PHOTOGRAPHY has, ever since the invention of the art form, been an impressive medium through which to reveal China and its people to foreigners.

　　The Artsea Studio and Gallery from May 15 to June 10 is mounting an exhibition the other way round. Five foreign photographers based and working in Shanghai are presenting their works from China and Shanghai to local audiences.

　　Opening last Saturday, the exhibition mainly shows works produced during the artists’ professional lives in fields such as photojournalism and architecture where they present their views of Shanghai and China to the outside world.

　　The group consists of five artists from the US, Canada, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Israel.

　　A central aspect of the exhibition is, according to the photographs, the uprooting of people in today’s world where the foreign increasingly becomes familiar. Shanghai seems to be the right city for that since it is a fitting embodiment of the world’s globalisation trend.

　　In a shabby old corner of a grey house, some bicycles lean against the wall. In front is a gleaming girl, wearing a pink shirt. She hides her face behind her hands with long fake pink fingernails. In a nutshell: China caught between irreconcilable contrasts in one of Aart Kooij‘s photographs.

　　Although, the five photographers are hardly comparable in their style of photography, they have one thing in common: contrary scenes are the main subjects under examination. A contrast of colours, a contrast of richness and a contrast of details. Thus, these details do excellent work in displaying China’s complex reality.

　　Another artist, Fritz Hoffmann, who was the first Chinese Foreign Ministry-accredited photographer since Liberation in 1949, presents in many of his exhibited works military or military-connected subjects in ordinary situations. Such as a street band whose very enthusiastic singer wears military trousers or a soldier who is reflected in a shop window with a woman behind wearing traditional Chinese dress.

　　The five artists document China and Shanghai by looking them straight in the eyes.

　　Artsea Studio & Gallery,

　　No. 50 Moganshan Lu,

　　Bld.9, 2nd floor

　　Tel: 6226-8380

　　Gallery hour: 10:00am-6:00pm