Wang Ningde: In the Years of Ningde
© Wang Ningde
Interview: Wang Ningde and Rui Goncalves Cepeda
Rui G. Cepeda: Increasingly photography has become the prevalent communication per se in contemporary society, both as subject and object. Can we say that we have now also a new socio-aesthetic relation in contemporary photography in China? if so, how can we describe it?
Wang Ningde: For me, photography is not a means of communication. It is a world that is parallel to and not intersecting with the real world. Its aesthetics and grammar only exist within photography itself, and everything it describes still needs to be translated in order to correspond to reality. At this stage, I see it as a research object, more often than not with the image world being self-sufficient, rather than open.
RGC: It this new (or not) aesthetic relation in photography in China an attempting effort by Chinese artists to grasp, memorise, re-evaluate history, particularly in the context of a rapid modernisation? or...
WN: My work focuses on the image world, but does not trust the description of images. Questioning and reflection are the hidden lines running through my works. My frame of reference is more often the history of contemporary art and not as much photography itself.
RGC: What are the most recurrent topics in contemporary Chinese photography, for you?
WN: I rarely pay attention to the reality described in photography, if a theme makes me feel interested, usually they often occur in other forms of art, such as drama or music.
RGC: How important is the Chinese pictorial tradition or Chinese aesthetic principles for contemporary photography in China?
WN: On the surface, Chinese traditional painting or aesthetic principles are a possibility for any type of contemporary expression, but a simple superposition and transplantation will not generate a new type of thinking. This type of experiment has taken place a lot in other types of artistic practice, but more time is needed to observe how fruitful such an approach actually is.
RGC: What motivated you to realise "In the Years of Ningde"?
NW: In Chinese, “Ningde” is similar to a dynastic name. Indeed, my ancestors had already planned the use of “de” in this name many years ago. My understanding of the contemporary is that one doesn’t need to deliberately try to formulate an expression of the current moment, but just honestly present the problems one is focusing on. Therefore, “In the Years of Ningde” is in fact my experience and logic derived from world-related issues.
RGC: We can already see some clues in In the Years of Nindge into the "language of photography" (on your website), which has been developed further in Form of Light and Let There Be Light, what kind of equivalences are you looking for when having the materiality of photography as the subject of your study?
NW: Photography is a metaphor. In the image world, every instant there are new images created to populate it, and there are also old pictures that have fallen into obscurity, forgotten, and dead images never to be the focus of attention again. They have their own history, tradition, and struggles—I believe that if we think about and imagine the image world in this way, then no matter which angle we choose to enter from, which clues we choose to follow, they each have value.
Interview by Rui Gonçalves Cepeda, January 2017
© Rui Gonçalves Cepeda 2017