Zhang Hai'er

 
In his graphic series"The Painter and his Model", Picasso describes the erotic relationship between painter and painted, the model being the passive object of his sexual as well as of his brushstokes. In one of Zhang Hai'er main topics, this theme is also predominant. Although in his portraits of "dirty girls" We don't see him, he is implicitly present through the girls' communication with the camera. They are displaying their sexual attraction for the the man behind the camera looking straight into the objective lens. But the camera looks maintain a distance from the erotic signals of their make-up, clothes, and bodies. Thus, they depict their sexuality as a projection of the photographer - what is portrayed is not the girls, but ther being "dirty". The individuality of the people shown is not essential for these photographs. Zhang Hai'er is illustrating his visions of sexuality, cities, time and life, and for this purpose uses his models and scenerries. Consequently, Zhang includes photographing and its defining effect on both the artist and the model in some pictures as a second motif. Another basic theme of Zhang Hai'er work is the description

of time, the preserving of a moment, and its passing away. In his street scenes, buildings and bicycles emerge out of a deep space and gain great plasticity though extremely long exposure times. Meanwhile the persons in these pictures, often caught in motion and placed in the immediate foreground, become temporary elements in this solid city landscape, and so their identity fades a feeling of passing time. Their function is that of formal elements in Zhang's composition of an atmosphere of melancholia, reminiscent of French black and white movies from the late fifties. But we are confronted with a very real and existential situation in his photos taken on the train station of the small city of Shaha, where his train for home stopped for 80 hours in June 1989. He reflected these day of waiting in photographs of railroads stretching out into the depths of the picture, suggesting travelling and long distances. Almost oversized, powerful engines and clear-cut wagons fill these pictures. But they cut the background off like walls, and the people clinging onto the trains or helplessly moving between them are small, weary and forlorn.
Jule Noth- Dec.1994

Zhang Hai'er's biography and works