Since Deng Xiaoping carried out the reform and opening-up policy starting in 1978, China has experienced great changes in its urban landscapes. Especially in recent decades, thanks to economic prosperity, many skyscrapers have appeared in China's larger cities. What impression do the millions of new city residents have of these giant buildings?

Luminant-03, 2007

Photographer Jiang Pengyi, via his two series All Back to Dust and Luminant, displays a dreadful fascination for skyscrapers. Jiang's works are being exhibited at the Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery from Jan. 19 to Feb. 22 inside Beijing's Dashanzi 798, a new but already internationally known art district.

Jiang Pengyi

Jiang was born in Hunan in 1977. As a child of the Reform Policy, he is from a generation for whom construction and destruction are the competing heads of an accelerated development that has particularly affected the big cities. Originally from a small village, he left at a very young age for the big city. Now, having lived in Beijing for more than ten years, he expresses, via his photography, the deep social malaise engendered by modernization.

In Luminant, skyscrapers represent new landmarks in modern cities. Taken with a large format camera using long exposure times and framed in light boxes to accentuate their brightness, Jiang's overexposed buildings seem to warn the viewers about the negative manipulative power of these structures. In the picture The Society of Spectacle which depicts multi-layered and anonymous metropolises, skyscrapers embody a frightening reflection.

"With their commercial brand names and strip-lighting, these towers have immense power to fascinate and seduce," Perrine Pautre, manager of the Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery, said. "If we easily see the reference to city attractions carried out in the countryside, this fascination will actually become universal and result in alienation for everyone. These towers echo back human desires; continuously renewed, they are unrelentingly unappeased."

Luminant-09, 2007

Luminant-08, 2007

"Image suffices to guarantee value, and city lighting reflects the individual's desires. It’s not innocent, especially when you note that Jiang's buildings are all commercial malls or governmental and press institutions," Perrine added.

Interestingly, in All Back to Dust, the skyscrapers, these a priori invincible towers, now appear obsolete. Reduced, put upside down, mixed with plastic bags and rubbish, the buildings appear greatly reduced, less spectacular. As any construction involves destruction, Jiang's skyscrapers now appear as relics of a worn out world, garbage in a new era, with nature reclaiming her rightful place.

All Back to Dust-02, 2006

As the sacred Buddhist texts said: big things are also piles of dust.  "By creating this, I felt a lot better," Jiang Pengyi told China.org.cn.

Jiang commented that his apocalyptic vision seems milder than the modern reality.

All Back to Dust-01, 2006

All Back to Dust-03, 2006

Dates: Jan.19-Feb. 22  Everyday, from 10 am to 6 pm
Venue: Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery
Phone: +86-10-8459 9263
Address: Dashanzi 798, No.4 Jiuxianqiao Rd, Chaoyang District
Website:  http://www.parisbeijingphotogallery.com/main/jiangpengyiworks.asp

(China.org.cn by Wang Zhiyong January 21, 2008)