The China Project

280 time as a gay man. Earning an income was difficult, so Yang drew upon his theatrical contacts to make a career as a photographer. He began taking photographs for actors’ portfolios in 1974 and, after an unsuccessful attempt at fashion photography, began working as a social photographer for glossy magazines. As an active member of the overlapping artistic and gay communities, Yang took pictures of artists, celebrities and gay friends at parties, theatre premieres and exhibition openings. In the mid 1970s, photography began to be taken more seriously as an art form in Australia. The Australian Centre for Photography (ACP) was established in Sydney in 1973, and its first gallery space opened the following year. Yang’s first exhibition, ‘Sydneyphiles’, was held at ACP in 1977. It featured his hedonistic social photographs; it was the first time that explicit images of Australian gay society had been shown in a public institution, causing a minor sensation. Yang’s work continued in a social mode, culminating in 1984 with an exhibition at Hogarth Galleries, Sydney, and the publication of his first book, Sydney Diary 1974–1984 . Following this project, Yang became less interested in documenting the social scene and moved into more personal imagery, photographing friends, landscapes and everyday objects. He had moved to Bondi in 1983, living by himself for the first time, and a number of his photographs featured the beach and its denizens. One of his most enduring portrait subjects was the novelist Patrick White, who Yang met in 1977 through the director Jim Sharman. Yang photographed White and his circle until the writer’s death in 1990, publishing a book of these images in 1995. In 1983, Yang met teacher Yensoon Tsai, the daughter of a Taiwanese classical scholar, who had been brought up in the traditional Chinese way. She introduced him to Taoism and encouraged him to embrace his Chinese heritage. He changed his name from Young to Yang and began to research his family history and that of the Chinese in Australia. In 1989 he made the first of many visits to China, travelling to Beijing, Shanghai, Xian and Inner Mongolia. Bringing together his skills in writing, theatre and photography, Yang developed his first monologue performance with slide projection and music in 1989, entitled The Face of Buddha . This performance, presented at the Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney, was a collection of nine short pieces, including one about his family, For My Mother . Yang had experimented with combinations of slide and music since 1982, but after attending a 1986 performance by the American writer Spalding Gray he became inspired by Gray’s monologue technique, saying later that he ‘spoke in a discursive and personal way which I found totally engaging’. 4 The success of The Face of Buddha led to the development of the performances China Diary in 1990, and Sadness in 1992. Sadness combined Yang’s research into his family history with an account of the Sydney gay scene, weaving a narrative of the 1922 murder of Yang’s uncle, William Fang Yuen, together with stories of friends who had died from AIDS. Premiering at Belvoir Street, Sadness received wide acclaim and invitations to tour around Australia and internationally, including Hong Kong, New Zealand, Britain and North America. It was published as a book in 1996 and adapted into a documentary film by the director Tony Ayres in 1999, screening at film festivals around the world and on SBS Television in Australia. It received numerous local and international award nominations, including winning the Film Critics Circle of Australia award for best documentary and the Australian Writers’ Guild award for best screenplay. Although Yang considered his monologues his main work, he continued to exhibit his photographs regularly throughout the 1990s. This decade also saw him begin to write directly onto his prints. He explained, ‘This has the advantage of giving context to the picture as well as drawing the viewer into the work’. 5 clockwise from top left Shrine from when I became Taoist, bought in Sydney, 1984 Rosewood, porcelain, plastic / 61 x 37 x 30cm / Collection: William Yang Patrick White #1, Kings Cross 1980 Gelatin silver photograph, ed. 3/10 / 49 x 33.1cm / Purchased 1998. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery Taylor Square Clinic Christmas party #4 1982 Gelatin silver photograph / 27 x 40cm / Collection: The artist opposite William at site of Entombed Warriors, Xian, 1989 2008 Digital print, ed. 1/20 / 38.2 x 40cm / Collection: The artist “William Yang performing Sadness.” Sydney. 1992. Photo: Peter Elfes (from ‘About my mother’ portfolio) 2003 Gelatin silver photograph, ed. 2/10 / 51.3 x 61.1cm / Purchased 2004. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery