At the gallery of the American Cultural Center on Nanhai Road, photographer Hsu Hung-yih's striking exhibit, "Images of Artists," provides the answer depicting a black-and-white world of contemporary Chinese painters, musicians, dancers, and writers.
The 27-year-old Hsu was graduated from National Central University just two years ago. Although he also studied briefly with photographer Wu Chia-pao, he speaks mostly of self-training—of hundreds of rolls of film wasted just mastering control of Kodak's "grey card."
He was among 24 artists selected this year for exhibition at the Center (from over 80 candidates); this was his second major exhibition. A book of his works, Images of Writers, was just released by the Erh Ya Publishing Company.
Versatile Peking Opera star Hsia Hua-ta.
Hsu's artist-subjects for the black-and-white exhibit ranged from the young and avante garde to the old and venerated. Actually, the exhibit (of over fifty works) could be said to be a pictorial Who's Who of the Taiwan intelligentsia: Ju Ming, perhaps the ROC's most famous sculptor; poet Shang Chin, whose image emerges amid grey pipe smoke, swirling around his head; architectural designer Wang Wing-hung.
Painter-writer Hsi Sung is represented by a pair of hands alone. Hsia Hua-ta retains touches of makeup that accent his acting prowess in female roles in Peking Opera. Wizened old painter Liu Chi-wei is forceful, smiling from behind seas of experience.
Elderly writer-critic-calligrapher Tai Jing-nung, seated beside a vase in his Japanese-style home and wearing the traditional scholar's robe, appears to be the ultimate traditional Chinese. A deeply lined chin and full pouches under the eyes form a compelling patchwork composition. Despite his rumpled hair, Tai's entirely self-possessed and prepossessing gaze seems to say: "No matter what you do, it won't affect me."
Actor Sun Yueh, with a famous alter ego.
Writer Lung Ying-tai, author of a best-selling book of social criticism, sits beside a row of delicate white chairs. Lung, who expresses herself as a strong, opinionated woman in this sensitive, spacious portrait, appears anything but confrontational. Glancing to the side, one hand extending outside the frame of the picture, she almost reaches to the observer.
Popular actor and comedian Sun Yueh, with his dark eyebrows, wavy hair, and characteristic grin, is echoed by a cardboard Charlie Chaplin, frowning in the background, which emphasizes their similar comic goals and underlying sense of tragedy.
Director Yu Kan-ping, whose works include some of the most daring in contemporary Chinese films, looks serious, discriminating, and, above all, determined. Even his wireframe glasses, reflecting and deflecting fight, lend to the certainty of the portrait.
"The portrait photographer depends upon another person to complete his picture," Hsu holds. "As Richard Avedon once said, 'The subject imagined, which in a sense is me, must be discovered in someone else willing to take part in a fiction he cannot possibly know about."'
Writer Li Ang—Vulnerable.
The portrait photographer indulges his personal vision of the subject, Hsu explains, without regard for public opinion: "One of the most difficult aspects of photographing such famous people is the need, sometimes, to break the public's preconceived images of them."
Two examples of such image-breaking are in the portraits of Lin Hwai-min and Li Ang. Choreographer Lin Hwai-min, known as a harsh critic, innovator, and perfectionist, has in the past often been photographed as brooding, distant-behind glass walls. Hsu's portrait has Lin smiling exuberantly, jolting the viewer's preconceived sensibility.
Li Ang, the outspoken feminist writer whose heroines take a tough stand against men, is confrontational, yet vulnerable. Her direct, unflinching stare is softened by the hand supporting her chin and the way a light background frames her face.
Perhaps the most moving photo in the collection is of writer Chung Chao-cheng, influenced much by a Japanese education and considered by some to be Taiwan's Kawabata). The superb lighting, beautiful, sad eyes, and furrowed brow all haunt the observer.
Writer Chung Chao-cheng—Posing.
Is this sadness or merely resignation? "This was photographed in silence," Hsu responds. "I didn't know what M r. Chung was thinking." Hsu's portrait has delved beyond the texture of the writer's face into the well of human existence-into art.
Musician and composer Ma Shui-lung's portrait is an exception-a color shot. Ma's eyes glare in artistic defiance, but vie with his sensitive hands and black cuff-buttons for ultimate domination of the photo. Photographer Hsu caught Ma in the creative act-he was actually composing part of a symphony when the picture was shot.
"You have to be a person before you are an artist," Hsu Hung-yih ponders, "and the photographer himself must first live and experience before holding his camera to anything."