Dai Xiang's Personal Photography Exhibition: From the National Idol to Various Characters

Cheng Meixin     2015.03.20

In his photography series, The New Lei Feng Stories, Dai Xiang placed the doll, in image of “Lei Feng”, in current reality. He captured the posed scenes and composited the images together. With an added brownish tone, his photos created a romantic feeling with reminiscent atmosphere. The artist narrates the stories as if putting them on stage, which makes audience to feel like going back to the 1950s, while actually still in current reality. Distortion of the history and absurdity of the reality interweaved together, creating a confused vision. In The New Lei Feng Stories, Idol and prototype, actors and props, artworks and audience, they are reproduced in a dimension intertwined by reality and absurdity. Apparently, such distortional absurdity stimulates mixed feelings of the audience, making them to question the falsehood in authority and ethics.

When social ideology is controlled by totalitarianism, a Utopian myth was produced. Lei Feng was not only a moral saint who “serve the people heart and soul”, but also a revolutionist with class hatred and complete loyalty to communism beliefs. He treated the Communist Party as his mother, “obeying what the Party says without hesitations, and following the Party with his whole life”. He said he would “never betray the Party, and would sacrifice himself for the Party”. His well-known saying was treated as truth and moral rules, which is “to treat one’s comrades warmly as spring breeze, to treat one’s work with enthusiasm as summer heat, to treat individualism as autumn wind blowing off fallen leaves, to treat one’s enemy ruthlessly as severe winter.” Almost no one in China dared to face and doubt Lei Feng, the sacred national idol, because to question his authenticity and loftiness was treated as a betrayal to the country. In a society with the slogan “to learn from comrade Lei Feng”, social morality and personal virtue are easily confused. “Willing to help others”, “be hardworking and plain-living”, “to love one’s family and one’s country” are basic values and virtues. When these virtues are treated as moral standards for the people, by superstitious myth-creating movement, it would doubtlessly result in collapse of the mythical idol, desolation of morality, and void of faith.

In mainland China, every child was grown up in the song, Following the Good Example of Lei Feng. As a mortal human, Lei Feng set a glorious example, to whom we can only admire and worship without any thoughts or hesitations. However, the ever-changing and developing society, as well as the cruel and ruthless reality, makes people to realize that “Lei Feng” was just a ridiculous national lie. The realization forces them to separate idol admiration from daily life, causing desolation of social morality and split of personality. The consequence is getting obvious in current social lives of almost all Chinese individuals. They are traitors to the spirit of Lei Feng and communism belief. When the young generation of a country vie with each other to “follow the good example of Lei Feng”, some of them would even steal money from parents to hand in to their school teachers in order to be honored as “Merit Student” or “Outstanding Individual”. Originally, “Example of Lei Feng” encourages people to hand in the lost belongings they found in public, but such “Good personalities and good deeds” are totally distorted, exceeding the bottom line of human morality. The generations that have been insanely learning from “Good example of Lei Feng” build up the contemporary China with the collapsing morality.

Whether the stories of Lei Feng and The Dairy of Lei Feng are true or not, to admire and worship a heroic idol who is full of class hatred and blind loyalty will inevitably lead to a social crisis with chaotic values and desolate morality. In Dai’s photo series, The New Lei Feng Stories, Lei Feng is just a lifeless doll on the stage. The screenwriters, actors and actresses, and the figurante, who are o n the stage and behind the scenes, are the real sacrifices in the distortion of authority.

New Along the River During Qingming Festival, is a montage and composite of various scenes. Dai Xiang set a reality of contemporary China in the historic scene of a famous painting of Song Dynasty, Along the River DuringQingming Festival. From posted slogans in streets to packing materials of daily supplies, from the precocious teenager to the begging girl on her knees, from bribery to food safety, from Red Cross to forced relocation, from insane murder to violence in the streets, the scenes in the image cover all aspects of daily life and major social events. Events such as “Li Gang is my dad”, “Demanding high price for retrieval of dead bodies”, “Tiger Zhou” and “Arresting prostitutes”, were collaged frame by frame.Comparing with the prosperous and peaceful urban life depicted by Song Dynasty artist Zhang Zeduan, New Along the River DuringQingming Festival presents us with a violent, distorted, corrupted and sinking society. Utilizing multiple levels of focus in his expression, Dai Xiang depicts a transforming society in contemporary China.

In addition, New Along the River During Qingming Festivalillustrates the mixture of ancient costumes and modern attire, and archaized buildings constructed with reinforced concrete. The chaotic mixture reflects the contradictory feelings faced by every individual in contemporary China. The collision of traditional and modern values forms irreconcilable culture conflicts. The archaized buildings in the scene are not just artistic creation, but are real buildings commonly seen in any modern city of China. To set Kaifeng city as an example, which used to be the capital for several dynasties, ancient buildings are frantically damaged and broken down, while in the meantime, numbers of archaized buildings are being constructed. It is the insane human will and corrupted authority that cause the occurrence of such absurd phenomena.

The collaged social scenes in New Along the River DuringQingming Festival, including all sorts of figures, objects and landscape, and its narrative theme, have revealed a panoramic view of an insane era, and exposed the wound of a distorted society. The intention of the artist is obvious. He attempts to make people realize the reality and weakness of the whole era. It is true that art cannot directly solve these social problems, but it can present the problems from a unique point of view, promoting social advancement. The two masterpieces, Along the River During QingmingFestival by Song artist Zhang Zeduan, and New Along the River During Qingming Festival by contemporary artist Dai Xiang, focused on panoramic social scenes of two different eras. Both artworks provide us with not merely aesthetic experience, but the reflection of life and enlightenment from history.