Hong Hao, Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver - Suspended Disbelief

Hong Hao: Suspended Disbelief 
Art Beatus Gallery, Vancouver
February 25 - April 30, 2000

Art Beatus Gallery presents a solo exhibition of the recent works of Beijing artist, Hong Hao. Suspended Disbelief  includes computer-generated colour photographs, photographic hand scrolls and a selection of colour serigraphs from his series, Selected Scriptures.

Hong Hao has been working on this continuing series for over ten years and the process of creating a fictionalized document, in the likeness of an encyclopedia or atlas, has generated a prolific body of work. Each serigraph is an element of the total invented volume, and presents a view of two pages from this book. The prints define a territory of a world that we almost know: "political, social and historical in content and rendered in ways so subtle that, if you don't know your history you might well believe yourself to be well beyond the looking glass." The pages contain what appears to be an historical evolution that challenges our cultural precepts.

His art is the result of his curiosity and process of understanding. His sensitivity to the relationship between both traditional and modern culture lends to a unique photographic portfolio that highlights his view of the influence of Western ideas in an Eastern locale. In his large-scale colour photographs, the artist inserts himself into Western commercials cast in the role of a transnational businessman. "By creating a Chinese identity which is blurred and unfamiliar from both an ethnic and cultural standpoint, Hong attempts to express the uncertainty and inconsistency of human judgement, as well as people's embarrassment at living in a pastiche society." Based on the famous twelfth-century painting by Chinese court painter Zhang Zeduan, Life along the River on the Eve of the Chingming Festival, Hong Hao presents scrolls composed of snapshots depicting "a cityscape in which the traditional urban plan has been undermined by the chaotic distribution of modern commercial buildings."

Suspended Disbelief is not only the first opportunity to see Hong Hao's work in Vancouver, but it is his first solo exhibition in Canada.

ART BEATUS GALLERY, VANCOUVER
888 Nelson Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2H1
www.artbeatus.com