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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty Nine: Juxtaposition – compare and contrast for meaning > Flea Market, Chaotian Palace, Nanjing, China, 2007
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12-SEP-2007

Flea Market, Chaotian Palace, Nanjing, China, 2007

A maze of merchants sells bric-a-brac, antiques, and relics of China's Cultural Revolution in a permanent flea market on the grounds of this Ming Dynasty palace complex. Among the items on sale was this statue of Mao, which seems to be lost amidst the shadows. By juxtaposing Mao against the dark background and the texture of the surrounding tarps that cover the goods during off-hours, I imply that he is a figure out of the past rather than the present.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/40s f/3.2 at 19.3mm iso100 full exif

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Phil Douglis17-Jun-2008 21:18
Glad you see the shadows here as I do, Jenene -- they represent the dark past. If he is praying here for China's success, his wishes seem to be coming true, but probably not in quite the way he would have envisioned.
JSWaters17-Jun-2008 05:57
The statues expressions are almost human - as if he were praying for his own success. He's cast in an unfortunate place, the future is already here, his reign part of the shadows of the past.
Jenene
Phil Douglis24-Oct-2007 00:05
Huge shadows, indeed (as in "The Great Leap Forward" where millions died of famine). We can interpret shadows as the unknown, and as the past, but they also can represent the darker side of mankind. In this case, I wanted them to represent China's dark past.
Tim May23-Oct-2007 21:07
I see the tarps as shadow mountains - Mao did a lot for China, but he also left huge shadows.
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