The serie BUREAUCRATIC BEAUTY presented in Spain for the first time in MadridFoto 2010, is the result of the joint work by the Italian artist Ruggero Rosfer (Milan, 1969) and the young Chinese artist Shaokun (Beijing, 1980).

These pieces are a reflection of the changes China has seen in the last few recent years. The pieces are made with a combination of Western and traditional Chinese techniques. Both Ruggero’s photography and Shaokun’s concluding work includes traditional Chinese techniques of printmaking, drawing by working always in miniature, recording on the same contacts, and applying natural pigments to provide different colors to the photography. The styles of these two artists together form a Western and Eastern point of view.

In this serie, they have wanted to place evidence on the contradictions between China today and the rural areas. The change can be seen through the growth of the individual and the result of the evolution of Chine society. It is a groundbreaking vision that the old cliches support. The contradiction between the rural and modernity, the customs and habits, especially females, is challenged in their work. Shaokun emphasizes this contradiction by performing some inappropriate actions that would not be approved in the environment where she grew up. Sexual liberation and the individual formed by the idea of community had once prevailed in this country. Both ideas are threatened by globalization, not only economic but also cultural where the protagonists are becoming completely spiritually, morally, and culturally misplaced. Where are the limits of influence and assimilation? Is this cultural invasion lawful to the individual freedom of the individual in these countries? Is colonization more subtle or does is still continue to fracture patterns of free choice?

Immersed in two realities, this pair of artists has managed to bring our vision to an exquisite form of the understanding of the aesthetic duality in emanating photographs. Bureaucratic Beauty is more than just the symbiosis between artists Sun Shaokun and Rosfer Ruggero. It is the union of two ways of understanding the world from the perspective of art. These two visions overlap without being subordinated to one other. Both artists previously conceived the series. Ruggero uses the camera and Shaokun offers her body as a model in addition to her hands by manually working on the photo, using incision and stroke. Through the Western view of the photographer, the view encounters a paradoxical image of China today. It is reflected in the pose of Shaokun. The work ultimately becomes a highly contradictory picture evoked by the internal struggle of a country rooted in ancient traditions facing a new reality due to the wave of modernity.

In "Bureaucratic Beauty", while Ruggero Rosfer photographed, Shaokun’s body takes the role of the material representation of the idea developed: Shaokun, raised in rural China, is at odds with Western dolls and accessories (like the iconic Playboy bunny dress) to the delicate and idealized image of women traditionally portrayed in ancient China. The series is also a confrontation not only of passing time but also of changing artistic techniques. While Ruggero uses photography, artistic discipline of little more than a century old, Shaokun manually intervenes by using the ancient techniques of printmaking and drawing.

BUREAUCRATIC BEAUTY is part of the Versace Collection of Art and has been acquired by major collections in Brussels, Lisbon, Paris and Milan.