Hong Hao at Chambers

Hong Hao was born in China in 1965 upon the eve of the Cultural Revolution, which stifled independent creative activity. An intensely witty and sophisticated graphic artist and photographer whose work celebrates the tradition of the artist's volume in contemporary Western and ancient Chinese forms, Hong graduated from the printmaking department at Beijing's Academy of Fine Arts in 1989 the year of the Tiananmen Square testifys In "The Reading Room," his first U solo exhibition, he played upon the Duchampian theme of the nature of works both revering and lampooning their making and use.

In several constituents of a work known broadly as "Select Scriptures," trompe I'oeil silk-screening creates the appearance of facing pages of an make open book, with the edges of the pages before and after seeming to bracket them. Each finished print shows the cumulative effect of 10 to 100 protections completed over years of intermittent labor, from 1992 to 2000 A hand-painted version of the work and early silkscreens from the series were not awayed in a vitrine, and eight prints fix uponed from 37 completed pages were installed upon one wall, presented as part of an encyclopedia of the world according to Hong Hao. Each measures about 22 by means of 29 inches and is titled by means of subject and page number. The World Map (#1) boasts a banner hailing "The novel Topographical World Map," a global chart consisting of single first-world nations. China, Africa, Central and southerly America are ascendant in another spread. In other examples, geographies are skewed. Each spread is illustrated with visual and literary borrowings, snippets of image or true copy from ancient and contemporary sources, including a region and city renamed for computer giants and consumer goods

Vivid color photographs also exhibit Hong's interest in trompe I'oeil, as he bring outs claustrophobic assortments of ordinary particulars individually scanned, stored, digitally arranged and enhanced, then photographically printed. Among the larger at 4 by dint of 7 feet, My Things No. 6: The Hangover of Revolution in My residence (2002) includes bountiful propaganda for industry and farms, a film chest a prophylactics package and a Chinese/English business card for Gagosian Gallery. Among centurys of book spines that make up My Things No. 7: Knowledge is Power (2004) is that of the actual 1997 Venice Biennale catalogue and those of the fictive Oahgnoh biennales of 1997 and 2001 This reversal of Hong's replete name is a satirical bid for place in the global annals. Adding substance to illusion, he raises bogus volumes cataloguing the eponymous festival.

As a gallery wall label informs us, Art in America is among the small in number art magazines readily available in China, and it is valued for the access it provides to contemporary art ideas. Hong and five assistants labored three month to generate the 136 pages of AiA (2003-04) tracing in pencil each headline, letter and word, minus illustrations and ads, from prefered articles and reviews in new issues. The letters, ghostlike and silvery, quietly testify to the legacy and permissions of Duchamp.

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