Existing comment:
After Lange
"This landscape of struggle is familiar terrain, reminding me of the epic revolution and displacement in Mao's China. Only, now I am painting American peasants looking for the promised land. "
-- Hung Liu
In 2015, Hung Liu visited the library of the Oakland Museum of California and spent considerable time in the archives of the American photographer Dorothea Lange (1895–1965). Liu became absorbed by the weathered faces of the Dust Bowl migrants in the Depression-era photographs and admired Lange's commitment to portraying the lives of those who had been marginalized.
As Liu looked closely at Lange's images and learned more about the photographer's life, she established connections with the work. Lange, like Liu, had witnessed political upheaval and endured unimaginable personal challenges. Liu felt "almost a first-hand experience with the American farmers and the migrant families" in Lange's imagery. This affinity, along with her feeling of kinship with Lange, led to her ongoing series After Lange.
In creating this body of work, Liu transformed the imagery of Lange's black-and-white photographs into large- scale, colorful portraits that honor the subjects and further bring to the surface what Lange described as "the things about those people that were more important than how poor they were -- their pride, their strength, their spirit." |