Xiao Quan is known as "the best portrait photographer in China". He archived the statues of a large number of cultural celebrities born in the 1950s and 1960s and became famous in the 1980s, and the freeze frame of Sanmao, Yang Liping, Gu Cheng, Cui Jian, Jiang Wen and others has long been an indelible image memory. With a single photography, he made "easy to know" a name that haunts the dreams of countless people. The poet Bai Hua "warned" him, "Xiao Quan, you should not easily take a picture of a person, because who you take it for must be the best photo in this person's life." Today, 62-year-old Xiao Quan has begun to photograph guangzhounese.
On September 19th, "Imagine the New Yangcheng Together - Portrait Photography Exhibition of Xiao Quan in the 2021 Era" will be opened at the Huahua Theater of Guangzhou Vanke Huadiwan Life Museum, and will be on display until October 20. On the evening of September 15, at the invitation of curator and famous photographer Chen Ruijun, Nandu reporters met with Xiao Quan at the Baiyun Hotel in Guangzhou. At that time, he had just finished filming in Yunnan, and excitedly used his mobile phone to show the Huaping female high school principal Zhang Guimei he had photographed - under Xiao Quan's lens, the winner of the "July 1st Medal" looked relaxed, exuding girlish curiosity and tranquility.
Xiao Quan no longer needs to use photography to prove himself, for him, photography is a tool for communication with the world. In recent years, he has photographed zhang Guimei, Sichuan Airlines "heroic captain" Liu Chuanjian, "contemporary fool" Huang Dafa and other Chinese pushed the spiritual coordinates, but also with his feet throughout the city, with more than a hundred pieces a day to record the "vegetarian", hoping to eventually assemble into a big book. He said: "I think this is really a very special era, not only for China, but for the whole of mankind to work together to face." As a photographer, I want to turn on the camera lens, go inside ordinary people, record what they are thinking and doing, and maybe wait until 100 years later. ”
Xiao Quan.
Back to Guangzhou
Stopping in Guangzhou for this night, Xiao Quan said that he had considered it for a long time: do you want to stay in baiyun hotel, or Jiangnan Hotel?
He is nostalgic for the past, his memory is surprisingly good, and the city has so many memories to pursue.
Located at the junction of Gangnam Avenue and Changgang Road, the Jiangnan Hotel (now known as the Rosedale Hotel) was where he first met "Master" Mark Lü Bu. The young Xiao Quan repeatedly read Frank Hova's Dialogue with the Master of Photography, which read: "If a person who came down from Mars, or a person from the 3rd century AD, ask me, what happened on Earth in the 20th century?" I'll show him a picture of Bresson. If he asks again, what's next? I'll show him a picture of Mark Lübbe. So when he heard that the Western photographer, who had been allowed to enter China since 1957, was about to visit China again and was looking for a Chinese photographer who knew English or French as an assistant, he quit his job at Modern Photography magazine and immersed himself in English, and finally got the beauty of his words and deeds.
"I had no idea that my life's photography would start in Guangzhou, with my acquaintance with Mark Lü bu." Xiao Quan still remembers that when he first met at the Jiangnan Hotel in 1993, the old man had silver hair and turned 70 years old a week, "At that time, just by seeing him working, the 'door' of photography had been opened a lot, and the mood was high, but people became more peaceful." Because you can feel that these masters of photography are very 'vast', they know what they are going to do in their lives, so you know what they have to do. During the filming in Guangzhou, the two would also eat at the restaurant on the ground floor of the Baiyun Hotel, and Mark Lü Bu was very frugal, and he always ordered himself a meat and a vegetarian, "one fish one vegetable".
In 1993, Mark Lü Bu was on the Haizhu Bridge in Guangzhou.
That year, Xiao Quan carried a film camera and various lenses on his back, and followed Mark Lü Bu into the world and people of Guangzhou. He took a number of wonderful black and white photographs, both in the documentary reporting style of Magnum Pictures and in the "Mark Lü bu style" composition and humanistic color, which were later compiled into the book "Following Mark Lü Bu to Shoot China". After nearly 30 years of reading these works, in addition to the "déjà vu" of Guangzhou Railway Station, Haizhu Bridge and other scenery, most people and things have undergone tremendous changes.
In 2021, when you return here to shoot Guangzhou people, where will Xiao Quan start? Surprisingly, he gave a "Buddhist" answer – by fate. In mid-July, the "Portrait of the Times" Guangzhou Station began recruiting subjects and accepting social registrations, while he also found people through old friends. About half of the more than 100 people who were eventually filmed were introduced by friends, and it seemed that they intended to pull this grand shooting project back to the personal scale and let it carry traces of warm communication.
For example, at this film festival, he filmed the father of curator Chen Ruijun.
This proposal surprised and ashamed Chen Ruijun, who was also a photographer, and then deeply grateful. "Before this exhibition, I really hadn't thought about it, because my father was 90 years old, usually in a wheelchair, the whole mood was very low, if I want to help him shoot something, I am afraid that he will be tired." 」 As a result, xiao Quan came, and everything became logical. He found that Chen Father had done a lot of paper-cut works, one of which was based on Chen Ruijun's dance photography works, and that silhouette was actually his "iron brother" Yang Liping; and when he learned that Chen Father had been a soldier, he suggested that the old man wear a military uniform during the shooting. Chen Ruijun did not find it at home, so he had to buy one on the Internet.
"My dad hasn't worn a military uniform in 40 years." Chen Ruijun said. As a result, on the day of the shooting, he saw him wearing a new dress and standing up from his wheelchair, "When I looked, I suddenly felt that my father was so handsome!" The veteran in the frame frame, holding the "Yang Liping" paper cut, himself said "it seems to be back to the young age."
Portrait of Chen Ruijun's father by Xiao Quan.
In the proposition of "Portrait of the Times", Xiao Quan also hopes to use portrait photography to outline the connotations of different cities. Guangzhou and Hangzhou, which he has photographed before, are both "states", what is the difference? Xiao Quan said in one sentence: It depends on what kind of people live here.
For Guangzhou, his understanding is: "This city is a pioneer. China's modern revolution originated here, and reform and opening up are also at the forefront. Following this vein, Xiao Quan specially photographed Li Jishen's descendants—in front of the Whampoa Military Academy, where he was the vice principal, Peng Pan's granddaughter Peng Yina and Ye Ting's granddaughter Ye Xiaoyan; with the help of Chen Ruijun, he also found Chen Xiaoqi, a Chinese pop music hero who wrote "The Sound of the Waves" and "I Don't Want to Say"; Yang Meiqi, an educator who "spread leaves" from Guangzhou.
Xiao Quan said: "If Chen Ruijun is not found this time, it is likely that this exhibition will not present such a situation." His life seems to have been confirming his creed: "Open a door and you will see many doors." ”
At the Ye Ting Memorial Hall in Huizhou, Xiao Quan photographed Ye Ting's granddaughter Ye Xiaoyan.
"Our generation"
On many levels, Xiao Quan, who was born in Chengdu, Sichuan in 1959, has the typical personality of that era: innocence and "childishness", full of faith and hope, and "master"-like self-confidence... His film fame work "Our Generation" focuses on his contemporaries. "What am I talking about 'our generation'? I think it is such a group of people who grew up in the era of revolutionary construction and in the era of reform and opening up. Xiao Quan told Nandu reporters.
In the early years, Xiao Quan was an air mechanic in the Naval Aviation Corps. In 1983, at the Naval Sanatorium in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, he "consciously" took portraits for the first time with a camera he had purchased, and the subject was a cadre who was also recuperating here, including Huang Shaofen, a photographer at the Shanghai Film Studio. The video worker smiled kindly at the camera and encouraged the young people to experiment, and Xiao Quan now sighed, "If he said 'don't fool around' at that time, maybe I would put down the camera from now on." ”
After demobilizing from the army and returning to Chengdu, coinciding with the state's vigorous development of "distance education" to solve the shortage of talents, Xiao Quan entered the Sichuan Radio and Television University and had a publicly equipped Minolta X700 film camera and two spacious darkrooms. Since photography enthusiasts of that era had to bring their own photo printing technology, such working conditions obviously strongly supported his "side business".
Xiao Quan's first attempt to shoot were poet friends such as Zhai Yongming, Zhong Ming, and Bai Hua, who were active in Chengdu. In Zhong Ming's own literary journal Xiang Yi, he first learned about the American poet Pound—more precisely, turning the inside page and encountering a portrait of Pound, and was greatly shocked. Xiao Quan specifically wrote in "Baihua Zhao Ye Zhong Ming" in "Our Generation": "Pound wears a long black shirt, a top hat, and a crutch in his right hand, walking on a stone-paved path. There is a text under the picture: I don't want to work anymore, everything is in vain. The understanding came too late. It was this self-run publication, these pictures and texts, that deeply touched Xiao Quan and became the origin of "Our Generation", "At that time, I thought, I have something to do in this life, I want to make such photos for Chinese literary artists that can move me and move others." 」 ”
For an amateur photographer who was unknown at the time, young and poor, how could such an "ambition" be fulfilled? Xiao Quan's approach carries the enthusiasm and romance of the "poetic age". First, Lü Peng, an artist whom Xiao Quan called "brother", introduced an acquaintance in Changsha, and after arriving in Changsha, he found the novelist He Liwei, who wrote letters and notes to Su Tong and Ye Zhaoyan in Nanjing, Chen Cun in Shanghai, and other writers. Gradually it accumulates like a "snowball".
Jiang Wen. (1995.3 Beijing)
"At that time, there was such a tacit understanding between the literary and art circles, and the word 'friend' was very high and heavy." Go out and rely on friends', as long as you take my friend's letter of recommendation, you come to me, I have to help. Chen Ruijun recalled to the Nandu reporter that when Xiao Quan came to Guangzhou to shoot "Our Generation", he was introduced by a friend and stayed in his living room, "He didn't have much money to stay in the hotel at that time, so he found me here, and I received him." That friendship is particularly simple and pure. ”
Sanmao. (1990.9 Chengdu)
In September 1990, Xiao Quan photographed the female writer Sanmao in Chengdu. He liked one of the photos of her sitting on the floor with a bamboo chair next to her, and told Sanmao that whether it was the composition, the tone of the picture or the mood of the characters, they were very complete. Sanmao took the photo and said, "Xiao Quan, this photo is not complete, it is priceless." Do you know? The following year, Xiao Quan published the Sanmao photography album "Birds of Paradise", so the famous dancer Yang Liping took the initiative to contact Xiao Quan and ask him to take a picture of himself, which was the first "guest list" that Xiao Quan took as a "free photographer" after leaving the unit.
Singing actors are easy to know. (1990.5 Chengdu)
In 1996, Xiao Quan's large-scale photography album "Our Generation" was published in Guangzhou, which laid his place in the history of contemporary Chinese imagery in one fell swoop. Nowadays, there is no need to repeat that these post-50s and post-60s who are well-known in the literary, poetic, film, music, and painting circles: Gu Cheng, Beidao, Xichuan, Cui Jian, Shi Tiesheng, Remnant Xue, Jia Pingwo, Yu Hua, Ge Fei, Zhang Chengzhi, Wang Anyi, Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou, Jiang Wen, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Gong Li, Chen Chong, Zhu Zheqin, Dou Wei... The spiritual temperament of the Golden Age is engraved and sealed in his images. Flipping through this album and reading Xiao Quan's colorful account like a camera lens, readers in the 21st century can directly travel back to the literary and artistic scene of thirty years ago: Kitajima and Shu Ting talk about their journey to the west in the teahouse; Zhang Zao plays word games at the dinner table and loses to Bai Hua; Zhang Xiaogang's wife bursts into tears in the first row of Cui Jian's concert... Equally wonderful, between the character lines, you can even see Xiao Quan riding a bicycle to turn east and west, through the figure of Hangzhou's Bamboo Pole Lane.
Later, many people asked him: When will I shoot "The Next Generation"? Xiao Quan said, "I don't have to shoot." ”
"Phase" is born from the heart
At the end of 2014, after Lü Peng, then director of the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art, recreated "Our Generation: Historical Context and Portrait ——— Xiao Quan Photography Exhibition" in six exhibition halls, Xiao Quan launched the "Portrait of the Times" photography project in Kunming in 2015, and has traveled to more than dozens of cities in China to photograph thousands of people.
In this series of works, the vast majority are no longer public figures, but "ordinary people" from all walks of life. The "methodology" may be traced back to 2012, when he was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to participate in the public welfare filming of "2032: The Future We Expect".
In the short film released at the end of the project, 32 Chinese told the world about their expectations for 20 years, and Xiao Quan took a portrait of more than 200 volunteers participating in the project. The only celebrity among them is Zhou Xun, Xiao Quan soaked on the set for 5 days, leaving solemn photos for these photographers from different nationalities, genders and ages, and the viewers were all moved.
"Then I felt that this thing should continue." Xiao Quan told Nandu reporters, "I think they deserve to be remembered by history. Like the artists I photographed in the 1980s and 1990s, ordinary people today deserve to be remembered by this era.
Flash, which was rarely used in Mark Lübb's approach to photography, gradually became an indispensable tool during the filming of this series. Xiao Quan believes that this transformation is related to the famous German portrait photographer August Sander. He deliberately showed reporters a work entitled "Young Peasants", three young gentlemen who were preparing to go to the country dance, wearing a straight dress, a top hat and a cane in their hands, walking on the field, turning their heads to face the camera. "Sander never wants to see bad things about people in his own pictures, he wants to embody the dignity of the subject." He said 100 years ago that he wanted to leave an unforgettable image for his proud compatriots, and I think that makes sense. Why can't I leave a dignified image of Chinese in the present, in this day and age? ”
Xiao Quan at work.
Nandu reporter asked Xiao Quan whether there was a particularly strict definition of the word "portrait" after taking portraits for decades? Xiao Quan replied that there are many styles of "portraits", such as environmental portraits, there are also "ID photos" that are deliberately taken in a dull manner, and even a "performance portrait" that allows the subject to dress up as different roles. "I think photography itself has its authenticity, but it is not pure documentary, but a subjective shaping. I am still willing to use Sander's way to see the 'deserved', shining side of them, this photo is the 'picture' that rises in my mind, and it is ultimately done by me and the person being photographed. ”
Nowadays, when taking portraits, Xiao Quan emphasizes the "sense of ceremony" in it: the simplified set, with bright lights, the subject seems to step into a stage, "I think it is a stage, and that light (lighting) is a compliment to people." The sense of portrait, the sense of ceremony, as I understand it now, is what it means. "In the spring of 2018, in Longquan Mountain in Chengdu, Xiao Quan mobilized a grandfather who carried a burden to sell hemp candy to let him take a picture, and the photo he took was that he was sitting in a chair, making tea, and behind him were peach blossoms in full bloom." Later, he said that he could get 2,000 yuan a month to sell hemp candy, and he wanted to support his son and his wife who were lying at home because of the work injury, and I thought it was a self-supporting man, and I said, 'Uncle, this lamp is a compliment to you.' ’”
After 6 years of shooting, Xiao Quan's "portrait of the times" is coming to an end. He revealed: "I especially want to photograph Shanghai now, and then two more western cities, so that most of China's representative faces can be photographed." I hope that if 100 years from now, someone wants to understand what China looks like in the 21st century, maybe they can read my book. ”
Xiao Quan and curator Chen Ruijun selected photographs for the "Portrait of the Times" photography exhibition Guangzhou Station.
At the end of the interview, it was nearly midnight, just in time for Xiao Quan's 62nd birthday. He laughed and said that a few days ago, he had dinner with his comrades-in-arms and found that they were all retired, but Xiao Quan was planning to register a company and wanted to try photography projects other than portraits.
He said: "I think the photographer is not only the one who knows the shutter, the composition, and the use of light, but also the photographer who wants to capture the reality and truth of everything, and explore more interesting things through these things." Later, I found that there was no one in some of the photos I took, but it was a more magical and mysterious moment. I felt that I should have another way to understand the world. It's something I've wanted to do all these years and I'm doing. ”
Producer: Nandu Instant
Written by: Nandu reporter Hou Jingjing Provided by the interviewee