Some Days 5
Wang Ningde
王宁德
Production date
2003
Object Detail
Media
gelatin silver print
Measurements
40 x 50 cm
Notes
Wang Ningde’s black and white silver gelatine prints, with their slight sepia tone, are instantly understood as connoting the past; his staging of posed figures in carefully designed settings may be read as cinematic slices of a larger narrative. Their deliberate artificiality hints at the absurd juxtapositions found in dreams, but they are also Wang’s comment on Chinese history: he shares a dark sense of humour with other Chinese writers, artists and film-makers who reflect on the psychic scars left by the Cultural Revolution. This was a time, he says, that caused ‘catastrophic change and distortion in people’s psychological states.’ Wang Ningde combines sardonic wit with sadness, a satirical view of past absurdities with tenderness. A little boy – the artist? – appears in Some Days 5 (2003) in a haunting image that shows him, naked and vulnerable, seated on a narrow bed facing a billowing white curtain.
Accession number
2017.041