In the exhibition Galerie Julian Sander is showing a selection of motifs from the extensive series "101 Portraits of Hutong" by Chinese photographer Xu Yong. In his series, created in 1989/90, he focuses on the history of Beijing's traditional residential areas with their centuries-old houses, backyards and narrow alleyways, the so-called hutongs. Xu Yong was one of the first photographers to go beyond political glamorization and ideological whitewashing and focus on everyday life in…

In 1989, Xu Yong photographed the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, China. For 25 years, the negatives have been hidden in his archives in order to prevent censorship by the Chinese government. Photographer Xu Yong was 35 years old when the student’s protests started in the spring of 1989, triggered by the death of Hú Yàobang, the general secretary of Chinas Communist Party. As the regime held on to its rigid policy amidst the drastic change coming about in the …