Welcome to our blog about the festival! Starting from September 18th you’ll here find daily updates on what’s going on in Pingyao.

See you soon!

Location of kunst.licht Gallery exhibition

 

18.09.2008

We arrived in Ping Yao in the middle of the night around 10.30 pm after having missed the early morning flight from Hong Qiao due to incompetent personal. After checking in to the hotel we went immediately to the exhibition site just to get completely disappointed. Nothing was in place: no hanging rail, no power, no lights, no nothing. Everything we discussed with the organizers for the better part of one month wasn’t in place. After a lot of confusion and many disoriented organizers (most of them volunteers) we finally managed to get hold of two workers with whom we spent the whole night hammering nails into the walls so that we could hang the pictures.

All of this wouldn’t have been possible without our gallery manager’s diligence and stamina. Sabrine managed to get things organized with – given the circumstances – great results. We went back to the hotel around 5.30 am just to find out that no one felt responsible to give us the keys to our hotel rooms. Finally went to bed at 7am.

 

19.09.2008

Started our gallery experience relatively late at around 1 pm. Badly needed the sleep. Nicely enough everything was cleaned up when we got there. However our gallery space was already open even without us being around. Luckily nothing got stolen and all the pictures were still in place.
Many visitors during the day, the pictures of Shen Wei, Kasey Myrick and Bai Xiao Ci turned out to be very popular. We met some curators and organizers from another photo festival in China. There are all very interested in having Shen Wei in their show.

Also took a first look around to see the rest of the festival. First impression is that I’m not impressed. A lot of mundane photography made worse by over extensive Photoshop treatment. Hope there still will be some pearls to discover.

Visitors in the gallery

Our catalogues

Shen Wei’s "Almost Naked"

Gallery space from the outside (all invited galleries are in a space that
is going to be a new hotel in Ping Yao)

 

20.09.2008

“Opened” (as of course it was already open) the gallery at 10.30 am. The organizers officially want all the galleries to start business at 8pm which is of course completely ridiculous.  Lots of students today, a few journalists.  Interesting enough that a lot these professionals seem to have no idea what fine art photography is all about.

Interest in photography is without doubt strong in China. But there aren’t really that many people one would call collectors. We talked to a lady from a gallery in Beijing and she told us that their customers are all foreigners. I think that’s a sad situation for China and in a few years you will hear people cry out again about the Chinese heritage being sold out to foreigners. Well, today’s contemporary is tomorrow’s heritage. Why don’t people understand that?

Shen Wei giving an interview

A large group of visitors having a close look at Bai Xiaocis’s work

 

21.09.2008

Finally got me some goose bumps when discovering the amazing and very poetic work of an artist from Hunan province. It’s not pure photography but an installation involving photography. Also reviewed some photography work of a young lady from the same province that reminds me somehow a little bit of Todd Hido. Not sure about the work yet, need to see some more of it.

In the gallery section today was more or less family day. Lots of locals with their kids, almost no professionals. Got photographed maybe a hundred times and stared at by little kids and old men. But always in a friendly way. Anyway, at the moment it wouldn’t hurt (maybe even benefit) the festival if it was shortened to just three days.

In the evening we attended a “Bringing the arts together” meeting/party that was kinda nice. But what this photo festival really needs is some proper funding to really bring it to a level resembling European or American festivals like Paris Photo or New York Photo Festival. And as always money and good organization/organizers are key factors. There is still some way to go.

Bringing the arts together – Organizers

Bringing the arts together – Organizers

Bringing the arts together

 

22.09.2008

I’ll be leaving for Hong Kong today. Another colleague from the gallery takes over. I expect the next two days to be really calm and don’t think that anything earth shattering is going to happen.

Me in our exhibition space