Zhao Ming, Guangzhou, 1995
Zhang Hai'er
张海儿
Production date
1995
Object Detail
Media
digital C-type print
Measurements
100 x 67 cm
Notes
Zhang Hai’er has lived and worked between Paris and Guangzhou for many years and his work is inflected by traditions of French photography, recalling the work of Brassai or Robert Doisneaux. In 2004, however, Zhang changed from mostly black and white to colour photography, and from mostly film to digital processes, and he began to photograph men in Guangzhou and Dongguan who dressed as women. Posed –– sometimes provocatively, sometimes awkwardly –– in cheap hotel rooms, or in tiny spaces against draped backdrops of sheets or bedspreads, they gaze directly at the camera, or just beyond it. In Zhao Ming, Guangzhou, 1995 his subject, wearing black and red satin underwear, stands on one leg with arms raised, holding her long hair above her head. The brocade curtain evokes opulence although one suspects the dim lighting hides the tawdriness of the room, symbolising the shadowy demi-monde inhabited by Zhang’s subjects.
Accession number
2014.124