Wei He is an old friend of mine. After he arrived in Beijing in 2001, we lived together in Cao Changdi, surviving the hard times together, a lonely and even desperate life: a broken old bed, a little coal stove and two speakers only as big as your palm were the only stable possessions in our room; and plain fried pak-choi formed the staple of our diet, we would take it in turns to transform pak-choi into as many different flavours as possible. We lived with beautiful yet awful monotony. We had both come with the pure notion of becoming literary youths, how could we expect that life would force us into becoming “artists”.Wei He is an understated, pensive young man who is often enthusiastic. In his new photography works one can perceive something that is beautiful yet dangerous, poetic yet mournful, quiet yet pained, shining yet dark; these could be described as the basic tones of his works. They are at once so peaceful as to draw one, vanishing in that moment the bubble on which the image is reflected bursts. It reminds one of the Impressionist painter Corot, of the Tang poet Li Shangyin and his poems which captured the dusk and the imminent threat of the extinction of the setting sun. One also thinks of Proust’s description of the concept of time that vanishes like smoke, the passing of time that we have remembered and forgotten. Wei He’s images convey the following message to us, “The river reflects a world already forgotten by man”.What is interesting is that whilst Wei He’s images are made of real photos treated by computer, we are unable to find any sign of manipulation or pasting. Most of his photos are oval in shape, on a monotone background, we are able to perceive the loneliness of the broken branches, and the imperfect remains of a fairytale memory of a person, a dog, electricity pylons and aeroplanes. His photographs surpass the basic documentary potential of photography. At the same time he has not sought to deliberately emphasise the many concepts of modern photography, he simply sets about realising all that is yet to be accomplished by photography itself. You could say that he goes against the tide, breaking the photographer’s general guiding principle and notion of “taking pictures for the sake of it”. I think that his boldness is valuable and worthy of our praise.At this point I recall an Austrian author’s words, of being pensive and ephemeral, of an illusion wandering about formlessly in someone’s unattainable dream. I would use such a description to paraphrase Wei He as he appears hidden in his pictures, I think it is the most appropriate description.The exhibition opens on 22nd December 2007 – 22th January 2008 at M- Art Space, 798 Art District.