Colloquia

Western photographers have been showing China to Westerners for 150 years, and photography has been a major medium in Western museums since the 1950s. It was not until 2003, however, that the Guangdong Museum of Art exhibited the first permanent collection of works by Chinese documentary photographers ever assembled by a Chinese museum. The Guangdong Museum’s collection was selected by a curatorial committee of photographers who spent two years touring more than 20 provinces, viewing 100,000 photographs, and selecting 600 works by 248 photographers. Beginning on 24 September 2009, the China Institute Gallery in New York will have the privilege of holding the first exhibition of this collection in America, featuring a selection of 100 of these photographs. In association with this event, the Tang Center for East Asian Art will host a symposium, “China Seen by the Chinese: Documentary Photography, 1951−2003,” at Princeton University on 24 October 2009. Presentations will consider historical and cross-cultural perspectives, critical and theoretical approaches to the subject, and the problem of defining “documentary” photography.