Series: Humanism in China, No. 548
Medium: Gelatin silver print
Edition: 1/20
Signature: Signed by the artist
A Miner's Wedding was photographed in 1975. In the image, a newlywed couple kiss amid the laughter and attention of the surrounding crowd, filling the small interior with a direct, lively, and unadorned sense of life. Through an immediate documentary approach, the work captures the genuine emotion and collective atmosphere of an ordinary miner's wedding in a particular era, vividly revealing the connection between marriage, labor, and communal life.
Hu Wugong was born in Xi'an in 1949. He is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, and Vice Chairman of the Shaanxi Federation of Literary and Art Circles. Since beginning photographic practice in 1969, he has devoted more than four decades to the reform and development of Chinese documentary photography, emphasizing photography's role in engaging reality, recording history, and revealing human nature. He initiated and curated major exhibitions such as Arduous Journey, Humanism in China, Chinese Folk Sports, Twenty Chinese Documentary Photographers, and Silk Road. He has published 15 books of photographic criticism and works, edited 6 volumes on Chinese photography, and collaborated with CCTV on the 22-episode documentary Portrait of the Times. He has received the China News Award, the Best China News Photo Award (1984), and the China Photography Golden Award (2007), and has been recognized as an "Outstanding National Journalist" and an "Outstanding Contributing Photographer."