Amid China's tumultuous dash to become rich, one man's photographs of families posing with their worldly possessions will soon seem like records from a distant era. Huang Qingjun has spent nearly a decade travelling to remote parts of China to persuade people, who in some cases have never been photographed, to carry outside all their household goods and pose for him.
Who says we live in a materialistic age?
We playfully confound two typically distinct spaces—the gallery & the domestic home—as artists present their work in the households of participating NY residents. In each dwelling, an installation area is designated, while the existing items (i.e. sofas, coffee tables, books, and personal objects) are moved and reinstalled in a gallery space.
With the artworks thus displaced, gallery visitors must directly contact the private hosts, whose phone numbers are available alongside their displayed belongings.
A journey of several days through mystical Icelandic topography leads to the site of Kunsthalle Tropical, the hallowed burial ground indicated only by a peculiar rectangle of stones shrouded by ice-capped mountains. There, the book detailing the institution's greater vision was buried.
The Kunsthalle Tropical Library was founded.
The Brazilian artist Letícia Parente (1930-1991) is no stranger to controversy. That is, of course, the result of having something to say and not being worried by the opinions of others.
Truly made in Brazil.