LAO XIE XIE

CHINA

PRESENTATION

Born in a poor village in the province of Sichuan, in the south-west of China, Lao Xie Xie started out as a Baozi (stuffed and steamed bread rolls, very popular in Chinese gastronomy) salesman. One day, in 2019, a friend gave him a camera. He then decides to immortalize moments of life knowing that he abhors perfection, any smooth image without asperities. This is the birth of Lao Xie Xie, translation "Mister Thank You".

We don't know much about the artist after all. On the other hand, he was able to assert himself with a visual identity his own, which became recognizable. The artist's photographs seem to want to clash a traditional culture with a culture of freedom for young people. In his photographs he evokes desire, pleasure and food. Lao Xie Xie does not care about the technical aspects of photography, nor about reality, nor about the ability of photography to capture reality in pictorial matter. His camera is a tool that can help him realize his ideas.

Although his photographs subvert traditional Chinese connotations and free the body from the constraints of clothing, Lao Xie Xie does not wish to provoke but to attract attention. "Each of my photographs is a punch in the face, you have to stop and look at it more". Dynamic, anarchic, eventful; his photographs deliver the message in a blatant way. "People waste millions of words, and in the end they talk about nothing," he says. "We live in an age where we're bombarded with images every minute, so it's best not to waste people's time, to speak frankly, to be true."

The artist currently lives in Shanghai and has exhibited his work in Thailand.