Exhibition Review of The Story of Light and Shadow: 20th Century Chinese Photography from Huang Jianpeng's Collection

Abstract

The following article reviews a collection of photography on view at an exhibition named The Story of Light and Shadow: 20th Century Chinese Photography from Huang Jianpeng's Collection at the National Art Museum of China. Though an exhibition on Chinese photography, it included a sizable collection of Tibet-related photographs taken by early Han Chinese photographers during the early 20th century. Through a brief review of existing scholarship on photography of Tibet and a close reading of the works of Zhuang Xueben, one of the earliest Han Chinese photographers who took photos in Tibetan regions, we see how images produced during the early 20^th century in Tibet are coded with layered agencies and complex motivations. Preliminarily contextualizing Zhuang Xueben’s photo-taking aspirations, I argue that early photographers of Tibet are embodiments of complex, overlapping and if not yet incongruous motivations – a complication of their own independent perspectives and professional responsibilities under the larger contextual influence from the society and its aspirations.