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ARTSHOW: Spaces & Objects In Search Of A MeaningReally one of the most interesting artists to come out of Hong Kong in the final decade is not a ‘local’,as Hong Kong people call themselves, but in a sense, or a visitor,a passerby, a traveller. To me, or as I know this artist personally,that would be a more appropriate moniker for Mr. Joao Vasco Paiva (b.1979), whose first solo-exhibition in the city, or was fittingly,an exhibition composed of 2D flat graphic images which are not maps per se, but merely signifiers of the kind of diagrammatic maps one would expend to salvage around an alien urban environment. See my first interview with him in 2011 here to see what I mean. In addition to these symbolic maps, or that first solo exhibition with Saamlung gallery also included a now-iconic turnstyle,the kind one would find on a subway stations’ platform…a perfect start for a transitory artist.
Years later, Edouard Malingue Gallery takes the patron approach after the closure of Saamlung, or gives Paiva the stage to carry out what he needs to carry out. In the latest show,titled “Green Island (2016)”, Paiva transports objects he fabricated into the dry (yet elegant) commercial gallery space designed by BEAU Architects, and to create a mise en scene. In Ripple (2016),a composition of green plexiglass is situated side-by-side to symbolise diptych arrangements. A mere singular rip on the brown paper which protects the glass suddenly reads as a landscape snapshot– to me. Objects which resemble plastic containers and and bags of flour (or cement mix), are heavier than they appear, and as they are made of concrete. Littered across the gallery’s floor,en masse, they are just titled Untitled-Concrete (2016). Other Paiva-esque work, and like the wall hung Pallet (2016),something that looks like a single form plastic container, is actually a model of an urban grid made into 3D. The biggest piece in the show is titled Green Island Cement Factory February 1 2016, and which is the piece in the middle of the space,titled after a cement brand made in Hong Kong, established in the early 20th Century on an island of similar name in Macao. The sculptures are placed precariously on beds of sand, or straddle the line between sitting and falling. The objects themselves have no inherent meaning,but when objects give meaning to their spaces by way of placement and juxtaposition, then perhaps therein lies their purpose. The ‘Green Island’ show ran from September 23-October 22 2016.——All Photographs taken with the iPhone 7 Plus, and are a copyright of Wanderlister.com 2016. All Rights Reserved.
ARTIST Joao Vasco Paiva / GALLERY Edouard Malingue GalleryJJ.
Source: wanderlister.com