For two winters, the artist spent her time wandering Beijing looking for old walls to photograph. From Gulou to Houhai, from Qianmen to Tianqiao, wearing a quilted coat and under the curious watch of passersby, Wen Fang would explore the corners of the capital city where she was born and raised, looking for these emblems of history. Once she stopped in an old neighborhood where she heard the voice of an old man from behind the wall she was photographing, saying to himself, "What on earth could there be to photograph here?" After an environment has become too familiar, the artist wonders, are we still able to perceive it in all its beauty? In China, the nation of the 2000-year-old Great Wall, walls can be more than just architectural structures. In a nation that is developing at a breakneck pace, it takes an artist like Wen Fang to remind us to appreciate such traces of a city's past.
Photograph
Color photograph made with archival pigments on fine art rag paper
29.13 x 35.43 in
74.0 x 90.0 cm
This work comes with a Certificate of Authenticity with digital signature.
For two winters, the artist spent her time wandering Beijing looking for old walls to photograph. From Gulou to Houhai, from Qianmen to Tianqiao, wearing a quilted coat and under the curious watch of passersby, Wen Fang would explore the corners of the capital city where she was born and raised, looking for these emblems of history. Once she stopped in an old neighborhood where she heard the voice of an old man from behind the wall she was photographing, saying to himself, "What on earth could there be to photograph here?" After an environment has become too familiar, the artist wonders, are we still able to perceive it in all its beauty? In China, the nation of the 2000-year-old Great Wall, walls can be more than just architectural structures. In a nation that is developing at a breakneck pace, it takes an artist like Wen Fang to remind us to appreciate such traces of a city's past.
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