ZEN FOTO GALLERY

“The danger of exposure led to the power of mysterious attraction. In front of the mirror we cried, we laughed, we roared, we meditated; unleashing all our enthusiasm and turning it into ashes. We grew as much as we could and lived each and every day fully and brilliantly, as if it was the last day we had. We were still pure, simple, and dangerous.”
― from the artists’ statement

When the artist duo Liu Ke and Huang Huang met for the first time 15 years ago, they felt like they were each other’s mirror. In 2017, having lived and worked together for many years, they began a collaborative series to reflect this mutual, mirror-like relationship in photographs. Each day for two years, they took one picture of each other, in everyday situations, playful poses, naked and real or dressed up and staged, mixing self-representation and portraiture. This photographic ritual became a way for them to observe and interact with each other, formed a new way to see and understand the person who is closest to each of them.

“As time goes by, [the mirror] might develop a few imperfections, and shine less brightly than before. But when we get close again, the glimmer remains eternal…”
― from the artists’ statement

The series won the “Three Shadows Photography Award” in 2019. Paired together and signed with the respective date, the duo created 730 photographic mirror-pairs between 2017 and 2019. The photobook “Mirror” features 164 of these image pairs and includes a poster of all 730 images. A short essay by publisher and gallery owner Mark Pearson as well as commentary by the Three Shadows jurors Peter Pfrunder, Marcel Feil and Hai Jie offer further context for Liu Ke & Huang Huang’s work (all texts included in Chinese, English and Japanese).