Here There Are Men: Patrick Wack’s Portraits of China
Among the extremes of China there are wide fields of farmland, treacherous mountains, stark plains, thrown-together cities and cutting-edge cosmopolises. And there are men.
Patrick Wack’s series Here There Are Men features portraits from various locations in China (Chongqing, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Yunnan and Shanghai). His portraits of everyday men and women in the midst of their daily lives and typical surroundings go beyond the strictly documentary to elevate the subjects into representatives of mankind. Roadside in a steaming concrete menagerie or in a stream nestled between mountains of lush greenery, Wack juxtaposes personae against the changing cultural and environmental landscapes of China, finding beauty in faces, sceneries and light.
With a calm optimism, these portraits of Chinese people capture the commonalities of the human spirit through differences in age, gender, class and location. Resonating with the collective unconscious, Wack’s photographs present subjects as fellow humans rather than individuals from distant lands, as neighbors rather than strangers. A combination of natural and artificial lighting adds a unique sheen to the reportage, and though his work is anchored in reality – real people, real situations – his style incorporates narrative elements, composing the human figure against its environment to recount everyday livelihoods while leaving individual identities a mystery. Capturing and elevating the overlooked, Wack’s style of photography reinvents a sense of truth about the human portrait and the humanity it represents.
Here There Are Men: Patrick Wack’s Portraits of China bridges the distances between the people of China, tapping into the idea of the collective unconscious through Wack’s photographic representations of the heroism of the everyday figure. His images are poised and serene, exuding a sense of Chinese-idealized harmony and equality among mankind. Here there is a fiction borne from reality. Here there are men.
By Bonny Yau / Art+ Gallery
About the Artist:
After spending several years in the US and Sweden, Patrick Wack left a marketing job in Berlin to pursue his passion in photography that brought him to China. Since 2006 he has been working as a freelance photographer in the fields of portraiture, reportage and advertising. Patrick focuses on long-term personal projects and is active in the field of reportage as part of the German agency LAIF. He has published in The Sunday Times, National Geo, The Monocle, Vogue and many others. In 2014 he was the recipient of the first Prize at the International Kuala Lumpur Portrait festival and in 2015 he held several solo exhibitions in Shanghai, Berlin, Singapore and Paris.
展览简介：
在中国广袤的土地上，有大片农田、崇山峻岭、荒芜平原、既有无人问津的小城，也有走在前沿的大都市。而在那里，都有人。
Patrick Wack的个人作品展“这里有人”，主要展示了他在中国各地（重庆、内蒙古、西藏和云南）拍摄的十二幅最新肖像摄影。他选取最平凡的人们在日常生活中的形象和典型的周围环境，将拍摄的内容融合，但又营造出一种超越其本身的东西。在烟雾袅绕的小动物园水泥路边，或是山中葱翠草木间流淌的小溪边，Wack把人物和不断变化的中国文化和地理环境放在一起，在脸孔、景色和光线中寻找美。
这些中国人物肖像摄影捕捉了这些不同年龄、不同性别、不同阶级、不同地区的人类精神的共性，即平静的乐观主义。Wack的摄影与集体无意识产生了共鸣，其展现的内容是结伴的人，而非遥远的某一人；是街坊邻里，而非互不相识的人。Wack通过把自然光线和摄影伞下的外接闪光灯结合起来，最后点缀一缕柔和的光线，来实现他的视觉审美与叙事风格。尽管他的作品仅停留在现实——真实的人、真实的环境——他的个人风格加上叙事性元素，从环境中凸显出人物的特点，以这种方式在不揭露人物身份的同时描述他的日常生活。Wack的摄影风格就是通过捕捉并提升这些被忽视的人们，来重新创造一种关于人物肖像和它所表现的人性的真实感。
“这里有人”：Patrick Wack的肖像摄影缩短了在中国，人与人之间的距离，通过对普通人物形象进行英雄主义式的摄影展示，进一步探究了集体无意识的概念。他的图片都是静止且安宁的，包含了一种中国式理想化的和谐与人与人间的平等。这里有传奇的承载者。这里有人。
艺术家简介：
1979年生于法国戛纳，Patrick Wack自学成为摄影师，从2006年起工作并生活于上海。他在2005年获得巴黎商业学校的外语艺术学学士（英语/德语）和商业行政艺术的硕士学位。在美国、瑞典与德国生活了几年以后，他放下了在软件产业的市场部工作开始追求自己的兴趣——摄影。Patrick的摄影技巧全靠自学，在来上海之前他已经开始在德国柏林做时尚及肖像摄影，现在他专注于肖像与纪实摄影。
Wack曾合作过的一些商业客户有阿迪达斯、North Face、 耐克、Finnair、Cathay Pacific、 大众集团、Allianz、卡地亚、Bentley、爱马仕、香格里拉集团、 欧莱雅、宜家、 La Maison de la Chine 以及 Suez Environment。他在新闻摄影领域也很活跃，是德国知名照片代理LAIF的一员，也是中国团体UBQT的创始人之一。他最近为《周日日报》与《周日电报》去福岛与朝鲜拍摄了专题报道。他也曾为一些知名的杂志提供摄影作品，比如《Monocle》、《Tatler》、 《Vogue China》、《Courrier International》、《Le Point》 和《Travel & Leisure》。
