The opening of “Deconstruction and Reconstruction - A Glimpse of Anthropological Landscape” Works by Tang Kuok Hou was such a great success held in Tak Chun Macau Art Garden on Nov 16 (Friday). On that day, lots of honorable guests have come to support the exhibition, including Director of the Macau Museum, Mr. Loi Chi Pang, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology at University of Macau, Dr. Peter Thomas Zabielskis, Director of Macao Delegation of Orient Foundation Ana Paula CLETO, Director of Creative Macau Lúcia Lemos etc. The exhibition hall was so crowded that it filled with lots of guests and artist, it was such a great time to have fun and enjoy the moment.

 
Opening ceremony
 

Group photo of guests and artists

 
The Artist Tang Kuok Hou

As an artist with a sociological knowledge background, Kuok Hou is reflexively reinventing himself with the “in-the-field method”. The capturing process of the images takes place as if in a “questionnaire”. Such as collecting different scenes on a certain theme, or photographing different aspects around a target area—without prior involvement of subjective intent. Subjective and mostly external methods are used to suspend subjectivity, and the mandatory repetition of the patterning process makes control of the works ineffective, so that the most inevitable and deepest sense of Self is revealed in a residual way.

The so-called "landscape" originally refers to the reality of the consumer society's fragmented ready-made life, guiding the eyes and consciousness of the crowd to the deceptive gigantic illusion. Kuok Hou redefines the concept of “landscape”: the everyday objects that are not watched are called “landscapes”, or become the center of gaze through the formal language of images, or they are obscured by new perspectives of alienation. The meaning is renewed with uncertainty and new connotation...

 
Pictogram, #Practice: Statement-Classification-Preset-Example 01 , Tang Kuok Hou, 28 x 40 cm * 2, Giclée Print , 2018

 
#Notes: Evenly distributed, Tang Kuok Hou, 100 x 47 cm, Giclée Print , 2018

We know that allegory is a way of euphemistically using words and sayings, and we cannot make an interpretation of symbolic meaning out of it. The wonderful metaphor of Kuok Hou stems from his dispelling of textual description of the background information. The motive of this kind of metaphor is not aesthetics, sensation, it is rather an implicit writing after self-examination... The way in which the meanings are understood but the words are twisted is also a form of art.

In the "Notes" series that continues this line of thought, Kuok Hou uses the term of Durkheim wittily to name the public sculpture that uses the handshake symbol mechanically as "Organic Solidarity". By being rendered into “landscapes”, the objects regain the central position. The umbrellas are named instead as "Mechanical Solidarity". The work "Establishing Symbols" can refer to the deep structure of universal culture in anthropology. It can also refer to the ideology in a particular cultural system. But in the case of Kuok Hou, it may also be referred to as a "symbolic deficiency" of the current society: where a word can only correspond to one thing, the symbol with rich connotation has lost its validity. And the author knows that it is impossible to be force the transformation and yet he can only try.

 
#Notes: Mechanical solidarity, Tang Kuok Hou, 15.2 x 10.1 cm, Giclée Print , 2016

Therefore, Kuok Hou named his own exhibition as a note that can be a trial where mistakes are allowed. It is a trip within a trip; deconstruction, in order to re-structure.

“Deconstruction and Reconstruction - A Glimpse of Anthropological Landscape” Works by Tang Kuok Hou is partly sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Macao SAR Government. Media partners include Hoje Macau and Ponto Final. The exhibition will be opened to public from Nov17 to Dec 15, 2018.

 
Guest was watching Tang Kuok Hou 's work

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