The gallery Camera Obscura presents until January 11 an exhibition of Christopher Taylor titled The Middle Way: Reflections of China (1988-2019).
This exhibition accompanies the publication of a book which, in one hundred and thirty photographs and texts, presents work carried out in China over a period of more than thirty years.
Christopher Taylor works on film, medium and large format, and makes his own prints. He traveled the territories of this country-continent over the course of fifteen stays, at first ignorant of the customs and culture, then little by little educated by the experience and the friendships made during his travels.
His photographic writing, austere and focused on details, is more visual poetry than documentary. However, it reveals, in its affirmed subjectivity, a profound reality of Chinese life, that of a present imbued by an ancient, earthly culture of builders and peasants.
Usually, I try to avoid the anonymity of big cities in China, preferring towns on a human scale from where the countryside is more accessible. In such places, the traditional values that interest me survive more easily in unvarnished form. The simplicity of my outdated analog camera seems an appropriate tool for locating simple shapes or scenes through which I try to imply a hidden meaning, in accordance with the train of my thoughts. – Christopher Taylor
The familiar strangeness of the objects, landscapes, and characters that inhabit his photographs comes from a look and a meditative practice of travel, which favors a slow, immersive approach, during long walks in Chinese cities and countryside, à la search for scenes and details which, arousing an intimate resonance, speak to us of a presence in the world that must constantly be questioned and probed.
Didier Brousse
Christopher Taylor: The Middle Way: Reflections of China (1988-2019)
Until January 11, 2025
Galerie Camera Obscura
268, boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris
tel: + 1 45 45 67 08
www.galeriecameraobscura.fr
