14 July–1 September, 2016

LABYRINTH(S)

Featuring works by Leonardo Drew, Golnaz Fathi, Gonkar Gyatso, Ni Haifeng, Peter Peri, Kour Pour, Gatot Pujiarto, and Ben Quilty

Hong Kong

Overview

Hong Kong—Pearl Lam Galleries is delighted to present Labyrinth(s), featuring works by eight contemporary artists: Leonardo Drew, Golnaz Fathi, Gonkar Gyatso, Ni Haifeng, Peter Peri, Kour Pour, Gatot Pujiarto, and Ben Quilty. The title of the exhibition references Jorge Luis Borges’s celebrated short story “The Garden of Forking Paths”.

In Borges’ story, the protagonist Dr. Yu Tsun muses about a lost labyrinth:

I imagined it inviolate and perfect at the secret crest of a mountain; I imagined it erased by rice fields or beneath the water; I imagined it infinite, no longer composed of octagonal kiosks and returning paths, but of rivers and provinces and kingdoms…I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars. Absorbed in these illusory images, I forgot my destiny of one pursued.

By investigating the associative potential of their chosen media and forming metaphorical labyrinths with diverse artistic languages that offer unlimited alternatives, the artists in this exhibition examine the notion of infiniteness. The use of different media in turn constructs a huge labyrinth. Audiences can decide for themselves what the artworks really are: paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, or hybrid fusions. Meanwhile, different artists build up the labyrinth into different universes in specific gradations. They investigate the inner labyrinths of materials, connections between figuration and abstraction, politics of identity, religion, and pop-culture, and indulge the viewers in a visual sublime.

Selected works