Christopher Ho
Nominated by: Regine Basha
Born: January 22, 1974
Hong Kong
Lives/works: United States
Statement
The guideposts for my practice are two: context and collaboration. Both are informed by the position that art making is less a form of self-expression than a process of problem-solving, whereby a problem is generated by a given site (whether this be physical, institutional, or discursive) and its solution arrived at through dialogue with an interlocutor.
Consider DOUBLE, 2005, an outdoor installation produced in collaboration with a curator for the d.u.m.b.o. arts festival. A cross between an artwork and curated exhibition, it consisted of a 55’L x 8’W x 5.5’H aluminum structure perpendicular to and stretching across a street directly beneath the Manhattan Bridge, which loomed above. As well as functioning as a viewing platform (for the Empire State Building), it was an elevated runway that put passersby on view (to get past DOUBLE one had to walk on it). Further, during the weekend-long festival, artists, musicians, and performers were invited to use the structure for their own purposes.
DOUBLE contours collaboration not only as working together with another, but also as a formal principle: the piece, a public sculpture, was less an expression of a coherent collective ideology than a forum for a cacophonous multiplicity of voices (of passersby and of artists, musicians, and performers). It is this focus on the possibilities and parameters of collaboration – as a process, a medium, and a formal principle – that guides my current work. This collaborative work both draws from and attempts to improve the politics and polemic of site-specificity, which deeply informed earlier projects such as Luncheon on the Grass, 2003, a 30’ x 30’ picnic blanket made entirely from grass and sited in a cemetery, which gradually re-integrated into the landscape over the exhibition's 3-month duration.
Recent Exhibitions (Download full CV here)
Reflexive in character and often sited, the work of New York-based artist Christopher K. Ho (b. 1974 Hong Kong) examines the situations from which art emerges. His solo exhibition, "Happy Birthday," opened at Winkleman Gallery in New York in 2008, and he recently completed pieces for "Cultivate" at MASS MoCA at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens (June 2008), the Chinese Biennial at the Huan Tie Museum in Beijing (July 2008), and the Busan Biennale in Korea (October 2008). Exhibitions include “The Shape of Things to Come” at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; “Ceci n’est pas…” at Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York; “JamaicaFlux” at the Jamaica Center for the Arts, New York; and “Latitude” at Fieldgate Gallery, London. In 2007, He was nominated for PILOT:3, a selection of artists to watch by leading contemporary curators. Residencies include the Jackson Hole Art Association (2008); Franconia Sculpture Park (2005), where he received a Jerome Fellowship; and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (2004). He currently divides his time between New York City and Providence, Rhode Island, where he teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. He received his B.F.A. and B.S. from Cornell University and his M.Phil from Columbia University.
www.christopherho.com
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