Walking Toward a Darker Place
Held in 1999 in Guangzhou, China, Walking Toward a Darker Place was the artist’s first solo exhibition, and he continued work on this series for several years after. Working at a time before the era of LOMO cameras had appeared in China, the artist experimented with a variety of ways of damaging images. The late 1990’s were a period of dramatic change in Guangdong’s Pearl River Delta area, and the artist’s photographic works from this period have been combined into a video work called Journey. Daydream.
The works contain no specific narrative or subtle descriptions. Following the scattered perspectives and low-resolution images’ lead, the highways, structures, empty fields, city outskirts, youth, bureaucrats, lovers, victims, and the deranged all mingle together in a gloomy melody. Together, they constitute an elegy given by a witness of that era.
Gao Jing