Capture Photography Festival awards inaugural printing prize to Wang Qingsong
Beijing-based contemporary artist’s large-format works address China’s seismic cultural shifts
Wang Qingsong’s 宿舍 Dormitory, 2005
A Beijing-based contemporary artist whose large-format works have provocatively captured China’s seismic cultural shifts has just won the inaugural Capture Photography Festival Printing Prize.
Wang Qingsong wins $10,000 from the fest, to be dedicated toward the production of the artist’s work for presentation in the April event.
Wang is an internationally celebrated photo artist, whose works have been exhibited everywhere from the New York International Photography Center and MoMA to the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
Wang is often compared to Vancouver art star Jeff Wall, for the fact that he often works like a movie director, setting up elaborate tableaux with dozens of models to take a single picture. His works are frequently mural-sized.
Many of his images are also sociopolitically provocative, as well as bitingly humorous or ironic. Works like 2005’s Dormitory feature mass nudity, a taboo in China, while 2004’s Competition features a massive wall posted with Chinese-ink-style ad messages from international brands, a critique of Western-style consumerism descending on his country.
First trained as a painter, Wang began taking photographs in the 1990s as a way to document and comment on the change he was witnessing.
In a statement released with the announcement of the prize, Wang said: “The year of 2020 is destined to be unusual and terrific. By cause of Covid-19, a lot of international exhibitions and exchanges have been cancelled, including a number of my overseas exhibitions. However, Capture Photography Festival has awarded me this opportunity which I greatly appreciate. The Prize offers me not only a simple gift of recognition, but also warmth and trust as an honour.”
The Capture fest, launched in 2013, is set to return in April 2021.
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