His new work “Offering” puts photography in a paradoxical situation: in order to photograph the interior of a darkroom, the darkroom needs to be bright. However the darkroom in reality-just like the meaning of this word-is supposed to be dark. In the end, Cai Dongdong had no choice but to build a darkroom that is especially for being photographed. In this bright “darkroom”, he arranges many details concerning photography. These details provide knowledge, but “knowing” and “looking” are different. In the photography work “Scene”, the real scene for “looking”, which is supposed to belong to photography, is absent. This is where the paradox lies.

Conceptual photography cannot be supported merely by appropriation, imitation, stage photography, fabrication or other technical elements. What’s more important is the artist’s consciousness of realizing a problem and his way of thinking, as well as the knowledge background that questioning and thinking rely on. The works by Cai Dongdong have proved this point.

(Bao Dong, The Drama of Photography, 2009[Excerpt])