randian | 燃点

de Sarthe is pleased to announce a solo presentation by Christopher K. Ho, opening 1 September and running through 15 September. CX 888 is an immersive, gallery-wide transformation that is the result of de Sarthe’s second annual residency (deSAR). The residents, Ingrid Pui Yee Chu and Savannah Gorton of the non-profit curatorial initiative Forever & Today (F&T), invited Ho to share the gallery space as his studio alongside their public curatorial office.

Ho’s title, CX 888, references Cathay Pacific’s daily Hong Kong-to-Vancouver flight, while themes of diaspora, dislocation and displacement abound. The presentation itself constitutes the first step in Ho’s return to Hong Kong. The move back paradoxically requires revisiting his departure–the abruptness of which dooms it to recur in fragments. Inside the darkened gallery these remnants emerge: a boulder-shaped speaker piping in the soundtrack to the movie The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; a tableau of draped sculptures, appearing as if the studio was abandoned; and scatterings of aluminum ‘paper’ airplanes as well as personal effects. Venturing further, two monitors hang aside de Sarthe’s rear windows. The videos blink Cathay Pacific’s signature teal and maroon in ‘heroic’ hexameter, the meter used in Homer’s Odyssey.

Ho is known for his diverse practice that includes object making, organising, and teaching, in addition to multi-component projects that use humour to address capital, power, and privilege. CX 888, his first solo presentation in Hong Kong, his birthplace, marks a turn towards the artist’s lived experience. Underpinning the exhibition are increased anxieties about being ‘out of place’ in the United States, as well as wanting to be ‘in place’ in Hong Kong during the five weeks at de Sarthe.