Li Tianbing
Li Tianbing - Village Cameraman
Born in 1933, Li Tianbing is a village cameraman from Makeng Village,
Huaan County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province. Before the liberation,
he acted as an assistant for an English cameraman who was taking
photos for personal identity cards in the region. Ever since this
experience he has developed a deep interest in photography.
In 1945, Li Tianbing stole a cow from his grandmother's home,
selling it in a nearby town. Using the money he received, he purchased
an old English camera, thereby launching his career as a photographer.
For over 60 years he has been carrying this camera over and across
mountains, taking hundreds of thousands of images throughout the
impoverished areas of southwestern Fujian Province. The works
by Li Tianbing document the visual changes to life and spirit
within these remote mountain communities over the past decades
in Chinese history, and remain the only visual documentary of
events from this period. Villagers use a simple song entitled
"Maestro Tianbing" to celebrate him. To them, "Maestro
Tianbing" is a legacy. Li Tianbing has become the most celebrated
village cameraman in Chinese and international press.
Li Tianbing - Natural Light Photographer
Because the region is still without electricity, the development
of photo negatives are completely dependent on Li Tianbing's personal
experience working with natural light. Flashing open and closed
his barn door, Li Tianbing manually exposes the film. Using the
incoming light from his chimney, he is able to enlarge the images,
and in the mountain streams he washes the photos. His work is
a legacy based on simplicity and extraordinary individual effort.
Because of this accomplishment he has been added to the "Jinisi"
Book of World Records (Shanghai) for "the longest period
of using natural light to develop and enlarge photographs."
Li Tianbing uses the sensitivity towards nature innate within
people from the agricultural era to deconstruct photography -
a symbol of modern technology - providing us with an alternative
framework in this modern era.
Li Tianbing - Contemporary Artist
Since holding a solo exhibition with the Long March at the historical
site of the Soviet Republic on the road of the Long March (2002),
Li Tianbing has developed from a "Village Cameraman"
into a "Contemporary Artist", exhibiting in international
museums, as well as the Shanghai Biennale, and this year's Prague
Biennale. With the support of the Long March, he spent half a
year returning to the villages revisiting friends and relatives
of whom he took pictures of for over 60 years, collecting a handful
of photographs representative of his works since 1940, and remaking
these "ready-made" displayable and collectable "contemporary
art works." For this solo exhibition, the Long March has
carefully selected works from 1946 to 2005 to compose a series
of "Male Comrade", "Female Comrade", "Comrade
Companion", "Family Comrade", and "Collective
Comrade". Through the unfolding of a new reading and understanding
of living and historical recording, as well as the relationship
between individual and collective, the Long March has completed
the transformation of Li Tianbing - the individual and the author
- from a "village cameraman" to a "ready-made"
"contemporary artist."
Exhibitions
2005 2nd Prague Biennale Second Sight, Prague, Czechoslovakia
2004 Fifth Shanghai Biennale Techniques of the Visible, Shanghai
Art Museum, Shanghai, China
Beijing International Art Expo; International Exhibition Center,
Beijing, China
2003 Power of the Public Realm, 25000 Cultural Transmission Center,
Beijing, China
2002 The Long March - A Walking Visual Display, former Soviet
Post and Telecommunication Ministry, Ruijin, Guangxi Province,
China
1934 Makong Village, Fujian Province
Lives and works in Makong Village, Fujian Province
