This extensively illustrated publication includes an essay by Britta Erickson, a noted scholar and lecturer in the field of contemporary Chinese art . Publication of Rebirth coincides with an exhibition of Shi Guorui’s works in Los Angeles, California, and comprises the first complete monograph of his camera obscura creations from years 2001 to 2011. Though the deeply personal nature of Shi’s camera obscura is still much in evidence, the book also presents a more expansive contemporary dialogue about relationships in a global society. Among its highlights is a new collection of photographs of urban sites which allude to the American Dream as it exists in America and as it is conveyed and interpreted in China. Each image is also documented in a specific period of current conflict or historic significance. Against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving modern society in China and within the context of an increasingly complex global community, Shi’s works visually examine the structures that symbolise cultural, political and economic authority in our time.
About the photographer Born in 1964, Shi Guorui is one of China’s foremost photographers and is par ticularly recognised for his large-scale traditional camera obscura images of landscapes and monuments. In the early 1990s, he graduated from the photography department of Nanjing Normal University and began his career as an artist. In 1998, a life-changing incident focused his interest in camera obscura, a technique which captures a series of moments rather than just a single instant, and removes all ephemeral activity from the resulting image. The surreal visions of Shi’s photographs are a distillation of his subjects’ essence, while the medium itself becomes a metaphor for the artist’s own outlook on life.