When “Group Visual-10” was founded ten years ago, its ten members made the following public statement: “In addition to feeling, modern photography demands scientific technology. Since we are not well to do, and have to keep ourselves busy to eke out our livelihoods, none of us owns a studio. We have large amounts of feeling to dispense. We are not fastidious about whether this is sold at wholesale or retail prices. We dream of owning a modern studio. We don’t want Chinese modern photography to become sallow and emaciated from having to devour feeling, but to gain dimension and become more colorful and healthy. Please try to understand our view, support it, but above all, tolerate it if you can’t accept it. We will prove to you that people will love our work ten years from now.” Their photo exhibition “83 Taipei” is one of many such proofs.
The decade new by in a twinkle. The ten young men, then in their 20s and 30s, have put on weight. Wrinkles sketch upon their foreheads and from the corners of their eyes. Now, most follow successful careers- in art design, architecture, commercial photography, TV news photography, and others. Over the long span of time, they have held photo exhibitions entitled “Womanography,” “Livingraphy,” and “The 76 Photo Show.” The group’s membership has increased as other accomplished’ photographers have joined.
Among the group are such leading local photographers as Chang Chao-tang and Quo Ying Sheng, introduced to our readers in earlier articles, and Hu Yung, Robert Ling, Seiji Chang, L. Chuang, Norman Yeh, Jimmy Z.G. Hsieh, Chou Tung-kuo, Hsieh Chun-teh, Cheng Shen-chih, Lee Chi-hua, Lu Chen-cho, Chang Tan-li, and newly enrolled Lin Bor-liang and Liu Cheng-hsiang. Since Chang Chao-tang staged a one-man exhibition recently at the Spring Gallery, he decided not to participate in “83 Taipei.” Quo Ying Sheng’s works have encountered complicated copyright problems, so he was not involved this time. At any rate, the exhibition (from April 23 to May 8) caused a sensation in local art circles. Its scope was the largest ever, taking in the works of the largest number of photographers in more than three decades of exhibits in this country.
This activity caps V-10’s decade of contribution to the development of local photography, helping in its transformation from the salon to the modernist school. They focused their cameras on the lives and feelings of modern men, when cameras were used only to record things and events. The “10” stress the importance of subjective interpretation, and try very hard to put photography on the plane of painting, music, and other pure art forms. Through their cameras’ eyes they can be sure of the existence of their own egos. They no longer are mere reflections of objects registered by their cameras. They have created tidal trends in local photography. Though many exhibitions were held before V-10, they never became the order of the day. V-10’s impact has induced more young people to join in photographic work.
The social environment of ten years ago naturally brought V-10 into linkage with such other modernizing art forms as literature, painting, and music. V-10’s public statement also said: “We now have modern literature, modern music, modern painting, modern dance and all kinds of modern art, therefore, we cannot live without modern photography. Modernism is cheaper than jelly beans sold at a street corner grocery store. And it is ubiquitous. The jelly beans are crisp, fragrant, sweet, but lack nutrition. If you don’t know what modernism is, come to visit us. We will give you answers.”
It is, perhaps, because of such confidence that they became frontrunners in photographic-art circles.
This year, they had special reasons for titling their exhibition “83 Taipei.” Seiji Chang, 45, explained: “Do not take ‘83 Taipei’ narrowly. Taipei is the interim capital of the Republic of China. Therefore, it represents the spirit of the country. It could represent Taipei citizens’ views of Taipei, of other places on the island, or of the rest of the world.”
For the past seven years, Seiji Chang has engaged himself in art design, but without leaving his love for photography behind. This time he has focused his lens on the problems of the metropolis of Taipei. For instance, he feels the growing threat of an artificial environment. In one of his photos, two empty swings hang above an expanse of artificial turf, their red posts standing guard. Through the strong contrast of colors, Seiji wants to draw public attention.
In his series of photos, Seiji also wishes to alert the public to a too-frequent adoption of Americanized designs. The gorgeously striped patterns of a taxi’s back seats, an emblem on a door at a leading local department store, and an extension of yellow-painted concrete like a long French bread, to help hold back parking cars, are examples.
In other photos, he presents absurdities from everyday life. A short wall in front of a traditional temple is painted white and sprinkled with red paint. A flat mannequin of polished gold represents urban people: though polished outside, they have nothing important inside. A stray cat at a bar on Linshen North Road recalls a poem by Ya Hsuen, in which he claims that this is “an age of cat faces.” A huge key is pegged to the ground to direct attention to a key maker.
To conclude his exhibition, Seiji shot a theater once used for U.S. Navy personnel at Tienmu in the Taipei suburbs. It is 6 a.m. The crisp white wall of the now deserted theater prints againt a navy blue sky. It is rumored that the Taipei American School will be relocated here. “It was a rare moment in the metropolis. The sky was so clear. You could smell the freshness of the air,” Seiji said.
I met the photographers at the Print-makers Gallery as they were busy framing their masterworks. Seiji fell into a pensive mood, then pointed out a young man next to him. “This young man, Liu Cheng-hsiang, is only 20, and he is the newest member of our group.”
Liu, tracing book for me how he first came to pick up a camera, confessed: “When I was a kid, I was really afraid of breaking ‘rules’ in any group activity, because I feared the consequent punishment-everybody looking at me. When I was a student at the department of art design of Fuhsing Commercial and Industrial High School, our class once camped at the seashore. My schoolmates were taking turns singing and dancing for the party. Embarrassed, I chose another type of performance- to take pictures for them-and felt greatly relieved. Later, when I felt uncomfortable in real life, I used my lens to search for yet-unknown satisfaction. Though lasting satisfaction may only be a fantasy, I learned to direct my eyesight to revealing happenings in everyday life. In these photos, I seem to witness my own growing up.”
From Liu’s series, it is evident that he prefers a strong contrast of colors. For instance, he visited Taichung City Park during the Lunar New Year. Some medicine manufactory was staging a public show in the street to promote its products. While two of the female performers were changing costumes backstage, Liu took a picture of them. One of them faces a navy blue plastic tent; the other turns her face sidewise. A peach-blossom plastic rope runs down the picture to the right. The structure is balanced, and the impression strong.
He took a picture of his grandmother using a mirror hanging on a patchy yellow-painted wall, achieving a ghostly atmosphere. “The great difference of age between us made a display of the generation gap inevitable. I didn’t exactly know how to catch her characteristics. But taking her in the mirror helps bring out the feeling of the gap between us,” Liu said.
Even while recording such scenic spots as Pitouchiao, Yangmingshan, Butterfly Valley in Kaohsiung-or even props in a studio-Liu wants to make sure that the audience will not forget easily. On the coast at Pitouchiao, a fluorescent lamp turns a highway green, and it is printed against dark green grass and a purple sky. The road seems to lead to nowhere. A red ladder in the studio stands out vividly in the darkness. The window of a hotel in Kaohsiung picks up colors to look somewhat like stained glass in a church.
Liu emphasizes that he finds his inspirations in daily life. One day he walked by a small alley at Shihlin in suburban Taipei. He focused on a piece of red-cloth hanging in front of a red brick house. As he was about to press down on the shutter, a pedestrian came by and curiously turned his head to look at the red cloth, perhaps wondering what was so great about it. “His curiosity makes my picture,” Liu grinned.
Liu attributes his achievements to training under Hsieh Chun-teh, 34, a leading photographer who favors a disreputable moustache, despite which, local critics claim, his works are most refined and delicate.
In one of Hsieh’s photos, a Peking opera actor puts on makeup under a green light. He skillfully places a red dot right between the eyebrows. The actor’s artistic complexion reflects his affirmation of traditional Chinese culture.
In his series, Hsieh wants to spotlight the process of modernization. “Modernization here tends to neglect the spirit of Chinese culture,” he said. “Through these photos, I want to rearouse the excellent spirit and tradition of Chinese folk art. Under the impact of Western civilization, we notice both good and bad effects. Though it may take a long time, we must learn to keep what is good and cast off what is bad.”
Hsieh has a special love for green—in an old-style studio, on the corner of an old house, or on a temporary bus stop at Tungpu—all disseminate a wierd green light.
Whenever Hsieh takes pictures in distant places, he warns himself not to bring too much equipment. However, once he steps out of the door, he discovers that all possible accessories have been placed in his bag.
“Such results always bring on remorse. The burden on my shoulders and neck grows heavier as I go on, and all can do is to plunge ahead.
“When I take a break, I want to exchange all the equipment on my body for light, soft, and dense foliage. It can give me shade, too. If there is ever a time when I only have to bring along my ‘heart’ to take pictures, I will be greatly blessed,” he said.
Chang Chao-tang grouped the works of the three into one category-a fallen, surrealistic world. Four photographers—Hu Yung, Robert Ling, L. Chuang, and Jimmy Hsieh—belong to another category:
Hu Yung, 55, is the oldest member of the group. He claims that “in recent years, I have avoided taking pictures of people, because I find it difficult to find people worthy of photographing.” He focuses instead on the details of flowers, especially as set off by glass-like raindrops. While he finds the quality of his fellow beings degraded, he has discovered a haven in flowers. Chang Chao-tang said: “The rational and scientific Hu Yung now presents his tender and romantic side to the public.”
When Hu discovered that even macro lenses failed to bring out the detail he wanted, he decided to put together his own camera. As under a microscope, we can now see sparkling mist droplets stationed on the tips of each leaf hair. “I want the audience to see what they cannot perceive with the naked eye,” he asserted.
After playing with cameras for dozens of years, Hu believes, “Where there is no technology, there is no art or culture.” But it is only in the past two years that he began to try his lens on small things. “It’s a matter of cultural levels,” he smiled. “The smaller the thing I see, the better the quality.” He admitted, however, that age has had a great impact on his photographer’s eyesight. “Now, I am both near and far sighted, and I have to be prepared with two or three pairs of eyeglasses,” he claimed.
In his statement, he made it clear that “via simple scientific equipment, photography helps A see what B has seen. Thus it naturally became a medium for people-to-people communication. It doesn’t matter if such communication is a poem, a painting, a photo, a long essay, a record, or a lyric.”
Robert Ling has been professionally engaged in art design. A magazine entitled Century Photo once cheered for him, saying his physically handicapped body did not influence his joy as a human being. His optimism is aided by his choice of a camera as his boon companion. The click of a shutter helps him forget all his griefs and sorrow.
Robert Ling’s professional insight and judgement pierce the structure of metropolitan scenes via various details, such as the corners of apartment buildings. In the bustling modernity of Taipei, glass high-rises tower over rushing crowds of cars. To contrast new and old buildings, Ling zooms in on the roof of a low old house, printing it against bright white high-rises. Another photo celebrates a red sedan parked at a night market. The sparkling neon lights reflecting from its windows extoll its own color and lines.
Ling declared: “I mentioned at the ‘Womanography’ exhibit held in 1971 that the camera was my heart and eyes as well as a tool for my creative work. Today, I still hold this view.
“Via lenses and films, I conduct all kinds of visual groupings for the Taipei in which I have lived for nearly 30 years. Since I engage, also, in graphic and interior design, I pay special attention to the visual design in our environment. Therefore, I focus on architecture, cars, patterns, and colors. I wish to discover the essence of Taipei’s modern face.”
L. Chuang, 43, reflects an attitude exactly contradicting the views of Hu Yung: “Technology is not important; ideology and concept is. You must learn to take your viewpoints from everyday life.”
In this exhibition, the Taipei caught in Chuang’s lenses runs from close-ups of bus-ticket street stands to billboards, from waterdrops on clothes-racks to dilapidated traces in corners of a room, from the reflection on a pond to the reflections on, also, car windows.
His statement reflects a deep sense of mission: “This exhibition means a lot to me. The close links among our group members help trigger each individual’s creative drive. And, I have started to show my concern for society. I hope through these works, I will be able to get involved and participate in this time and space. Outwardly, I still adhere to the ideal they represent—modern aesthetics. I want to propose, though, a certain degree of recording, reflection, and judgment relative to this environment and age.”
Chuang pointed out, for instance, that ticket stands are the epitome of modern culture. Their no-nonsense windows display a gallery of cigarettes—President, Long Life, Kent-no doubt reflecting the modern way of life, its most real culture and sense of values.
One rainy day, he took a picture of a group of cars from inside a taxi. “Some of the cars' tail lights were on. The cars may be blue, and the trees green, but they are all out of focus. Though this a real happening in Taipei, the result is entirely abstract,” Chuang explained.
My favorite photo was of a torn poster glued to a yellow wall. Somehow, it also manifests an abstract feeling.
The simple structure of another photo, featuring three empty clothes-racks densely covered with raindrops, also impresses. “Plastics are typical of modern culture. You may notice that the iron structural wires, inside their blue, white, and pink wrappings, are beginning to rust. The clothes lines are plastic also,” Chuang said.
Chang Chao-tang gestured towards the exhibits: “We are familiar with, but careless about these things. After putting them together on the walls, we recall some leisurely but distant part of our lives, vague but moving confessions. In the midst of the yellow night scene near the bronze statue on Tunhua Road, we can rest our tiring feet along with Chuang, and enjoy moments of peacefulness and sweetness.”
Jimmy Hsieh, 45, claims that he has the longest experience in photography among group members because his father was the first to study the subject in Japan. Hsieh is currently shooting commercials for television. “I took all these pictures while locating suitable places for commercials,” he confessed.
Chang Chao-tang said of him: “What open-minded Jimmy Hsieh looked for are sky and clouds, a cross light and solitary trees, water and a horizon-such a serene and eternal small world. It definitely is the final resort from the bustle of civilization and the pollution of commercials.”
Among his exhibited series are two views from Penghu Island. One is of a time-worn castle-like structure. “Just like me, old, decayed. But the sky is as blue as ever and the white clouds still fly by,” Hsieh shrugged.
On the past Tomb-Sweeping Day, Hsieh was heading back to his birthplace in Miaoli County to pay the ritual respects to his ancestors. It was raining hard. He focused his camera on the solid structures along a highway. “It represents Taipei today-with hard, heavy, cold and gray buildings.”
A photo entitled “83 Taipei-January, February, and March” is lyric. He woke up at daybreak in a hotel in Tainan while on a trip to shoot some commercials there. Drawing open the curtain, he found morning mist deposited on the window panes.
In a public statement, he said: “I think photography is nothing! It’s just painting with lights. Feelings dominate my life- my visual sense in particular.”
Chang Chao-tang pointed out that the four seem to share a special love for kaleidoscopic changes of light and shadows.
For the trio consisting of Lin Bor-liang, Lee Chi-hua, and Cheng Shen-chih, the goal is capturing a dense humanistic message and social conscious ness from quickly turning and moving objects.
Cheng Shen-chih is the only one to receive a higher education in the art of photography. After obtaining an M.A. degree in photography in New York, he traveled across the American continent and worked at a studio in Los Angeles. Lee Chi-hua, who majored in cinema arts, also worked for a TV company in L.A.
The world of Lee’s lenses, be it desert, tourist spot, or an urban shop, is dominated by a dim hue. Even though the sun shines, and though people smile right into the lenses, Lee’s loneliness is self-evident.
Through his eyes, we see a duck looking out from behind a nearly closed window. Underneath it, a road sign announces, “Don Gaspar Av.,” and we see a corner of a white door frame. It seems that the red wall, the purple window panes, and the blue window frames have all been washed in age.
We also see a soldier, armed with all kinds of weaponry, standing in the shade of a wall, clearly weighted down by the great burden. And we see the encounter of some mechanics and a child, standing listlessly on a roadside.
His comment: “The progress of time and changes in space cannot shift the shadows of my works, except perhaps that we now have sharper and more sensitive visual sensors. Though I was abroad, my creations are Oriental and Chinese.”
Cheng Shen-chih also looks at New York with an “alienated” view. His outlook on the city is lightly out of focus, moving, and blurred. Strange design and colors, lamplight in the dust and smog in the streets, all present a surrealistic intensity. Looking in on an eatery through a frosty windowpane, we see adults and a child putting on heavy coats, sitting, standing, or chitchatting alongside a U-shaped white snack bar—the feeling is “so far and so near.”
We also realized Cheng’s facility at catching the grandest moment, which may escape in a twinkle, such as a back shot of a lady’s hair blown upward in a sea wind, and the frozen moment when the doves take off.
Some of his well-structured photos smack strongly of classical flavor- probably because he received a higher academic education in this field. Several people releasing doves in a square, then some women in long gowns in front of classical buildings, remind the viewer of Renaissance paintings.
Cheng said simply of his photography: “It is my work and a notebook of everyday life.”
Lin Bor-liang, 31, a frequent photographic contributor to the Free China Review, was the only exhibitor to use “people” as a motif. Through human beings he wants to emphasize the resilience and episodic aspects of everyday life.
The titles of a series of his photos-Birth, Suspicion, Growing Up, Progression, Fate, Thinking of Chen Ta, Courage to Face Life, Hsi Teh-chi’s Last Day, Vicissitudes in Human Affairs, A Peaceful and Solemn Old Lady at Dona Village, An Old Grandmother on a Small Train to Peikang, and Everything Will Be Over-all speak his mind loudly.
First we see a new-born baby-purple face, eyes closed, mouth agape. “I was moved by the baby, sucking milk from its mother’s nipple in the small town of Peikang. When I lifted my camera, though, the young mother shied away. This is how this photo came into being,” explained Lin.
His most impressive photo is “Suspicion,” of a little wizard’s face painted in red, black, green, and yellow. A close-up of his mischievous eyes dramatizes the sinister effect of superstition on country folk. Some such parents were so ignorant that they sent their children to him to be transformed into “God immortal’s” descendants and so to improve their physical condition. “This strong image, captured on the birthday of Matsu in Peikang, is the nuclear case for my choosing photography as my career. That was 1977,” Lin said.
In the picture entitled “Fate,” a blind woman in sun-glassess and a red and green sports suit, a purse in one hand, stands on the walkway of a building, waiting for someone to pick her up. Her dominant red, black, and green colors make you feel that there is no exit, no escape in life.
In “Thinking of Chen Ta,” we see a magnificent use of contrast. Wrinkles creep all over the Matreya-like face of a man dozing off in the warm sunlight. A pair of diving glasses resis on his forehead.
“The old folk singer eventually bowed his head to the goddess of fate. His child died an early death. After braving the ups and downs of life, he was left alone, unattended. We went to see him one Lunar New Year. He suffered from daydreaming in his last years, and always fantasized that his enemies would soon take revenge. So he put on the diving glasses as a disguise, to ensure a sound sleep. It’s a pity; he later died a tragic death in a car accident. And along with his death all folk songs have become out of tune,” Lin said.
“Lin’s clear-cut photography provides an external change with internally strong spirit. Standing in front of his messages, we can only lament human nature, its very moving beauty,” said Chang Chao-tang.
Lin said of himself: “Photography has become part of my life, like music. It can calm my disordered heart. Photography can also bring me different kinds of happiness-one to receive, the latter to give. Both help me grow up.
“People say that a man has to be responsible for his own ‘face’ after the age of 30. The photos exhibited this time have become part of my own face—let them be the souvenir for my first 30 years of life.”
Norman Yeh, Chou Tung-kuo, Lu Chen-cho, and Chang Tang-li flaunt the exhibit’s fourth dimension. They want to relieve their ideas of art design of their workshop boundaries.
Norman Yeh’s posing of plastic mannequins amid craggy mountains and scenic coastal areas is similar to Chou Tung-kuo’s pouring egg yolk on flower petals and bananas. Both contain evident sexual implications. “Original coarseness and conflict seem to create a monotonous confession-so bloodless and unreachable,” Chang suggested.
Lu Chen-cho’s black and white photos of posed models are not as impressive as his colored work-a hesitant evocation of complexion under swinging light bulbs, which send out a more vitalized strength.
Chang Tang-Ii develops his colored overlook with a monochrome of light brown and an uneven black bracket. They create a pure c1eaness, an elegant melody.
The 14 photographers in this exhibit press the shutter with self-confidence in their own ideologies and calculation. Every step of their creative work is experiment, a groping for profound direction. Though it is evident that many a photo at the gallery lacked sufficient strength to stand alone, in series they create considerable effect.
According to Chang Chao-tang, each individual’s basic tone was harmonized and unified in the exhibit. Here we could see the strength of each character, the distance of his objective, and the extent of his efforts. Their 14 perceptions provided 14 different experiences and observations of 14 spaces and times. This was a visual feast in May 1983.