Works

Hai Bo's Biography

Hai B

Recollecting past days is one of the most frequent actions of my mind. This purely private and indescribable state has become an important part of my spiritual life. As time has passed, the power of recollection has become so strong that I’ve had no choice but to find a way to express these recollections.

These photos are the result of my work in the past few years. Most of the people in them are my friends, my parents, and myself. By recomposing old photographs and strictly adhering to the way that they look (for example the people in them must stay in the same positions), I mean not only to show the changes that have taken place in people and society, the passage of time; even more importantly, I mean to recreate the past, if only in that moment when the shutter snaps. I am enchanted by the fragrance of time.

These photographs are obstinate recreations of past times. Maintaining this kind of unrealizable dream is my understanding of what art really is. To look for and find a meaningful photograph, then to seek out the people in it, is in one respect a more meaningful process than making the photo itself. When you are immersed in life and time, art is actually very insignificant. Also I am captive to an indescribable desolation. This style of direct expression without regard to “photographic technique” or “aesthetic taste,” without heavy consideration, is the way I like to work today.

I mean to take photographs on the line between art and life.

“For the Future 1973.5.20”
I found this picture totally by chance. In its left corner the words were written: “For the future 1973.5.20.” For me this by no means distant generation is so familiar that it seems engraved in my bones. Those girls in the photo, whose hearts were full of longing, where were they now? And what were they doing? Then I got the idea: to bring them back together, return them to their original positions, photograph them again, take them and myself back to 1973 for 1/125 of a second.

I like concise and simple works of art, some of which even fuse with the ordinary. I believe good art is born on the line between art and non-art. These photographic works are products of this belief. I hope that they approach my ideal, penetrating theoretical fog and presentational technicalities to enter people’s hearts.