Shanghai Passages: “Longtang” Photographs by Gong Jianhua opens on January 12, 2017, and remains on view through April 21, 2017, in the Harnett Museum of Art, University Museums. This exhibition features photographs by contemporary Chinese photographer Gong Jianhua (born 1953), who extensively photographed Shanghai’s longtang neighborhoods in the 1980s and 1990s. Unique to Shanghai, longtang are a dense style of housing that arose in the late nineteenth century as an adaptation of the traditional Chinese courtyard home in the urban townhouse format.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, longtang were organized into walled urban neighborhoods, each interlaced with a grid of progressively narrower lanes and alleyways. Situated chronologically after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and on the cusp of Shanghai’s resurgence as a global economic hub, Gong’s images provide vivid access to these semi-private passages that once dominated Shanghai’s urban fabric. In the past few decades, however, in the context of Shanghai’s rapid expansion, longtang have been razed to make way for high-rise developments. With some irony, preservation has sometimes meant redevelopment as luxury commercial and residential real estate.

The 25 gelatin silver prints in the exhibition comprise half of the promised gift from Kent and Marcia Minichiello, which was divided between the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. In celebration of the gift, the two institutions are presenting concurrent exhibitions and a series of related events.

This exhibition is a collaboration between the University of Richmond Museums and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and was curated by Kristopher Kersey, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Richmond. At the University Museums, the exhibition and related programs are made possible in part with support from the University’s Cultural Affairs Committee and with funds from the Louis S. Booth Arts Fund.