About the Event
1335MABINI is proud to present Soun Hong’s solo exhibition ‘Sidescape – Objections’ opening on Saturday 9 March at 6 pm.
In this series, Soun Hong re-contextualizes images based on photographic references. He analyzes how photographs and paintings can be viewed and appreciated. He references a photograph by isolating areas such as the sky, the ground or a fragment from a wall or a person’s clothing. Using these sources, Soun Hong overcomes the attributed functionalities of the objects and landscapes in the respective contexts of the moment they were captured on camera, thereby emphasizing the independence and transcendence of specific and/or implied situations.
Recently Soun Hong expanded his series ‘Sidescape’ to include overlooked or little known histories. Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) is the subject of a series of new paintings made here in Manila recently. Soun Hong voices his concern that this racist and ruthless businessman – he established a near monopoly in the diamond trade – is still epitomized by the Rhodes scholarship program and statues all around South Africa. He is recorded to have said that “the native is to be treated as a child and denied the franchise. We must adopt a system of despotism in our relations with the barbarians,” and he acted accordingly. Statues and scholarships are symbols that matter deeply and Soun Hong investigates how these can reveal underlying values.
His muted monochromes display an air of delicate and restrained effort, and the artist’s use of the brush and pigment on canvas is subdued as it is masterful.