Three Shadows +3 Gallery is delighted to announce the inaugural solo exhibition of Zhang Kechun Photography “The Yellow River”. “Guo Guo” is the pronunciation of the Chinese title, which is a onomatopoeia originated from “The Book of Odes”, describing the sound of the Yellow River. Inspired by Zhang Chengzhi’s Rivers of the North, Zhang Kechun photographed the portraits of Yellow River landscapes and selected 50 prints for collection of the series. These are beyond the ordinary travel photographs or social documentary, but a lonely pilgrimage journey of the artist in the name of passion, curiosity and exploration.

Completed between 2010 to 2013, these pictures captured by photographer Zhang Kechun have a common stage, the Yellow River. From 2010 to 2013, he walked more than ten times upstream westward from Kenli County, Dongying City, Shandong where the estuary of the River was, through Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu and Sichuan, heading to the River’s source near the Bayan Har Mountain in Qinghai. Zheng Kechun photographed objects in long distance on purposes, uses the tiny lens to create a dialogue with vast northwestern ground, accordingly we see massive smoky grey, pale yellow and grayish green in the background that go against the ants-like people, the composition further brings out a sense of absurdity in the image. Just like Ou Ning precisely comments “In his pictures you can witness the important plan like Western Development, the HSRs were built over the Yellow River followed by booming travel business, industry restructuring, excessive urbanization and finally, environmental destruction. Not only the lifestyle of the riverside persons has changed, but their hearts and beliefs. However, these were just momentary sprays in the long history of the River.”

This exhibition presents about 27 artworks of “The Yellow River”, and 3 pieces from “Between mountains and waters” displayed at VIP space. In this new series, Zhang Kechun continues the same aesthetic language of “The Yellow River”, but instead of taking photographs, he displaced himself into the image, therefore to create rather complex relationship and imagination between object and subject.

*image (left)
courtesy of the artist and Three Shadows +3 Gallery