Chang Chao-Tang


Chang Chao-Tang was a Taiwanese photographer, filmmaker, and educator. For his film work he received a Golden Bell Award, a National Cultural Award, an individual Golden Horse Award as well as the Golden Horse Lifetime Achievement Award. Chang's work is held in the collection of M+ in Hong Kong.

Early life and education

Chang was born in Banqiao District, New Taipei City. After high school, he graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering.

Life and work

Chang was an avant-garde photographer, a photojournalist, a cinematographer, and a filmmaker.
He made black and white photographs that, according to Jenny Zhang, "blend ideas of western surrealism and existentialism within Chinese ideology." For example, between 1962 and 1965, he photographed himself and friends with distorted bodies and faces, at derelict sites on the edge of the industrializing city. According to Tang Hsiang-yi writing in the Taipei Times, "images are intentionally out-of-focus, blurred or, in the case of the portraits, headless. Later, he will make a person's face or head blurry, covered or hooded in a plastic bag, yielding a sense of suffocation." In 1965, Chang had his first exhibition, Modern Photography, a two-person show with his teacher Cheng Shang-Hsi.
From 1968, he worked as a photojournalist for the state-owned China Television Company, making programs "that focused on subjects who were often overlooked by the official narrative of positivity, such as street vendors, traditional opera performers behind the scenes, and idle children at the park."
After an exhibition titled Farewell to Photography in 1974, Chang "departed from the avant-garde surrealist aesthetics seen in his early work and started to produce a series of TV documentaries that mixed photojournalism, ethnography, experimental cinematography, and folk rock music."
From 2005, he began to experiment with colour photography.
From 1997 to 2009, he was a lecturer at Tainan National College of the Arts and was made an honorary professor upon his retirement.
Chang died on 2 April 2024, aged 80.

Publications

Photography books by Chang

  • In Search of Photos Past. Guang-hua Art Magazines Society, 1988. A survey of 20th century photography in Taiwan.
  • Chang Chao-Tang. Youlhwadang, 2008.
  • Moments in Time 1959–2005. Taoyuan, Taiwan: National Central University Art Center, 2010. In English and Chinese.
  • The Invisible Contact 1959–1961. Self-published, 2010. In English and Chinese.
  • Time: The Images of Chang Chao-Tang, 1959–2013. Taipei: Taipei [Fine Arts Museum], 2013.. With essays by Chang Chao-Tang, Kuo Li-Hsin, Gu Zheng, Chang Shih-Lun, Sing Song-Yong, Ho Tung- Hung, and Shen Chao-Liang. In Chinese, and in English in some parts. Exhibition catalogue.

    Solo photography exhibitions

  • Time: The Images of Chang Chao-Tang, 1959–2013, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, September–December 2013
  • The Passage of Time, Taiwan [Cultural Center (Tokyo)|Taiwan Cultural Center], Tokyo, September–October 2015
[Image:新竹五指山.jpg|thumb|"新竹 五指山 1962" = Sinchu, Taiwan 1962]

Films

Chang's work is held in the following permanent collection:
  • M+, Hong Kong