Looking at the theme of remembrance through the lens of “Time and Myth”, “Sublime”, “Collective Memory” and “Personal Memory”, White Cube Hong Kong’s group exhibition “Remembering Tomorrow: Artworks and Archives” is a time machine that brings us to mythical landscapes, ricochets us back to the now, and in the space between it becomes as bright and clear as Tracey Emin’s neon art that we can’t stop the tools of documenting our memories from evolving, yet we can choose what and how to remember.
In the “Time and Myth” section, Raqib Shaw reinterpreted Hieronymus Bosch’s decadent The Garden of Earthly Delights with a cast of vividly imagined characters and an explosion of colours that he concocted with the help of a vintage colour making machine. Shaw’s studio has a beautiful manicured garden, which inspires his art and is often memorized in his intricate mystical paintings of enamel, acrylic, rhinestones and glitter. Darren Almond’s painting Timescape 23:22 of postcard pretty night skies transports us to Chile’s Atacama Desert which birthed myths like the luminous bird Alicanto.
In the “Collective Memory” area, Andreas Gursky‘s Dunkelkammer, a photograph of films probably left to decay, is a somewhat ironic reminder that as we rely more and more on images to shape our narratives, chances are we are using a smartphone to do so. On the other hand, Mona Hatoum’s Bukhara (red to pink), an age worn carpet which she made a world map out of, directs us to the possibilities of using old mediums to create new frontiers.
Tracey Emin stole the limelight in the “Personal Memory” section, with her neon artwork My Favourite Little Bird, with its aforementioned brightness and clarity. The winged creature is a fitting animal to describe the freedom-loving YBA artist, who found out she is a descendent of the gypsies on the BBC programme “Who Do You Think You Are?” Whether you choose to remember your favourite little bird by recreating it with neon, or taking polaroids of it, only you can remember it the way you do, and only you can keep it flying in Atacama Desert.
Remembering Tomorrow: Artworks and Archives
Date:
2018.7.18 – 2018.8.25
Time:
11:00 – 19:00 (Tuesday to Saturday)
Closed on Monday and Public Holidays
Venue:
香港白立方
中環干諾道50號地下及1樓
White Cube Hong Kong
50 Connaught Rd Central, Central
Photo courtesy to White Cube, Kitmin Lee
