PARIS PHOTO 2025

East Asia’s geopolitical history and current situation are highly complex. The continuous shifts in culture and waves of migration intertwine dreams with anxieties, blurring the boundaries between reality and dreams, memory and imagination. This state of ambiguity is vividly embodied in the surrealist photography of these five artists: through photography, they weave an Asian imagination, excavate the subconscious and collective memory, and respond to the real world from an irrational perspective.

Lang JingShan (1892–1995) is regarded as the father of Asian photography and pioneered “composite photography.” Deeply influenced by Western experimental photography in the 1930s, he used darkroom techniques such as film collage, scratching, and painting to print images that expressed his idealized vision of Chinese landscapes. Inspired by Song dynasty shan shui (mountain and water) paintings, his works feature the unique perspective, negative space, and scale manipulation characteristic of Chinese painting. After relocating to Taiwan in 1949, he continued to construct surreal imaginings of Chinese landscapes, preserving his cultural roots amid the turbulent transformations of modern China. Lang had numerous engagements with France starting in 1981. He held a solo exhibition at the Musée-Galerie de la Seita in Paris and donated works to the National Library of France. He was also invited to attend the first Rencontres d’Arles. In 1983, he held a solo exhibition at Galerie du Château d’Eau in France, and his works were later collected by the Muséum de Toulouse. Lang’s work continues to attract international academic and market interest, with a dedicated Sotheby’s auction in 2017 and significant recognition from European collectors and audiences at Paris Photo 2024.

Lan Chung-Hsuan (b. 1991) was inspired by The Death of Marat (La Mort de Marat, 1793) and, during his 2018 residency at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo, created the Dielusion series, exploring imagined representations of death. In this project, Lan invited the public to participate in staged photographs where they depicted their envisioned death scenes. His work presents a groundbreaking perspective on death in the context of Asia, where discussions on mortality remain sensitive and reserved. Yurie (2018) is one of the most representative images from this series, depicting a participant’s imagined death posture alongside a surreal, towering Mount Fuji. Lan holds an MFA from Pratt Institute in New York and has exhibited in Germany, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. His exhibitions include the 2025 Taiwan Art Biennial: Black Water at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, Taiwan, 2023 Mediations Biennale in Istanbul, Turkey, and 2022 Covered Reality: Archival Orientation and Identity in Taiwanese Contemporary Photography at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, Taiwan.

Nakahira Takuma (1938–2015) responded to the turmoil of postwar Japan with his photography in the 1960s, and his thinking on the medium profoundly influenced the development of photography worldwide. In 1973, marking the end of a certain period, Nakahira burned a large portion of his early negatives. In 2025, Each Modern, in collaboration with his estate, presents rare early images printed as modern prints from negatives that survived the destruction. After suffering memory loss due to illness in 1977, Nakahira began to reconstruct memory through an unceasing process of photographing and printing, with his images coming ever closer to the essence of things. Several vintage gelatin silver prints from this period will also be on view. Nakahira’s works are held in the collections of the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Yokohama Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In the fall of 2025, Aperture Foundation in New York will publish At the Limits of the Gaze, the first critical anthology on Nakahira in English.

Teng NanKuang (1907–1971) was one of Taiwan’s earliest photographers to study in Japan and a pioneer in the development of Taiwanese photography. Influenced by pre-war Japanese photography trends, his depictions of Taiwan’s landscapes are not traditional documentary images but rather experimental compositions with a surrealist sensibility. In the 1950s, Teng began using a compact MINOX camera, allowing him to capture people, temples, and marketplaces with instinctive spontaneity. His compositions often featured extreme angles, rhythmic repetitions, and figure–ground ambiguities, creating visual playfulness. When depicting people, his images exuded the soft romanticism of Pictorialism. Teng meticulously mounted his developed photographs alongside miniature film contact prints on small cards, carefully annotating shooting details—evidence of his technical rigor and precision. Each Modern held a solo exhibition for Teng in 2018, titled Beauty on a Summer Day, and published a monograph of the same name. His works are collected by institutions such as the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

Wu MeiChi (b. 1989) is one of Taiwan’s most internationally recognized female photographers. Her work resonates with European still-life painting and American photographer Barbara Kasten. Her 2017 series XYX - A Movable Feast draws inspiration from Taiwan’s fruit calendars, integrating local produce with the aesthetics of the Millennial generation into meticulously staged still lifes. Coming from an agricultural family, Wu ingeniously incorporates mirrors into her compositions of fruits and objects, generating dazzling optical illusions. These create surreal, multilayered dimensions that defy immediate comprehension, reflecting the intersection of tradition and contemporary trends, the rise of subcultures, and Taiwan’s evolving identity. Wu has exhibited at Bandung Photography Triennale and Fotofever Paris, and she was shortlisted for the 2023 Jimei x Arles Discovery Award and was selected as one of the 2024 Paris Photo must see female artists. Her work is in the collection of Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography in the Netherlands.