Within and Without: Di Yuancang and Introduction of Western Photography to Socialist China, 1949-1979

Born into a high-ranking cadre family of the Nationalist Party (KMT), Di Yuancang (1926-2003) betrayed his father and attempted to join the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1949. Even though the CCP never accepted his application due to his family background, Di was one of the earliest and most active photographic critics who introduced Western photography into the People’s Republic of China. Anything Western introduced into socialist China was classified ‘internal’ materials, only available to a small number of selected cadres and experts. Under the auspices of the China Photography Society, Di Yuancang organized two ‘internal’ exhibitions of Western photography: Various Bourgeois Photography Exhibition in 1960, after the Anti-Rightist Movement, and Internal Observation Exhibition of Foreign Photographic Works in 1979, soon after the launch of the economic reform and opening-up policy.

This paper compares the 'rhetoric' of these two exhibitions and their respective audiences, reflecting on the shifting approaches towards Western photography at different historical moments in China’s recent history. By analyzing the complex identity and agency of Di Yuancang as organizer of these two exhibitions, as well as their different receptions, this paper argues that art critics and practitioners strategically negotiated creative space both inside and outside of what remained a tightly-controlled system in socialist China.