Hong Lei’s Narrative: An Alternative Beauty, guest curated by Yang Shin-Yi, addresses the cultural imagery explicit in photography and installation. By way of photography, the exhibition shows how this notion of cultural imagery permeates throughout Hong Lei’s works.
Hong Lei was born in Changzhou, China in 1960. He majored in Chinese art and graduated from Nanjing Academy in 1987. This exhibition is the artist’s first solo show in America and it includes both photography and installation works, which span the years from 1996 to 2003. Hong Lei’s art has been well known for its photographic appropriation of scenes presented in masterpieces of Chinese ink paintings, in which he was particularly interested in landscapes and flower painting from the Song dynasty.
For the production of his works, he went to the same sites that appear in the landscape paintings, selected the same angles, and waited for the right moments to catch the scenes he needed. His work resembles both the scenes represented in the ink paintings, as well as the look of the actual sites today. This double resemblance makes the concept of his photographs complicated – as more than merely mimetic renderings of the ink paintings. He engages in dialogues between his own cultural tradition, as embodied in the narrative of landscape, and the contemporary environment of technology.
In addition to photographs, the artist presents two types of installations in which he draws from his personal memories and experiences for inspiration. First, he has assembled some traditional boxes from flea markets in Nanjing (the old Chinese capital city) which function as emblems for the narrative stages in the ink paintings. From these he has composed numerous readymade objects that express the local stories he has been told. Secondly, he presents a video installation, which addresses concerns parallel to those in the box installations.
纽约前波画廊举办的《洪磊的江南叙述》展览将探讨艺术作品对其文化背景的表现。此展览由杨心一策划，将展出洪磊创作的照片，录像和装置艺术。
洪磊于1960年出生于常州，1997年毕业于南京艺术学院，主修中国艺术。作为洪磊在美国的第一次个人展览，《洪磊的江南叙述》将包括他从1996年至今所创作的艺术作品。洪磊的摄影作品多以着名的中国水墨画，特别是宋代山水画及花鸟画为主题。他亲自旅行到画中所描绘的地方，采用同样的视角，等到与画中类似的光线亮度后，再用镜头捕捉下山水景象。
他的照片既体现了传统水墨中的风光，又真实地表现了当今的自然风景。这种双层的表达使其作品不局限于对传统水墨画的模仿，或对自然的简单再现。在对山水的叙述中，洪磊巧妙地将文化传统与现代科技相结合。
除摄影作品外，此次展览还包括录像和装置艺术，均以洪磊个人的经历与回忆为创作灵感。他将从南京跳蚤市场找到的古董盒子重新组合，并同时用已经存在的物体，来叙述他所熟悉的传统寓言和故事。另一种装置作品则与录像相结合，表现类似的主题。