THE MAPS

About Exhibition

He Gong has started a nomadic life of being “on the road” since he went to study in the United States in 1986. In the way of material life, He Gong often feels a certain degree of disability. Therefore, minimalist survival has all along been his strategy. The art residency programs around the world provided him shelters during his nomadic life and will become routes and coordinates of his upcoming global driving route.

He Gong’s nomadic life distinguishes him from the contemporaries. His nature as well as experience and readings in the past led him to this path. Before going to college, he lived in the environment where the world was narrated with one single voice. He fascinated by and yearned for the world and lifestyles that described in Robinson Crusoe and On the Road.

He Gong’s nomadic life is characterized by its own characteristics and perspectives: rather than aimless wandering, his journey is to approach places that he has read or heard about in the past. He is more interests in the past than in the present or in the future, reacquainting himself with what has happened across the distance of time. This is also reflected in his artworks of the past thirty years.

About the past, He Gong’s artworks are always presented as historical images or matrices. Images and matrices are embedded in the large perspective of history. In such perspective, he pays attention to understand how history had impacts on individuals on the one hand; and looks at the contingency in history from a micro perspective on the other. The fascination of history does not lie in the determinism and fatalism, but in the tension emerged in the interweaving of different forces. When deals with historical images and matrices, he presents them directly but also compiles different ones together. Ultimately, what can be found in his artworks are not only historical themes, but also political and cultural themes. Therefore, his artworks present a montage landscape of history.

There is a unity in He Gong’s life and art."On the road" is the possibility to go beyond the single experience; it is also the personal effort in crossing geographical and cultural boundaries. In this regard, He Gong is like a person who lives on a map, drawing one’s own map with mobilities. In his artworks, the references to different historical images and matrices are presenting the trajectory of his thoughts and ideas. He escapes from being shaped by single history, politics and culture. Thus, the "map" is both tangible and intangible. We hope that people will not only understand his life and art through the exhibition “map”, but also will recognize a new world through his "map".

Tian Meng

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