Liu Zheng’s subjects are death and artifice and, occasionally, something like beauty. This is important because Mr. Zheng (b. 1969) is a photographer whose concern for his subjects trumps his concern about technique. It is why his five modest black-and-white pictures were the best thing in last year’s “Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China,” the exhibition of 130 works by 60 artists at the International Center of Photography and the Asia Society. The other photographers shown there were motivated by art school theories that resulted in images of their own sensitive selves. Mr. Zheng wants to show us something. He wants us to see his fellow Chinese.

The first picture in “Liu Zheng: The Chinese” at the Yossi Milo Gallery is “An Actress of Hebei Opera, Huoshentai, Henan Province” (2000), an 18-by-18-inch silver gelatin print, like all 46 pictures in the exhibition. In this close-up the actress appears to be an attractive woman: She is wearing an elaborate costume of the traditional Chinese opera, most conspicuously a headpiece of gaudy baubles and dangles, and the white powder on her face sets off the heavy makeup around her mouth and eyes. She holds a long black feather between her lips. The picture speaks of the traditional arts of China, but the slightly lascivious cast to her expression is both immemorial and too immediate to be merely traditional. The 2 1/4-by-2 1/4-inch format film of Mr. Zheng’s Hasselblad 501 captures enough information for us to see the texture of the skin under the makeup around her eyes: The actress is getting old.

The next picture seems to come from a different universe. “Two Miners, Datong, Shaanxi Province” (1996) was taken in the town where Mr. Zheng grew up, an important coal-mining area. The young men have finished their shift and are washing up: They stand naked in a pool with water that comes up just above their genitals. Their expressions are far less knowing than that of the actress, but one of them has a tattoo on his arm, a rooster with a long stylized tail drawn in the Chinese manner, which links him in a corporeal way to the artistic heritage of his people. Although their bodies look clean, their faces and necks are still black with the dust of the mine. The coal dust is a mask that defines them socially in the same way that the actress’s makeup defines her.

Mr. Zheng is fascinated with masks:

As much as they cover, they seem to bode forth the true soul of the person who wears them. That is the crux of “Two Rich Men on New Year’s Eve, Beijing” (1999), probably Mr. Zheng’s best-known picture. The two revelers wear Western clothing – a double-breasted suit and a tuxedo, respectively – and extravagant party masks that cover the top halves of their faces. We see their mouths whose smiles say, “We love being rich,” but what is behind the masks? Are they as vacuous as the smiles imply? Without disguise, is there any stable persona?

Liu Zheng’s work shows several recognizable influences. The sociological ambition that includes peasants, convicts, rich men, artists, an emperor (in a waxworks museum), and monks is inspired by August Sander and his taxonomical “Citizens of the 20th Century.” Mr. Zheng’s miners remind us of those of W. Eugene Smith and Robert Frank. “Xinjiang Girl Working in a Textile Factory, Hetian, Xinjiang Province” (1996) brings the factory girls of Lewis Hine immediately to mind. And Diane Arbus is everywhere. The titles alone show her importance to Mr. Zheng: “Transsexual Nude, Beijing” (1998); “Three Deaf Mute Performers, Shenyang, Liaoning Province” (1998); “Mentally Handicapped Patients, Beijing” (1996). We know how Arbus anguished over her choices of camera and film and developer and paper: Mr. Zheng uses fairly standard equipment and techniques, but he got from Arbus her use of flash and her fearlessness in confronting his subjects.

Mr. Zheng’s work was also greatly affected by being present as a child at the deathbed of his grandfather. “An Old Farmer in His Coffin, Longxian, Shaanxi Province” (2000), “A Girl Killed in a Traffic Accident, Wuhan, Hebei Province” (2000), and the surreal “Specimen of Two Skulls, Beijing” (1998) are pictures he took to work his way through this trauma. With the old farmer, death is another and final mask. The two bisected skulls have faces still attached and seem to show that being dead does not mean someone no longer has a personality, or at least that his picture will not. Mr. Zheng’s prolonged contemplation of death led to a heightened sensitivity to life and life’s possibilities.

“A Model at the Academy of Fine Arts, Shaanxi Province” (2000) has a peculiar pose. The model is a young woman who squats naked, balancing on the balls of her feet, her arms behind her back. This means she is very exposed to the camera which has been lowered to waist level: We see her face, her breasts, and, because her knees are spread, her vagina. The candor of her face negates any possibility of pornographic intent. It is a classically Chinese face, without mask or makeup, her hair arranged simply in two braided loops, her expression not so much one of innocence as of someone still untried, not yet marked by experience. She is very appealing, not glamorous but beauty to the bone.

Something momentous is happening in China, and I make no pretense of understanding what it is. The evidence of movement is most conspicuous in the sleek, modern office towers that pop up on the skylines of cities whose names we don’t recognize, but they may not in the end be as significant as the underground conversions of millions of Chinese to faith in Christ, or the welling up in their hearts of a yearning for freedom that brought martyrs to die in Tiananmen Square, or the periodic reports of riots and unrest in obscure provincial towns. In this war between ancient demons and cosmic spirits for the souls of the Chinese people, Liu Zheng is a combat photographer.

Until August 26 (525 W. 25th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, 212-414-0370). Prices: $2,700-$4,500.