2013↗
Central
Placing the sun among the mountains rearranges a space that photography cannot ordinarily show.
Selected works2012–2014 / Archival inkjet print
Untitled
A complex assembly of more than ten thousand photographs carries the history of repeated work and a decision to stop.
- Artist
- He Fa
- Date
- 2012–2014
- Medium
- Archival inkjet print
- Dimensions
- 400cm × 250cm
Complete chapter contents
Making, and deciding to stop
Untitled was made between 2012 and 2014. The artist calls it his most complex image and writes in the portfolio: “I kept saying no to her; in the end, I finally gave her up.” The statement locates the work in a particular process of making, rejecting and ultimately leaving an image as it stands.
The density of the monochrome image
Against a dark ground, many small photographs open out into a landscape held within a rectangular boundary. Compared with the three colour variations of Shanshui, layering and repetition unfold here in a darker image. The listed 400 × 250 cm print gives those dense fragments room to be viewed at close range.
Density and the decision to stop
Small grey-white images interrupt one another against a dark ground; adding detail does not make the whole easier to establish. Where Shanshui allows a return between mountain form and photographs, recognition here is harder to resolve. The artist’s account of abandoning the work can also be read as a decision to stop revising: a record of the method’s limits rather than a simple declaration of failure.
Archive reading, 30 September 2026 · Site editorial interpretation, not an artist’s statement. Sources: He Fa Portfolio (PDF), p. 7. English is an editorial translation; document titles are translated where needed.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT / PORTFOLIO
It took a long time to make. It is my most complex image, using more than ten thousand photographs. I kept saying no to her; in the end, I finally gave her up.
Translated from the artist’s Chinese portfolio statement.
Archive note
Prepared from page 7 of the artist’s retained portfolio, He Fa Portfolio 3. Chinese titles follow the source; English titles are translations for this site unless already given in English. Images retain their full composition. Dimensions refer to the version listed in that portfolio.
Continue exploring
CLOSE READING / 2026 CURATORIAL INTERPRETATION
Untitled
Can abandoning an image also be a way of completing it?
ARTIST’S STATEMENT · PORTFOLIO EXCERPT
I kept saying no to her; in the end, I finally gave her up.
Statement in the artist’s portfolio; distinct from this page’s interpretation
Prepared from page 7 of the artist’s retained portfolio, He Fa Portfolio 3. Chinese titles follow the source; English titles are translations for this site unless already given in English. Images retain their full composition. Dimensions refer to the version listed in that portfolio.
Editorial translation of the Chinese portfolio statement.
Check the work record and source documents ↗In the dense black-and-white image, fragments accumulate inside a containing rectangle. The time of making does not close neatly with a triumphant completion date. Abandonment preserves an unresolved relation between maker and outcome. The displayed image is not evidence that all its problems were solved. It is a version allowed to remain, bringing rejection, exhaustion and stopping into the work’s visible history.
The work is useful for considering later time-limited theatre, but it is not a prediction of that theatre. Retrospect reveals two different answers to the problem of ending. An endlessly revised image may never satisfy its maker; a public performance date puts the limit in a shared agreement. In one case the artist finally stops changing the work. In the other, a group must face a particular moment. Their juxtaposition asks how each work acquires its boundary.
The limits of this reading
Abandonment is the portfolio’s wording, not evidence of an inferred personal event. The connection to later theatre is this reading’s proposal.
Sources for this reading
Based on He Fa Portfolio 3, p. 7, and the public work page. The title remains Untitled.
Work record
Untitled, 2012–2014. Archival inkjet print. He Fa’s role: Artist: He Fa.
- Work / series
- Untitled
- Date
- 2012–2014
- Medium
- Archival inkjet print
- He Fa’s role
- Artist: He Fa
- Catalogue section
- Selected works
Cite this record: Untitled · 2012–2014 · Artist: He Fa · https://hefa.p4theater.cn/en/work/untitled-2012-2014
TAKE A PATH ACROSS
Other paths from this work.
Versions of a work
Do not prearrange a version’s ending
Yigui’s two images are not assigned a sequence by the source; Untitled retains the artist’s account of stopping after repeated rejection. Juxtaposition does not establish development, and a surviving image need not mean its problems were solved.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Work imageImages and presentation ↗
Two images sit together: one uses distinct divisions, the other soft superimposition; the portfolio does not state a developmental sequence between them.
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
The portfolio statement directly records prolonged making, repeated rejection and eventual abandonment; stopping does not prove that the problem was resolved.
- Work imageImages and presentation ↗
Versions of a work
Facing a version before stability
Untitled stops after years of repeated rejection; Vortex’s announcement records members leaving and joining over a month. One ends an individual image’s revision; the other asks an unsettled collective to face a public-performance deadline.
Continue from this work ↗Read the source materials
- Period documentHow the work took shape ↗
He Fa’s signed performance text of 3 March 2022 records members leaving and joining during a month, multiple personal difficulties and an eleven-member list.
- Artist’s statementArtist statement in the portfolio ↗
The portfolio statement directly records prolonged making, repeated rejection and eventual abandonment; stopping does not prove that the problem was resolved.
- Period documentHow the work took shape ↗
FROM HERE, ELSEWHERE
Passages between works
- When can it end
The artist stops after repeated rejection; stopping becomes a condition of the surviving version.
Related records in the archive
- Central ↗2013
- Cocktail ↗2013