Zhang Kechun: The Yellow Desert

Presenting eleven works from Zhang Kechun'slatest series, which he began in August 2025,The Yellow Desertexplores the desolate sands of the Gobi Desert and the rich, complicated history of Chinese-Mongolian life.

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Now a popular tourist destination, the Gobi Desert contains haphazardly dispersed reconstructions of ancient religious sites that were once film sets, the remains of abandoned towns and oil extraction plants, and graves as old as the Han Dynasty. All sittingunder the feet of holiday makers.◦Kechun uses both restricted palettes and considered compositions that isolate landmarks to accentuate the vastness of the desert and the strangeness of the abandoned human products it contains. He locates the swathes of tourists in this landscape, punctuated by the relics of forgotten enterprises. Born in 1980 in Sichuan, China, Kechun's work has been exhibited at Photoquai, Paris; the Beijing Photo Biennale, China; and the Delhi Photo Festival, India.

In 2018, his photographs were featured in a major exhibition of contemporary Chinese photography at the Museum of Photography, Berlin. Photographs from his seriesThe Yellow River were exhibited at the Bangkok Contemporary Art Biennale in 2020. Kechun won the National Geographic Picks Global Photo Contest in 1998 and was shortlisted at the World Photography Awards in 2013. He lives and works in Chengdu.