'Negatives' is not a conventional retrospective of the protests that spring.

He is also credited with helping pioneer the 798 Art Zone, a former military manufacturing complex that has been repurposed as a crowd-pleasing collection of art galleries and cafes. More recently, he earned plaudits for a series depicting a day in the life of a Beijing prostitute. A prolific documentarian, he is best known for his moody black-and-white prints, taken in the late '80s, that captured the beauty of Beijing's ancient lanes before many were bulldozed in the city's sprint to modernization. Until now, Xu's work has steered clear of content that could be construed as outwardly political. 'Xu is under no illusions about the risks, but this is his choice,' said Renee Chiang, a founder of New Century Press, the Hong Kong publisher that this month began shipping copies of 'Negatives' to bookstores outside mainland China. What prompted the arrest? Joining a private gathering, at a friend's apartment, to discuss the violent crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square 25 years earlier. One of China's best-known civil rights lawyers, Pu Zhiqiang, has been in police custody since last spring.

After all, scores of people, including several of Xu's friends in the art world here, have been detained in recent months, some for simply sharing online photographs of the pro-democracy protests that roiled Hong Kong late last year. In the ensuing years they have tried, with much success, to impose a collective amnesia on the nation by censoring photos and news accounts that are part of the historical record in the rest of world.Īt a time when the government is seeking to silence its perceived ideological foes, it is easy to view Xu's latest book, 'Negatives,' as a brave, if somewhat foolhardy, venture. 'I have no interest in discussing what they mean.' But the simple act of publishing images of the protests that convulsed Beijing in the spring of 1989 is likely to be viewed as a provocation by the hard-liners who currently rule China. 'This is an art book,' said Xu, 60, who has more than 20 photography books to his name. The latest book by photographer Xu Yong is filled with the images of young Chinese idealists clamoring for democracy and denouncing the Communist Party, but he insists that there is nothing political about his decision to publish this trove of snapshots he had kept hidden for more than two decades.

Negatives by Xu Yong