NIEUWENHUIZE~Johan – Made in China

€25,00

Author: Visser & Interview: Wim van Sinderen~Hripsim?ɬ©
Year: 2011
Artist: NIEUWENHUIZE~Johan
ISBN: 978-90-818045-2-3

Johan Nieuwenhuize, Made in China

Softcover, 32 pp., 30 x 24 cm, Design: SYB
Dutch version of 400 copies

Signed

Description

The photography project MADE IN CHINA is the result of the time Johan Nieuwenhuize spent as an artist in residence at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing. He was situated in the area of Caochangdi, where he often worked in the homes of migrant workers from the rural areas of China.

The project is a dynamic combination of the three genres landscape, still life and portrait. Nieuwenhuize combines abstract pictures of the sky with more documentary still lifes and self portraits. Nieuwenhuize wants to show us how people’s identity is reflected by the material surrounding them. He also tries to point out the difference between his own position as a westerner and that of the migrant workers.

The still lifes show his vision on consumerism and on how people deal with objects and culture goods. His own position as a westerner is shown in self portraits. Fascinated by the Chinese way of copying, Nieuwenhuize had his own designer clothes copied by a Chinese tailor. Wearing these clothes he copied behaviour typical to Chinese, like in the squat he performs in Self Portrait with a Chinese Copy of my G-Star Jeans. The pictures of the sky, like Sky over Caochangdi, are fields of colour which show his position in a more abstract manner; on this very spot he pointed his camera upwards and took a picture.