Negatives2019
by Xu Yong
Xu Yong (b. China, 1954; lives and works in Beijing, China) makes art that scrutinizes the photographic medium and its documentary variants and interpretations. An autodidact with a background in advertising, the artist is fascinated by the influence that images have on our collective memories. In 1989, a 35-year-old Yong joined the protesters on Tiananmen Square and used his camera to record the events on celluloid. The publication Negatives: Scans is the second series he presents in the form of unprocessed film. As in the earlier Negatives series, released in 2014, Yong uncovers a censored history, testing the hypothesis that the photographic negative?a preliminary stage on the way to the photograph properly speaking?provides more cogent evidence than analog or digital photography. This...