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lan wei (abortive buildings)
anothermountainman
4/21/2009 - 5/17/2009
Chinese Contemporary Xchange
OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, April 25, 2009 - 2-6 pm |
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"lan wei" (abortive buildings) is a series of photographs by Hong Kong-based artist anothermountainman.
Over ten large scale photographs will be on display in the gallery. 'lan wei' refers to the unfinished buildings in China. As China relaxed the restrictions and reopened her doors to foreign investments in the 1980's, the whole nation was thrust into a craze of buying and selling of almost anything that had a slight hint of profit. Property projects became the most sought-after investments. People poured their lifelong savings into real estate deals, sometimes without having even seen a brick. With corruption prevalent and an overheated economy, problems soon abounded. The bubble finally burst and millions of square meters of land were left unfinished. In 1998, in Hainan alone, a combined floor space of 16.3 million square meters were aborted or left unfinished. This wave of abortive building construction spread across other Asian cities which were also experiencing meteoric economic growth.
"lan wei" literally means 'decaying', 'rotting' while 'wei' is 'the tail', 'the ending'. Therefore, 'lan wei' has in it, more than just 'unfinished'. For some reasons or other, it was just not possible to complete these buildings. There were simply no solutions or closure.
Anothermountainman has been harbouring the concept of shooting abortive building projects in his mind for 5 years. These photos attempt to capture the relics of this mad 'gold rush' and, at the same time, reflect on how, throughout the years, 'lan wei' has manifested itself not only in building projects but also in all aspects of life. Fortunately, on the eve of government actions to clean up the mess, this concept finally became a reality, sparing it from being yet another abortive project.
Born in Hong Kong and best known for his red-white-blue series, Anothermountainman has exhibited internationally and represented Hong Kong in the 51st Venice Biennale (2005). Selected exhibitions include "memoria" (Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Japan 2008); go china (Groninger Museum, The Netherlands 2008); Asian New Wave (ZKM museum, Germany 2007); of things present (Singapore, 2008); Lan Wei/Abortive Buildings (Goethe-Institut, Hong Kong 2008); Future Tense: redwhiteblue (LEE Ka-sing gallery, Toronto 2006); 1st Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/ Architecture, (OCAT 2005); the Hong Kong Art Biennial (2003/1999) and Shanghai International Poster Exhibition (Shanghai Art Museum, 1999).
Co-presented by Chinese Contemporary Xchange and LEE Ka-sing gallery. |
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Chinese Contemporary Xchange
50 Gladstone Avenue,
Toronto, M6J 3K6 Ontario
Gallery Hours: 1-6 pm (Wednesday to Sunday)
416.535.6957
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