Wang Tuo: The Second Interrogation

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present “The Second Interrogation”, Wang Tuo’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. The Second Interrogation, the titular film of the exhibition, is a video installation based on the artist’s observations and reflections on cultural censorship in the art world in China in recent years. The film stages the dramatic encounter of the fraught friendship between an artist and a censor, as well as the creeping tension in their exchanges. Together and in reversing roles, they ask fundamental and existential questions about the arts, testifying to the uncertainties they share about the purpose of art in society: what is the role of an artist in an authoritarian state? How could art bring about social change?

The exhibition will also feature Weapons, Wang’s new series of oil paintings depicting portraits of anonymous individuals who are part of the underground art and culture circle, working within the margins of China’s art scene. Also on view are his new drawings derived from the film The Second Interrogation and archival images of people’s campaigns in China.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Wang Tuo (b. 1984, Changchun, China) interweaves Chinese modern history, cultural archives, fiction and mythology into speculative narratives. Equating his practice to novel writing, he stages an intervention in historical literary texts and cultural archives to formulate stories that blur the boundaries of time and space, facts and imagination. His work spans across film, performative elements, painting and drawing. The multidimensional chronologies he constructs, interspersed with conspicuous and hidden clues, expose the underlying historical and cultural forces at work within society. Embracing a uniquely Chinese hauntology, Wang proposes "pan-shamanization" as an entry point to unravel the suppressed and untreated memories of 20th century China. Through historical inquiry, Wang's works, often unsettling and dramatic, disentangle collective unconsciousness and historical traumas. His more recent work critiques contemporary conditions of censorship, more specifically the tensions within the push and pull between artist and authority. Wang currently lives and works in Beijing.