Vintage silver print, exhibition print mounted on original cardboard 33 x 49,9 cm (13 x 19.6 in)
Signed, titled, numbered (neg. no. „78-12“) and repeatedly titled by the photographer in pencil and ink on the reverse
LITERATURE Arthur Miller/Inge Morath, Chinese Encounters, New York 1979, p. 126f.; Inge Morath, Photographs of China, cat. Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan 1979; Arthur Miller/Inge Morath, In China, Luzern 1991, p. 126 f; Kurt Kaindl (ed.), Inge Morath. Fotografien 1952-1992, Salzburg 1992, p. 101; John P. Jacob (ed.), Well Disposed and Trying to See: Inge Morath and Arthur Miller in China, cat. University of Michigan Art Museum/Inge Morath Foundation, New York 2008.

Inge Morath and her husband, the writer Arthur Miller, travelled to China after lengthy preparation – they had both studied the country’s history extensively, and Morath had learned Chinese as her sixth foreign language. Two years after Mao’s death and the end of the Cultural Revolution, they considered themselves eyewitnesses to drastic change: Miller conducted a series of interviews in which concepts like individualism and isolation, but also concrete restrictions and reprisals under Mao and the “Gang of Four”, were discussed. His text based on these conversations formed the first part of a travelogue published in 1979, documenting the openness with which the Chinese answered Miller’s controversial questions. Morath’s images and her comments formed the second part. It is especially her street photographs taken in the area of Chang An Avenue that have the character of a feature in its own right.
The present photograph plays a prominent role in this context; all the book’s editions feature it as a double-page spread, marking the beginning of this sequence. The early-morning bicycle commute to work is shown in a perfect composition of lighter and more shadowed parts, emphasising the structural perspective of the image. The street, which borders Tian’anmen Square, had witnessed important parades and demonstrations since the beginning of the 20th century; today, it is ten (car) lanes wide.