About this artwork
In 1994, photojournalist Liu Zheng began making portraits of supposedly deviant or marginal individuals around China; increasingly captivated by the undertaking, he left his job in 1997 with the ambition to create a grand account of what, in Chinese, the photographer calls My Countrymen (Guoren). Attentive to what he calls “the helpless absurdities of human existence,” Zheng considers that someone living may be dead on the inside, while a corpse can continue to inflict pain on its observers, for example through a photograph. In all cases he believes the image is “simultaneously real and surreal, both here and not here.”
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Liu Zheng
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Title
- An Old Farmer in his Coffin, Longxian Shaanxi Province, from the series "My Countrymen (Guoren)"
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Place
- China (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 2000
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Medium
- Gelatin silver print
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Edition
- 2 of 10
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Dimensions
- 46 × 46 cm (18 × 18 in., image/paper, sight/appro×.); 60.4 × 60.4 × 3.7 cm (25 × 25 × 1 1/2 in., frame)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Mary Frances Budig and John Hass
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Reference Number
- 2019.1518
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
