Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Elegant Gathering: Hong Hao’s Opening, beginning April 19, 2007.
Born in Beijing in 1965, Hong Hao graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1989. Although he also studied oil painting, his primary interest has always been in the graphic arts and photography. At the same time as he was working on the series of prints known as Selected Scriptures in the 1990s, however, he began to consider the dynamics of the art world in such works as Invitation (1997) in which working with Yan Lei he sent out fake invitations to submit works for possible inclusion in a special section of Documenta X. This may not have won him many friends at the time but it did demonstrate very clearly the incisive quality of his analysis of the hidden structures of the professional world which he was on the point of entering.
For the exhibition Hong Hao’s Reading Room held at Chambers Fine Art in 2004, the gallery space was converted into the reading room of a provincial library, gathering together examples of his multi-layered graphic works as well as a series of three-dimensional and illusionistic works on the theme of books. During the intervening three years, Hong Hao has become fascinated with openings, the ritual gatherings that mark the calendars of museums and art galleries with increasing frequency. Works in the current exhibition include a new series titled Opening; handscrolls on the traditional Chinese theme of the Elegant Gathering and a new addition to the artist’s My Things series (2001-2004), all related to exhibition openings.
In the two works based on handscrolls, Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden on Mt. Hua and Elegant Gathering, contemporary figures are inserted into theses records of civilized gatherings of the past, creating piquant juxtapositions of ancient and modern. In the Opening series of photographs, he offers panoramic views of notable recent openings of works by Liu Xiaodong and Fang Lijun in Beijing in October 2006. Finally, in the carefully orchestrated compositions of invitations in My Things, Britta Erickson suggests that “Hong Hao’s arrangement of the invitations according to their physical characteristics (size, shape, color), rather than aspects of the exhibitions they represent, suggests that in the end openings are undifferentiated markers massing together to fill the lives of gallery habitués.”
Both a participator in and detached observer of the hyperactive art world in China today, Hong Hao is a visual diarist and achronicler of his time.
*A catalog designed by the artist will be available.
前波画廊有幸于2007年4月19日举办《洪浩之雅集》。
洪浩于1965年出生于北京，1989年毕业于北京中央美术学院版画系。尽管他学习过油画，但主要兴趣始终在绘画和摄影上。在九十年代致力于题为《藏经》 的版画系列的同时，他开始在《邀请函》（1997年）这类作品中思考艺术界的变迁，在后者当中，他同颜磊合作，发出了假邀请函，征集可能参加第十届卡塞尔 文献展某个特定部分的作品。在当时，这可能没能让他赢得多少朋友，但是这却十分清晰地显示出他对自己正在进入的这个专业世界的隐秘结构所作的分析具有鞭辟 入里的品质。
2004年，《洪浩的阅览室》展在前波画廊举办，画廊的空间转变成为一间地方图书馆的阅览室，集中展示了他的多层面的绘画作品，以及一系列有关书籍这个主 题的三维和运用错觉艺术手法的作品。在中间的这三年中，洪浩还是对开幕式，也就是日益频繁地在博物馆和画廊日历上标注出来的典礼聚会感到着迷。本次展览中 的作品，包括一个新的题为《雅集》的系列；这是表现雅集这个中国传统题材的画卷，此外还有艺术家《我的东西》（2001年至今）的补充，都同展览开幕式 有关。
在根据古代画卷《华山西园雅集》和《雅集》创作的两幅作品中，当代人物被安插到这些对过去文人聚会的记录当中，创造了古人和今人有趣的并置。在《开幕式》 这个摄影作品系列中，他对于2006年10月在北京举办的刘晓东和方力钧作品展的开幕式提供了全景式的审视。最后，在《我的东西》当中对邀请函进行了认真 仔细的编排，林似竹写道：“洪浩按照邀请函的物理特征来编排（尺寸、形状和颜色），而不是他们所代表的展览的类型，这表明最终开幕式也无非是画廊常客们生 活中充斥的没有任何差别的标示而已”。
洪浩既是中国当今极度活跃的艺术世界的参与者，又是一个游离出来的观察者，他是一位视觉日记的记录者，又是他那个时代的一位编年史家。
*前波画廊为此展览出版了展览图录。