishing plan that is based on artists’ collaboration. Its publications could be found on onespress.blogspot.com
...Wang Yiqun’s images seem pure esthetic exercises. First of all, he provides us with a surrealist visual experience. At the same time My Beauty proposes a logical dilemma that challenges the viewer’s common sense. Without a face how could one tell that the woman is a beauty? On his Blog the photographer writes of this group of works: “Whether you turn back or not is one thing. Whether you can turn back or not is another thing. Whether you turn back or not, they are the same thing.” With the first two statements, the author seems to intimate that one can choose in terms of will and capability. With the last statement, however, that capability turns out to be illusory after all. This sounds like an ancient conundrum. What makes the viewer feel uneasy is the logical violence here. Faceless Beauty is the visual manifestation of this abstract violence. What is even more frightening is the fact that the photographer’s exquisite ability of representation is nowhere more apparent than at this despairing moment. Hantao Shi Curator of Rockbund Art Museum Shanghai, China
My Beauty Wang Yiqun
...The portraits are expressionless, and the lost facial details make it all the harder for the viewers to locate the model’s identities. However, the facelessness also implies that there is neither front nor back. The photographer expresses his philosophical view about loss, repentance, persistence, and pessimism, and how the front is the back of the back. …The imperfect and illogical images and the destruction of innocence induce pain, anxiety and even horror among the viewers. As the photographer romantically freezes the beauty onto the film, we could also identify the image of the photographer being “stared at” by the beauty. Ella Liao Curator of Osage Gallery, Shanghai , China …With the barrier of black hair, Wang Yiqun disturbs and prevents people’s communication with the person in the photos, directing their stare to the body itself. Under such an arrangement of visual directions, the viewers are bluntly excluded from the world of a lively human being. The artist not only manages to lock the “beauty”, but also people’s communication channel with the “beauty” and yet he allows the viewers to observe the body more directly. …The relationship between beauty and observation, and the relationship between observation and the body become problematic in front of this unidentifiable and visually blocked face. In short, the artist not only planned our vision, but also our imagination, and through this method, he has eventually achieved the dubious goal of planning people’s desires. …Maybe he wants to question and challenge the dynamics of vision and the politics of observation by examining the issue of the body. Maybe he wants to tell us that human beings are fundamentally all impenetrable others and outsiders. If this is indeed the case, then he has no doubt inspired our imagination on a series of subjects through the autistic images he created. Gu Zheng Professor of Journalism School in Fudan University, Shanghai, China
My Beauty Wang Yiqun