Yam Lau, Between the Past and the Present: Lived Moments in Beijing (video still). Courtesy the artist and Katzman Kamen Gallery, Toronto
Yam Lau
A World is a Model of the World
6 June – 25 August 2013
at Darling Foundry, Montréal
Curated by Alice Jim
The 11th Anniversary + Opening of the exhibition: 20h00
VIP Benefit event: 18h00 – 20h00
Thursday 6 June 2013
In a corner of a city centre undergoing modernization and gentrification, fraught with conflicting economic scales of living together, a means of voluntary reclusion is on offer via a Chinese scholar’s studio and an apartment residence. The video projections, Between Past and Present: Lived Moments in Beijing (2012) and Room: An Extension (2008), are set adrift on two island pavilions connected by unobstructed garden pathways that are partly imaginary and partly evoked through deliberate landscaping and the open frame armature. Yam Lau’s recent work explores the use of real-time video footage and computer-aided design software to manifest familiar spaces in varying dimensions and perspectives.
The images in Room: An Extension are of the artist’s bedroom in Toronto, recomposed in virtual space according to the architectural schema that enables rotating views of the domestic quotidian from multiple angles. Between Past and Present begins as a model of a scholar’s studio that floats on a night-lit body of water. A circling pan and zoom calculatingly weaves together both the animated lattice and scenes of the sparsely-equipped atelier accessible on either end by moon gates, traditional portals into an alternative world. The sanctuary’s many screens however slowly dissolve into contemporary scenes of a busy Beijing street in midday. Overlapping sights and sounds of urban life fold and unfold until evening, when there is a quiet return to the studio. In both videos, the presence of the artist at work is subtly yet insistently captured. [read the full text here]
Darling Foundry
745 rue Ottawa
Montréal, QC, H3C 1R8
Canada
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Opening hours
Wednesday, Friday – Sunday: 12h00 – 19h00
Thursday: 12h00 – 22h00
Monday & Tuesday Closed