Stefanie Schweiger2017
by Distanz
Nine artists in Beijing. A photographer from Berlin. A close-up view of how artists live in China. In a country ruled by a virtually perfect totalitarian system, artists have an especially seminal role to play. Most forsake material prosperity and security in pursuit of their artistic passion; many take an ambivalent view of the vision of beauty enshrined by traditional Chinese art. Poverty and the fear of political repression often closely circumscribe the ambit of their work. Yet these eight have managed to stake out spaces in which they hatch individual creative projects between subjective and subcultural ideals, Chinese traditions, and their country's contemporary turbo-capitalist development. The photographer Stefanie Schweiger has lived in Beijing since 2012. After creating numerous...