Xu Yong, who has more than 20 photography books to his name, chose to publish only the raw negatives of the images he took of protesters at Tiananmen Square in “Negatives.””
BEIJING — The latest book by the photographer Xu Yong is filled with the images of young Chinese idealists clamoring for democracy and denouncing the Communist Party, but he insists that there is nothing political about his decision to publish this trove of snapshots he had kept hidden for more than two decades.
“This is an art book,” said Mr. Xu, 60, who has more than 20 photography books to his name. “I have no interest in discussing what they mean.”
But the simple act of publishing images of the protests that convulsed Beijing in the spring of 1989 is likely to be viewed as a provocation by the hard-liners who currently rule China. In the ensuing years they have tried, with much success, to impose a collective amnesia on the nation by censoring photos and news accounts that are part of the historical record in the rest of world.
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Mr. Xu acknowledged the dangers of his latest project, but offered an equivocal shrug, saying the negatives were starting to yellow with age. “I am getting old,” he said with a faint smile. “If I don’t publish these now, then when?”
A version of this article appears in print on February 24, 2015, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: A New Lens on a Blurred History . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
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