Pressing concerns
环球网：http://special.globaltimes.cn/2010-03/510879_6.html

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Ou Zhihang

By Jiang Xueqing

Ou Zhihang stepped into the Ramoche Temple in Lhasa, Tibet, with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II digital SLR camera hanging off his neck and a tripod on his shoulder. The moment he walked in, he found the temple packed not just with tourists but also the police: plainclothes, SWAT and uniform.

Bad timing, he complained to himself silently.

It was July 10 last year, five days after the riots in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region that left 140 dead and more than 800 injured. The riots had put officials in Tibet on high alert. A similar deadly riot had ravaged the regional capital of Lhasa in 2008: On the morning of on March 14, rioters had gathered at the Ramoche Temple, as China Central Television reported.

Ou walked around the temple looking for the right spot to set up his tripod and picked an open space behind the main entrance.

After measuring the light and adjusting the camera, he began to wait for the crowds to diminish. Several times he was just about to take a picture when a new group of people appeared.

Small troubles like this were no stranger. He was used to waiting several hours, even several days, before being able to take a picture. On most occasions, he has bigger problems like sneaking into illegal brick kilns in a village in Shanxi Province or persuading police not to arrest him for taking strange photos without permission.

Finally, the moment came.

He pushed the delayed release shutter button, hurried to the spot, took off his clothes, squatted and performed a push-up facing toward the temple in front of the camera.

Naked.

Suddenly, a monk walked into the space and saw what he was doing. Without a word, the monk smiled at him and walked away.

Ou took two pictures. As he was heading out, two plainclothes policemen approached and stopped him. They checked his camera and asked him to delete a photo. They missed the other push-up as there were several other photos in between.

The surviving picture was carefully saved by Ou. The 51-year-old Guangdong Television host did not risk posting it on his blog. Originally Ou had planned to take a picture anywhere in Lhasa as an artistic reflection upon the riots, but he hit upon Ramoche after hearing it was where the riots started.

"All events with destructive effects seem improper to many people," he said. "But I think it's necessary to have them documented, including what happened in Tibet."

What looks destructive or catastrophic can actually be meaningful and essential to the growth and development of China, he said.

"It's impossible to have no problems at all while a country experiences rapid transformation," he said, "especially with different ideas and powers fighting one another."

The key is how to face and solve problems, according to Ou.

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An internal document from a renovation project in Wenzhou, a prefecture-level city of Zhejiang Province, was posted on an Internet forum. The document demonstrated that more than 140 apartments had been sold at 8,000 yuan ($1,170) a square meter, or two-thirds the market price. Most buyers were government officials or people connected to government officials.

Why naked?

To witness social development and record history in his own way, in 2000 the Guangzhou-born artist started doing naked push-ups on the location of events of critical importance to Chinese society.

Regarding the human body as a medium to convey the soul, thoughts and desires of the individual, he hopes to present the relationship between body and location in a direct, systematic and effective manner.

Referring to his push-up as "a distinctive and powerful performance", Ou told contemporary artist Shu Yong that at first glance, the body looks like a caterpillar, trying to establish a link between itself and the outside society.

"It then becomes an artistic symbol that evokes deeper reflection from the viewers on contemporary China," he said.

Although naked, Ou's careful not to expose his privates. It's important as otherwise the audience's attention would be diverted and his photos would become obviously more pornographic than artistic.

For art critics like Bao Kun, the naked body serves as a metaphor for the people with least power, rights and freedom. To Bao, the idea behind naked push-ups at the site of disastrous news events is like saying: "Although we have nothing, we are still brave enough to face the harsh reality with unyielding dignity."

Bao abhorred Ou's first photo series See and Be Seen when it drew public attention in 2008. Photos included landscapes such as the Great Wall and the Bird's Nest. At that time, he criticized Ou for using fashion to produce claptrap.

"The idea behind his first series was as unclear as his intention," Bao said.

That attitude changed after he saw a photo of Ou doing push-ups at the ruins of Beichuan Middle School where the Sichuan Province earthquake had hit. In that photo, Ou drooped his head as if paying silent tribute to the victims.

As works accumulated over the years, Ou underwent a transformation. His thread of thought evolved from vague to clear.

"Coming along with China's economic reform and opening up to the outside world, social problems have accumulated to a suffocating level," Bao said.

"His work has a crucial meaning in offering an individual voice for mass public sentiment."

After winning the bronze award of the Fifth Lianzhou International Photo Festival in December in Guangdong Province, his second series The Moment earned an honorable mention for contemporary-issue stories from the jury of the 2010 World Press Photo

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Workers of the Tonghua Iron and Steel Group in the prefecture-level city of Tonghua, Jilin Province, rioted after news of layoffs on July 24 last year. Chen Guojun, the company's newly appointed general manager, was beaten to death. About 100 were injured in the clash.

Striking ambiguity

The 12 photos he sent to the contest included reference to the fire at China Central Television, the Deng Yujiao stabbing incident and the "hide-and-seek" death at a detention center in Yunnan Province.

"The reason we liked the picture is because it's very ambiguous and strange," said Harry Bordon, a UK-based member of this year's WPP jury, in a phone interview.

"It had a sort of enigmatic quality missing from a lot of photographs in news photography, which are kind of telling the viewer what to think."

Initially, The Moment was a bit of light-hearted relief for the jury from the harsh black-and-white war photography they were starting to feel was quite clichéd.

As Bordon recalled, in the first few rounds, the jury just saw a naked Chinese man. It was strange, almost comical. Then after the pictures survived elimination rounds, they examined the captions. At this point, they realized they were witnessing a much more serious and profound undertaking.

"I think the barometer of whether a photograph is successful is if you remember it and it stays with you, and you can contemplate it," he said.

"That's what the person involved in producing that photograph is trying to do – to get you to stop and think and contemplate."

In spite of winning international acclaim from art circles, Ou has stressed in almost every interview his work was intended to be constructive by encouraging introspec-tion rather than simply ridiculing and criticizing the government.

"I love my country," he said. "And I hope my works will make a small contribution to its development."

Bao insisted Ou's photos contained a strong vein of criticism and that the artist was only denying this obvious sentiment to protect himself from the relevant authorities.

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Hundreds of residents in the Panyu district of Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, protested outside government offices on October 25 last year opposing plans for a garbage incinerator.

Patriotic criticism

Ou had always assumed no one could doubt his sincerity that his push-ups are "active, healthy and pious". He was soon to be proven wrong.

The unusual death of Li Shufen, 16, in Weng'an county, Guizhou Province led to a riot in which the county government buildings were set on fire on June 28, 2008.

The family claimed their daughter appeared to have been raped and possibly murdered, but the police said at a press conference that she had committed suicide and cited the testimony of a suspect who claimed he was doing push-ups when the girl plunged into the River Ximen.

Soon after, the term "push-up" became a term of ridicule among Web users, gaining nationwide popularity as they concocted their own satirical push-up images. Ou heard about the incident, but at first didn't make any connection with his own art of the last eight years.

"It's totally different," he said. "The Weng'an push-up is evasive and passive, while mine is active, involving and thought-provoking."

Many people understandably but wrongly assumed Ou had jumped on the bandwagon. Discussions and criticism of "Ou-style push-ups" soared on Internet forums.

Unable to judge whether his push-up had a negative meaning that mocks the government, Web operators of sina.com temporarily deleted the photos on his blog at that time.

Reporters from other media called the director of Guangdong Television, asking what he thought of one of his TV hosts appearing naked. Embarrassed and bewildered, the director stopped broadcasting Ou's show for two months.

In May last year, Ou went to Weng'an. On the day he arrived, rain was bucketing down. He took a shuttle bus to the county and later asked a taxi driver to take him to the Dayan Bridge.

It took them time to find thesmall and narrow bridge, with only enough space for one person. The street was almost empty. A couple of pedestrians plodded against the high wind.

Having finished all preparations, he wrapped the camera in a plastic bag, leaving the lens uncovered, and headed into the deluge. At the place where doing push-ups had become satire rather than exercise, he firmly performed his art, head up, facing the bridge.

"At that moment, I only had my own style of push-up in mind," he said. "It will last longer."

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The Mandarin Oriental Hotel next to the new China Central Television (CCTV) headquarters in Beijing caught fire on February 9 last year. Ignited by an illegal fireworks display, the inferno killed 29-year-old firefighter Zhang Jianyong. Human negligence caused the accident that cost 163 million yuan in financial losses, according to the investigation report. Forty-four people were publicly prosecuted including Xu Wei, deputy general engineer of CCTV and director of CCTV tower construction. A further 27 people face administrative punishments.

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Li Qiaoming was found dead in a Jinning county detention center under the prefecture of Kunming, capital city of Yunnan Province, on February 12 last year. Police claimed a blindfolded Li, 24, had been playing "elude the cat" -a Chinese version of hide and seek- with fellow inmates and bumped his head into a wall.