Standard Family, 2006 - Wang Jinsong

About the Work

About Standard Family

Wang Jinsong's Standard Family series comprises 200 images of Chinese single-child families. The series was produced as an investigation into China's one-child policy and its effect on the development of contemporary Chinese society. Implemented as a solution to the country's population crisis, since the introduction of the one-child policy in 1973, couples in China have been restricted to having one child and the resulting three-person family group has become the "standard" family in China. Wang's approach to his topic has not been critical. Instead, he has presented the situation as simple fact. Wang Jinsong has also commented that the families he photographed for the work were happy to be involved with the project; most were proud that they could enjoy upward mobility and a more "Western-style lifestyle" as a result of having only one child. Arranged in a tight grid, Standard Family allows the viewer to see the generic expressions, postures, and family forms that result from collectivism and the will of the state, and the social structure that lies behind them. The questions raised through the lens of the family embody Jinsong's visual thinking about the future of a people.

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About the Artist

About Wang Jinsong

Wang Jinsong graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 1987. Trained as a traditional Chinese ink painter, over the years the artist ...Read More

Wang Jinsong graduated from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 1987. Trained as a traditional Chinese ink painter, over the years the artist's oeuvre has expanded to include oil painting, photography, and video. Wang Jinsong's work examines the implications of a range of government policies on contemporary Chinese society. After the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, Wang was among the first group of young artists to produce works critical of the political situation in China in a style that would later became known as cynical realism. His interest in the social conditions in China continued when he began taking photographs in the late 1990s.

Wang Jinsong's photographic work is among the first to touch upon the issues facing modern China, such as large-scale urban development, the 'Westernization' of the Chinese people, and the policies affecting common people. His works of conceptual photography have had a profound impact on later photographers, earning him an important position in the history of contemporary Chinese photography.Read Less