The Chairman and I:
a photographic documentary around China
(Main Bar and Sushi Bar)

Saturday 31 October to Friday 27 November2009

To coincide with the 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the FCCJ presents a series of photographs by Hong Kong-based photographer Andre Eichman of his travels throughout China with a ceramic statue of Mao Zedong. Andre photographed and interviewed people from all walks of life and the result is a unique visual snapshot of a China that has all but disappeared.

"The Chairman and I' started as a light-hearted project in Shanghai in 2003," says Eichman. "I wanted a side project, something that I could take along that was easy and fun. It's a pretty simple project, there's not much to it. I wandered around China with a Chairman Mao statue [taking photos of people holding it]. I just wanted to see what people did when I handed them a statue of Chairman Mao. Some would laugh or smile, others would say, 'I don't want to hold it'. Sure, the Communist Party doesn't look anything like it did back in the day but the influences still echo around. You can't deny that he's had an effect on just about everyone who lives in China."

Andre Eichman

Born in Ogden, Utah in 1961, Andre Eichman is a fine art documentary photographer who has been documenting humanity for the past 25 years. Andre studied fine art at San Diego where he developed a passion for photography. He then specialized in fashion photography for the first 10 years of his career focusing on high profile fashion shoots for the likes of Vogue, W Magazine, Eve, and Style Magazine. His work took him to New York, London, Paris, Thailand, and all over Asia.

Andre's first love has always been documentary photography, and his travels enabled him to pursue his love of reportage. Andre eventually moved away from fashion and began focusing solely on fine art documentary photography. He worked for various magazines including Sunday Times Magazine, Royal Geographical Magazine and Wanderlust, concentrating on "the positive, showing the triumphs of the human spirit."

Again, the demands of his work took him all around the world. Through his travels Andre began to focus on Asia, and developed a fascination for the divergence of cultures within China. This work took up the majority of the last 10 years, and the resulting body of work is stunning. Andre has had solo shows in New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and California, and his work is now found in many private collections.

http://www.andreeichman.com/

The Exhibition Committee