Wang Ningde
Wang Ningde Biography
1972 Born in Liaoning province, China
1995 Graduated from the department of photography, Luxin Art Institute
Currently living and working in Shenzhen and Guangzhou
Selected Exhibitions
2006 Some Days, Goedhuis Contemporary, New York, USA
2005 Between History and Illusion, Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art, Liaoning Province, China
2005 Mahjong, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland
2005 Inner Scope: Contemporary Chinese Photography as Conscious Practice, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
2005 The Lianzhou International Photographic Exhibition, Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore
2005 Making a New Relationship–The Ethics of Art, Dimensions Art Center, Beijing, China
2005 Dream Producers (III/IV): The Conceptual Museum of Chinese Contemporary Art, Xin Dong Cheng Space of Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2005 Living in Interesting Times: A Decade of New Chinese Photography, Tel-Hai Industrial Park, Israel
2005 Out of the Red Door, Marella Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy
2005 The Open Museums of Photography, Tel-Hai Industrial Park Israel
2004 “techniques of the visible”2004 shanghai biennale
2004 “Le moine et le demon” art contemporain chinois, musée art contemporain Lyon
2004 “GuangYin-Tempi di Donna” Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma,Sala 1,Italy
2004 “Reality Spells” Exhibition of Chinese Conceptual Photography from 90’, Exhibition Galleries Hong Kong Central Library
2004 “Between reality and memory” A photography exhibition featuring the work of Chinese photographers, Tishman Gallery, NY USA
2004 “All under heaven-China now!” MuHKA Museum, Belgium
2004 “No Body’s Fool, No Body’s Hurt” aura gallery, Shanghai
2004 “Traveling in Spring” aura gallery, Shanghai, The 1st. China International Gallery Exposition, Beijing
2004 "Illusion" aura gallery, Shanghai
2004 La Photographie contemporaine chinoise” Musée des Beaux-Arts, France
2003 "an interesting and singular walk” France island of France center of photograph in Paris
2003 "fantastic paradise- Chinese contemporary photography” the prague czech republic
2003 strange heaven the contemporary Chinese photography rudolfinum the national art museum
2003 1:1 the 3rd Pingyao international photography festival, Pingyao shanxi
2003 "No Problem" aura Gallery, Shanghai
1999 Walking Towards a Darker Place, Yuedong Gallery, Guangdong Province, China
"One Day, I Saw Loneliness" by GuZheng
?Recent works of Wang Ningde is an imaging system that uses photography to construct personal imaginations. Now, he gives us a visual feast, "One Day", that is different from report photography.Different from report photography that must use facts as its material and base on reality, "One Day" is a completely personal artistic construction. Each person in each photograph all closes his or her eyes in front of the camera, although being in different places, different scenes, and various combinations of arrangements. They close their eyes, turn on the projection of memory and project a silent inner drama onto the screen of their heart.
Based on Wang Ningde??s description, the photographs in "One Day" "has related to my childhood, growth, family, memory, sexuality, and my attitude towards these issues". However, these images are not specific narrations. He only elaborately arranges repeated refusals. In these works everybody refuses to have visual contact with the audience. Either the elderly or the young, person or group, they close their eyes or turn their back to the audience. We can only obtain some clues of their hidden secrets from their facial expressions of intoxication, yearning, numbness or secretiveness. Are they meditating or recalling, stealing a moment from their fantasies or degenerating in their imaginations, refusing to converse with the reality due to its darkness or turning down the lure because there are too many of them in the reality? There is no answer in Wang Ningde??s photographs. Nevertheless, so many refusals give away his persistence to the past experiences and memories. A naked and large-fleshed woman (aesthetic elegance?), a man who wears Zhongsan-styled outfit and a hat yet without identity (delusion of world of the grow-ups?), a mysterious gamble set by four men who wear Zhongsan-styled outfit and a hat (the untouchability of fate?), an empty train cart which only people who close their eyes aboard (the fear of not knowing the destination?), the suburb without a person (in memory a place to stay but no life form existed?)?? Is a profound loneliness or fake calmness behind the gesture of their refusal or letting the fate lead the way? Are they indulging in the past happiness or refusing the present lure? The outsiders have no confirmed conclusions for what these images are informing after all. In fact, what Wang Ningde himself is pursuing probably does not give out clues that are clear and easy to be interpreted. Yet, it is clear that through these images he already rearranged his past and memories and gave them a new form. All he can tell us is that these images are one conclusion of all the accumulated memories in his life, whether they are beautiful or painful. "One Day" is a proof to prove the magical interconnection between the reality and memory. Because of the need for each other, the reality and memory consult with each other and construct an absolute reality that is hard to divide memorable reality from actual memory. Without the memory as its background color, perhaps the reality is quite pale; lacking of the examination of memory this mirror, then memory itself becomes somniloquy with no sense of the reality. Wang Ningde does not present a confirmed form nor provide a clear present of the reality in "One Day". All he represents is merely an absolute world of reality existing between the reality and memory. Although the clothes in that world may be old-fashioned, but the imaginations and dreams that world has born is infinite. Looking at his photographs, what we can share is not his experiences, is only his consciousness of time, his point of view of the world, his attitude towards life, and his imaginations. Wang Ningde mentioned in his description a saying of "T Zero" by Italian writer Italo Calvino. I guess that this absolute time of "T Zero" to Wang Ningde has the same importance as a specific "One Day". "One Day" in his life, "One Day" that he can not forget, in fact already has the possibility of infinity. To him personally, these "One Day"s that long live in his heart or a moment is a type of absolute time, time unchanged forever. To him this specific individual particular "One Day" actually equals to absolute time in "T Zero". Photography happens to be a timely method equalizing "One Day" with "T Zero". A particular "One Day" becomes infinite "T Zero" through photography, becomes "T Zero" that surpasses "T Zero" in time, and finally changes into absolute time filled with time. As a matter of fact, "One Day" challenges the concept of time and time from this meaning, not just regarding personal memories and experiences. With his images, Wang Ningde constructs a present that never goes away as well as a future that never comes. Life is such a surrender of endless time that is always on its way.
"One Day" reminds me of some words of the father of Dadaism, the poet Tristan Tzara, in his prose "Horse":
One day, I saw loneliness. On the top of the mountain, a horse halts still in the unmoving universe. My love is suspended in time; at that moment, it condenses its memory that already has become the past. All the doors open to possibilities. Life and death replenish each other. Only once I saw it, the meaningfulness of matters withholds themselves. I separate the image of my world from other matters, let the border extend, extending to the infinity and beyond. I leave the desire for things that I want to see and will see them soon in the care of my offspring. But who can say clearly that promises have been kept?Is "One Day" not the absolute form of "the memory that already has become the past"?
1972 Born in Liaoning province, China
1995 Graduated from the department of photography, Luxin Art Institute
Currently living and working in Shenzhen and Guangzhou
Selected Exhibitions
2006 Some Days, Goedhuis Contemporary, New York, USA
2005 Between History and Illusion, Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art, Liaoning Province, China
2005 Mahjong, Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland
2005 Inner Scope: Contemporary Chinese Photography as Conscious Practice, Shanghai Gallery of Art, Shanghai, China
2005 The Lianzhou International Photographic Exhibition, Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore
2005 Making a New Relationship–The Ethics of Art, Dimensions Art Center, Beijing, China
2005 Dream Producers (III/IV): The Conceptual Museum of Chinese Contemporary Art, Xin Dong Cheng Space of Contemporary Art, Beijing, China
2005 Living in Interesting Times: A Decade of New Chinese Photography, Tel-Hai Industrial Park, Israel
2005 Out of the Red Door, Marella Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy
2005 The Open Museums of Photography, Tel-Hai Industrial Park Israel
2004 “techniques of the visible”2004 shanghai biennale
2004 “Le moine et le demon” art contemporain chinois, musée art contemporain Lyon
2004 “GuangYin-Tempi di Donna” Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma,Sala 1,Italy
2004 “Reality Spells” Exhibition of Chinese Conceptual Photography from 90’, Exhibition Galleries Hong Kong Central Library
2004 “Between reality and memory” A photography exhibition featuring the work of Chinese photographers, Tishman Gallery, NY USA
2004 “All under heaven-China now!” MuHKA Museum, Belgium
2004 “No Body’s Fool, No Body’s Hurt” aura gallery, Shanghai
2004 “Traveling in Spring” aura gallery, Shanghai, The 1st. China International Gallery Exposition, Beijing
2004 "Illusion" aura gallery, Shanghai
2004 La Photographie contemporaine chinoise” Musée des Beaux-Arts, France
2003 "an interesting and singular walk” France island of France center of photograph in Paris
2003 "fantastic paradise- Chinese contemporary photography” the prague czech republic
2003 strange heaven the contemporary Chinese photography rudolfinum the national art museum
2003 1:1 the 3rd Pingyao international photography festival, Pingyao shanxi
2003 "No Problem" aura Gallery, Shanghai
1999 Walking Towards a Darker Place, Yuedong Gallery, Guangdong Province, China
"One Day, I Saw Loneliness" by GuZheng
?Recent works of Wang Ningde is an imaging system that uses photography to construct personal imaginations. Now, he gives us a visual feast, "One Day", that is different from report photography.Different from report photography that must use facts as its material and base on reality, "One Day" is a completely personal artistic construction. Each person in each photograph all closes his or her eyes in front of the camera, although being in different places, different scenes, and various combinations of arrangements. They close their eyes, turn on the projection of memory and project a silent inner drama onto the screen of their heart.
Based on Wang Ningde??s description, the photographs in "One Day" "has related to my childhood, growth, family, memory, sexuality, and my attitude towards these issues". However, these images are not specific narrations. He only elaborately arranges repeated refusals. In these works everybody refuses to have visual contact with the audience. Either the elderly or the young, person or group, they close their eyes or turn their back to the audience. We can only obtain some clues of their hidden secrets from their facial expressions of intoxication, yearning, numbness or secretiveness. Are they meditating or recalling, stealing a moment from their fantasies or degenerating in their imaginations, refusing to converse with the reality due to its darkness or turning down the lure because there are too many of them in the reality? There is no answer in Wang Ningde??s photographs. Nevertheless, so many refusals give away his persistence to the past experiences and memories. A naked and large-fleshed woman (aesthetic elegance?), a man who wears Zhongsan-styled outfit and a hat yet without identity (delusion of world of the grow-ups?), a mysterious gamble set by four men who wear Zhongsan-styled outfit and a hat (the untouchability of fate?), an empty train cart which only people who close their eyes aboard (the fear of not knowing the destination?), the suburb without a person (in memory a place to stay but no life form existed?)?? Is a profound loneliness or fake calmness behind the gesture of their refusal or letting the fate lead the way? Are they indulging in the past happiness or refusing the present lure? The outsiders have no confirmed conclusions for what these images are informing after all. In fact, what Wang Ningde himself is pursuing probably does not give out clues that are clear and easy to be interpreted. Yet, it is clear that through these images he already rearranged his past and memories and gave them a new form. All he can tell us is that these images are one conclusion of all the accumulated memories in his life, whether they are beautiful or painful. "One Day" is a proof to prove the magical interconnection between the reality and memory. Because of the need for each other, the reality and memory consult with each other and construct an absolute reality that is hard to divide memorable reality from actual memory. Without the memory as its background color, perhaps the reality is quite pale; lacking of the examination of memory this mirror, then memory itself becomes somniloquy with no sense of the reality. Wang Ningde does not present a confirmed form nor provide a clear present of the reality in "One Day". All he represents is merely an absolute world of reality existing between the reality and memory. Although the clothes in that world may be old-fashioned, but the imaginations and dreams that world has born is infinite. Looking at his photographs, what we can share is not his experiences, is only his consciousness of time, his point of view of the world, his attitude towards life, and his imaginations. Wang Ningde mentioned in his description a saying of "T Zero" by Italian writer Italo Calvino. I guess that this absolute time of "T Zero" to Wang Ningde has the same importance as a specific "One Day". "One Day" in his life, "One Day" that he can not forget, in fact already has the possibility of infinity. To him personally, these "One Day"s that long live in his heart or a moment is a type of absolute time, time unchanged forever. To him this specific individual particular "One Day" actually equals to absolute time in "T Zero". Photography happens to be a timely method equalizing "One Day" with "T Zero". A particular "One Day" becomes infinite "T Zero" through photography, becomes "T Zero" that surpasses "T Zero" in time, and finally changes into absolute time filled with time. As a matter of fact, "One Day" challenges the concept of time and time from this meaning, not just regarding personal memories and experiences. With his images, Wang Ningde constructs a present that never goes away as well as a future that never comes. Life is such a surrender of endless time that is always on its way.
"One Day" reminds me of some words of the father of Dadaism, the poet Tristan Tzara, in his prose "Horse":
One day, I saw loneliness. On the top of the mountain, a horse halts still in the unmoving universe. My love is suspended in time; at that moment, it condenses its memory that already has become the past. All the doors open to possibilities. Life and death replenish each other. Only once I saw it, the meaningfulness of matters withholds themselves. I separate the image of my world from other matters, let the border extend, extending to the infinity and beyond. I leave the desire for things that I want to see and will see them soon in the care of my offspring. But who can say clearly that promises have been kept?Is "One Day" not the absolute form of "the memory that already has become the past"?
