Startling photographs of the Cultural Revolution by Solange Brand
In 2002, the cofounder of the Pingyao International Photography Festival, Alain Jullien, invited an unknown amateur photographer to participate in the annual visual feast that went on to become the landmark of Chinese photography today. Solange Brand, then the Art Director of the newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, mentioned in passing to Alain that she had been in China from 1966 to 1968, and had not set foot on the Mainland since. When Alain asked if she had taken any pictures of China; that innocent question turned out to be a major discovery: Her Agfa color slides and prints buried in a shoe box for all those years emerged to become an award-winning book.
That same year in Pingyao I was privileged to be in Solange's hotel room where she first showed her sensational pictures on my laptop screen. Everyone in the room was awestruck. And I was captivated by the freshness of the images as if they were snapshots made just the day before. Later during the al fresco projection, many of the Chinese photographers were moved; all were fascinated by this very rare natural portrait of “Beijing '66,” and in color! The projection was accompanied by revolutionary songs Solange has collected during her stay and a tape she made from the demonstration at the gate of the French Embassy. The commotion amongst the Chinese photographers was incredible: after the show some of them marched on the main street of Pingyao singing aloud the Red Sun Rising on the East and other vintage revolutionary hymns before settling down for baijiu and huangjiu at the main tavern where Marc Riboud’s pictures were hanging on the wall.
John Lennon said (in “The Beatles Anthology”); “The sixties saw a revolution among youth, not just concentrating in small pockets or classes, but a revolution in a whole way of thinking; the youth got it first and the next generation second. The Beatles were part of the revolution.”
Far from the Beatles in Beijing 1966 there was another King of Pop, another Idol who had millions of teenagers rocking and rolling.
Solange Brand was 19 or 20 years old, the same age as these young Red Guards, when she was sent to work as a secretary at the French Embassy in Beijing. Unknowingly, with her Pentax she captured the beginning of the Great Cultural Revolution....
Read entire article at Jean Loh at China Beat (blog)
That same year in Pingyao I was privileged to be in Solange's hotel room where she first showed her sensational pictures on my laptop screen. Everyone in the room was awestruck. And I was captivated by the freshness of the images as if they were snapshots made just the day before. Later during the al fresco projection, many of the Chinese photographers were moved; all were fascinated by this very rare natural portrait of “Beijing '66,” and in color! The projection was accompanied by revolutionary songs Solange has collected during her stay and a tape she made from the demonstration at the gate of the French Embassy. The commotion amongst the Chinese photographers was incredible: after the show some of them marched on the main street of Pingyao singing aloud the Red Sun Rising on the East and other vintage revolutionary hymns before settling down for baijiu and huangjiu at the main tavern where Marc Riboud’s pictures were hanging on the wall.
John Lennon said (in “The Beatles Anthology”); “The sixties saw a revolution among youth, not just concentrating in small pockets or classes, but a revolution in a whole way of thinking; the youth got it first and the next generation second. The Beatles were part of the revolution.”
Far from the Beatles in Beijing 1966 there was another King of Pop, another Idol who had millions of teenagers rocking and rolling.
Solange Brand was 19 or 20 years old, the same age as these young Red Guards, when she was sent to work as a secretary at the French Embassy in Beijing. Unknowingly, with her Pentax she captured the beginning of the Great Cultural Revolution....