Gallery Vacancy荣幸地宣布将于2023年7月29日至9月2日呈现艺术家何麦克的首次个展“洞天”。“洞天”从中国的民间传说中汲取灵感，通过影像及一系列的绘画作品来探讨艺术家作为中国二代移民在西方的离散经历。展览运用洞穴、山水和文物等元素，将展厅转化为一个阈限空间，进而阐释虚实之间存在的张力，以及根源于文化、历史和个体维度的中间状态。
何麦克
来自虚空的回响，2022
单频影像
12'25"
Michael Ho
Echoes from the Void, 2022
Single channel video
12'25"
《来自虚空的回响》（2022）将展览的场景投射在英格兰古老的山洞之中，观者的目光随着艺术家镜头的移动在山林间穿梭。这件影像作品将英国的自然景观，与洞穴在中国文化中所包含的意义融合在一起。在中国神话中，洞穴是神仙的栖居地，是道教求仙之处，同时也是映照天境、接连天地的场所。在艺术家的解读下，洞穴成为连接不同场域的交点，时间、空间与现实的规则在其中被打破、重建；真实与神话轮转登场、交织相连。随着影像叙述的展开，错置的珍珠不断地从洞穴中冒出、坠落，逐渐过渡到一个未知、虚构的时间和空间当中。与此同时，当代性在作品所营造的空灵间隙中渗入：艺术家所扮演的人物大喊着因全球疫情而卷土重来的反亚裔阴谋论。这些话语在山谷、森林和洞穴中回荡，似乎也模拟了在超级连通的互联网时代下，假新闻在信息茧房中的传播模式。
何麦克
莫问君从何处来，2023
布面油画、丙烯
225 x 345 公分（88 5/8 x 135 7/8 英寸）
Michael Ho
The Origin of the World, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
225 x 345 cm (88 5/8 x 135 7/8 in)
交错的多重空间，幽静神秘的氛围和意象由《来自虚空的回响》（2022）展开，延伸至展厅中的画布之上。层叠嶙峋的山脉在《梦（侵蚀）》（2023）延续，作为一种构图工具，将人物悬置在模糊的时间与空间中。《莫问君从何处来》（2023）和《不得一见》（2023）则以神话中的昆仑山脉为背景，描绘了栖息在山间的神灵和植株。
何麦克
唯有传闻，2023
布面油画、丙烯
135 x 225 公分（53 1/8 x 88 5/8 英寸）
Michael Ho
Nothing but a myth, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
135 x 225 cm (53 1/8 x 88 5/8 in)
何麦克对文物的描绘进一步探究了传说在历史进程中的演变。《玉服深藏奇异骨》（2023）和《唯有传闻》（2023）分别呈现了在中国历史中不断摆荡于真实和虚构之间的物件。《玉服深藏奇异骨》（2023）展现了在山陵中被发掘的玉衣，据传这种皇权贵族专用的丧葬殓服从汉代后逐渐失传，其存在的真实性难以考证，一度成为考古界极具争议性的话题。直到1968年西汉中山王刘胜与窦绾的玉衣在河南出土，才证实了玉衣的存在。玉衣的真假疑云在作品中化为了阈限空间的表征，真实性和杜撰性并存于这段历史之中。在《唯有传闻》（2023）中，艺术家对传国玺的形式处理上也体现了这种双重性。与玉衣不同的是，这枚在秦朝时期由和氏璧雕刻而成传国玺，在朝代更迭中遗失，至今仍然下落未明，或许已经暂时或永久地遗落在历史中。在作品中，玉玺以半透明的形态显现，亦虚亦实地浮现在葱郁的背景之中。
何麦克
不得一见，2023
布面油画、丙烯
20 x 25 公分（7 7/8 x 9 7/8 英寸）
Michael Ho
Of a Kind, One Never Had Seen, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
20 x 25 cm (7 7/8 x 9 7/8 in)
“洞天”试图构建出一个身临其境的整体观展体验。作为景观的山脉、洞穴和水流，不论在理想还是在现实当中，都常常作为提供避难、寻求自由和超脱的空间存在；这些特性亦响应了艺术家关于身份与归属感的持续探索。何麦克从个人和文化的不同层面出发，以此寓意他在不同文化框架下的审美和社会经验。艺术家对于他身处的中间状态所作出的亲密解构，在展览中与物件、神话和空间建立起跨越时间和文化的联系。回响在展厅空间的窸窣脚步声和模糊的只字片语将过去与现在、虚构与现实、永恒与流动串联在一起。
何麦克
夜以继日，2023
布面油画、丙烯
180 x 170 公分（70 7/8 x 66 7/8 英寸）
Michael Ho
When Day Touches Night, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
180 x 170 cm (70 7/8 x 66 7/8 in)
Gallery Vacancy is pleased to announce Michael Ho’s first solo exhibition Grotto Heavens, on view from July 29 to September 2, 2023. In this exhibition inspired by the ancient poetic folklores of China, a video work and a series of paintings concertedly explore the artist’s diasporic experiences as a second-generation Chinese immigrant in the West. Through the recurring motifs of caves, mountains, water, and artifacts, Ho transforms the gallery into a liminal space, elucidating the prevalent tension between reality and myth as well as the in-betweenness that is cultural, historical, and personal.
Echoes from the Void (2022) sets the scene for Grotto Heavens, inviting viewers to wander through the ancient caves in England. The video work simultaneously collages the English natural landscape with Ho’s quest into the mythical connotation of the cave in Chinese culture. Caves, where gods dwell and Taoists seek immortality, are sites that are viewed as mirrors of the heavens above and therefore connecting heaven and earth. In the artist’s interpretation, this point of contact contains its own sense of time, scale, and temporal reality; myth and truth interchanges and interconnects. As the narrative unfolds, the disconnected pearl beads materialize and drip out of the cave, transitioning into an unknown, fictional timespan. Nonetheless, contemporaneity finds its way into the ethereal setting through words uttered by the artist-posed figure who is yelling anti-Asian conspiracy theory resurged under the global pandemic. Words echo in forests, mountains, and caves, seemingly emulating the echo chamber that propagates misinformation in our hyperconnected age of the internet.
The introduction of multiple timeframes, alongside the nocturnal sensibility and imagery from the video work lingers in the exhibition and on Ho's canvas. The porous mountains are continued in Dream of (erosion) (2023) where the trace of the cave is employed as a framing device, suspending the figure within an obscure time and space. Locating the paintings in the mythical mountain range of Kunlun are mythological flora and deities encountered in The Origin of the World (2023) and Of a Kind, One Never Had Seen (2023).
The investigation of myth in history is further revealed in the artist’s depiction of Chinese artifacts. In Buried Like a Certain Kind of Truth (2023) and Nothing but a myth (2023), Ho portrays material objects that oscillate between truth and myth over the course of history. Buried Like a Certain Kind of Truth (2023) recreates a jade suit rediscovered by the mountain site, whose existence was once a highly contested subject. After such funerary practice was abandoned post-Han dynasty, the jade suits were only proven of existence until an excavation of the imperial tombs of a Western Han dynasty prince in 1968. This history of jade suits characterizes the liminal space revealed through the exhibition, embodying a duality of authenticity and fictionality. The duality is manifested in the formal treatment of the Heirloom Seal in Nothing but a myth (2023), serving as a counter object to the jade suit. Carved out of Heshibi jade, the imperial seal was made in the Qin dynasty to be passed on from dynasty to dynasty, whose existence is still unknown in the present day, temporarily or forever lost to history. In the painting, Ho treats the object in a semi-translucent appearance, dissolving the substantial object into the lush background of foliage.
Grotto Heavens as a whole attempts at creating an immersive and holistic experience. The landscape of mountains, caves and water, real or ideal have been frequently identified as sites of refuge, liberation, transcendence; all function in a similar manner for Ho’s ongoing search for identity and belonging. Drawing on different layers of the personal and the cultural substance, Ho seeks to allegorize his aesthetic and social experiences under various cultural frameworks. The intimate perception of in-betweenness, as a result, forges a link with the objects, myths, and space across time and culture. The rustling and illegible words echo in the exhibition space, threading together the past and the presence, the myth and the reality, and the permanence and the flux.
何麦克，1991年出生于荷兰阿纳姆，现生活、工作于伦敦。他在2019年毕业于英国建筑联盟学院。作为来自中国的第二代移民，何麦克通过绘画来探究海外华裔群体的经历、文化差异及文化再发现等概念。他运用一种特殊的方式作画：由画布的背面向正面进行颜料的浸润，将稀释的背景色域与正面的清晰笔触并置，创造出一重东方传统与西方美学相融的潜在张力。他对于东方主义式的图像和形象的批判性解读饱含丰富的面相，从玩味性到政治性，从身体到空间。2020年至2022年，何麦克与他的搭档何智仁（1993-2022）以艺术家双人组的形式进行创作。何麦克与何智仁的个展包括：“Kūnlún”，V.O Curations，伦敦，2021。何麦克的个展包括：“洞天”，Gallery Vacancy，上海，2023；“密恋”，Gallery Vacancy于伦敦弗里兹艺术博览会，伦敦，2022。他曾群展于GRIMM，纽约；白立方，香港；博伦坡画廊，东京；Nottingham Contemporary，诺丁汉；ICA，伦敦；刺点画廊，香港；Guts Gallery，伦敦；Gallery Vacancy，上海；Intersticio，马德里；Soft Opening，伦敦；和Delphian Gallery，伦敦。他的影像作品曾在伦敦皮卡迪利广场，伦敦ICA和Nottingham Contemporary放映。何麦克的作品被收藏于：Asymmetry Art Foundation，伦敦；Domus Collection，纽约；Labora Collection，达拉斯；经纬艺术中心，香港；X美术馆，北京。
Michael Ho, born in Arnhem, Netherlands in 1991, now lives and works in London. Ho graduated from the Architectural Association in 2019. As a second-generation immigrant from China, Ho’s works investigate the notions of the Chinese diaspora, cultural mismatch, and subsequently cultural rediscovery through his painting practice. He employs a specific technique of painting from back to front, superimposing diluted images with resolved brush strokes, clashing Eastern traditions with Western aesthetics. Ho’s critical engagement with the orientalist images and tropes is multifold: from the playful to the political and from the erotic to the domestic. From 2020 to 2022, Ho worked with Chiyan Ho (1993-2022) as an artist duo. The duo’s solo exhibition includes: Kūnlún, V.O Curations, London, 2021. Ho’s solo exhibition includes: Grotto Heavens, Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, 2023; Tryst, Gallery Vacancy at Frieze London, London, 2022. His works have been featured in group exhibitions at GRIMM, New York; White Cube, Hong Kong; Blum & Poe, Tokyo; Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham; ICA, London; Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong; Guts Gallery, London; Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai; Intersticio, Madrid; Soft Opening, London; and Delphian Gallery, London. His film projects have been screened at Piccadilly Circus, London, ICA, London and Nottingham Contemporary. Ho's works are in the collection of Asymmetry Art Foundation, London; Domus Collection, New York; Labora Collection, Dallas; Longlati Foundation, Hong Kong; X Museum, Beijing.
