Alice Wang (solo-exhibition)
presented at XIT-RM,
Art Gallery of Mississauga,
18.07 – 07.09.2013
Tenses speak to each other in Alice Wang’s The fallacy of misplaced concreteness, a video that considers the artist’s family history in China. From her grandfather’s secret operative work for the Chinese government during WWII, with a masquerade of wealth as his cover in Hong Kong, to the violent reforms of the 1960s, and the perception of this privilege that lead to his family’s torment. Memory and history come in and out of focus, across generations. The backdrop of a Cultural Revolution set in Zhenbeibao Western Film Studio, a site of artifice, allows an interrogation of how we see history. A tour of a lens factory furthers this line of questioning, the mechanical construction of sight laid bare before us.
*Exhibition essay and interview with artist available here.