{
    "data": {
        "id": 169859,
        "accession_number": "2012.112",
        "share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
        "tombstone": "Three Elderly Entertainers, Beijing, 1995. Liu Zheng (Chinese, b. 1969). Gelatin silver print; paper: 45.7 x 45.7 cm (18 x 18 in.); matted: 71.1 x 66 cm (28 x 26 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 2012.112. Courtesy of the artist and Eli Klein Gallery \u00a9 Liu Zheng",
        "current_location": null,
        "title": "Three Elderly Entertainers, Beijing",
        "creation_date": "1995",
        "creation_date_earliest": 1995,
        "creation_date_latest": 1995,
        "artists_tags": [
            "male"
        ],
        "culture": [
            "China, late 20th century"
        ],
        "technique": "gelatin silver print",
        "support_materials": [],
        "department": "Photography",
        "collection": "PH - Misc. 20th Century",
        "type": "Photograph",
        "measurements": "Paper: 45.7 x 45.7 cm (18 x 18 in.); Matted: 71.1 x 66 cm (28 x 26 in.)",
        "dimensions": {
            "paper": {
                "height": 0.457,
                "height_inch": 18,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
                "width": 0.457,
                "width_inch": 18,
                "width_inch_fraction": 0.0
            },
            "matted": {
                "height": 0.711,
                "height_inch": 28,
                "height_inch_fraction": 0.0,
                "width": 0.66,
                "width_inch": 26,
                "width_inch_fraction": 0.0
            }
        },
        "state_of_the_work": null,
        "edition_of_the_work": null,
        "copyright": "Courtesy of the artist and Eli Klein Gallery \u00a9 Liu Zheng",
        "inscriptions": [],
        "exhibitions": {
            "current": [
                {
                    "id": 524148,
                    "title": "Refocusing Photography: China at the Millenium",
                    "description": "<i>Refocusing Photography: China at the Millenium</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 8-November 16, 2025).",
                    "opening_date": "2025-06-08T04:00:00"
                }
            ],
            "legacy": []
        },
        "provenance": [
            {
                "description": "Artist; Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg; Cleveland Museum of Art",
                "citations": [],
                "footnotes": null,
                "date": null,
                "sortorder": null
            }
        ],
        "find_spot": null,
        "related_works": [],
        "former_accession_numbers": [],
        "did_you_know": null,
        "description": "Liu Zheng worked for a newspaper in 1991\u201397, creating images that were supposedly documentary but instead presented a fictional, idealized view of life in China. The burgeoning individual prosperity and increasing openness to the West, meanwhile, was contributing to the rise of the photographer-artist in China, whose work fulfilled personal expressive needs rather than governmental ends. In 1994, Liu took on this new role as he began <em>The Chinese</em>, a seven-year independent project chronicling Chinese society that may have been inspired by German photographer August Sander\u2019s comprehensive catalogue of his country\u2019s people. Like American portraitist Diane Arbus, Liu emphasized dispossessed and marginalized citizens, the type of subjects he had been forbidden to shoot as a photojournalist.",
        "external_resources": {
            "wikidata": [
                "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80077681"
            ],
            "internet_archive": []
        },
        "citations": [],
        "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2012.112",
        "images": {},
        "alternate_images": [],
        "creditline": "Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund",
        "image_credit": null,
        "sketchfab_id": null,
        "sketchfab_url": null,
        "gallery_donor_text": null,
        "athena_id": 169859,
        "creators": [
            {
                "id": 63024,
                "description": "Liu Zheng (Chinese, b. 1969)",
                "extent": null,
                "qualifier": null,
                "role": "artist",
                "biography": null,
                "name_in_original_language": null,
                "birth_year": "1969",
                "use_in_caption": true,
                "include_extent": false,
                "weight": 1
            }
        ],
        "legal_status": "accessioned",
        "accession_date": "2012-12-03T00:00:00",
        "sortable_date": 1995,
        "date_added_to_oa": null,
        "date_text": "1995",
        "collapse_artists": false,
        "on_loan": false,
        "recently_acquired": false,
        "record_type": "object",
        "conservation_statement": null,
        "has_conservation_images": false,
        "cover_accession_number": null,
        "is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
        "impression": null,
        "alternate_titles": [],
        "is_highlight": false,
        "updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:53:16.788000"
    }
}