2022 Art Basel In Hong Kong

Artists: Kang Haitao

The landscape has always been a recurring theme in Kang Haitao's painting. There is a powerful lighting system at work in virtually every one of Kang Haitao's pictures, it is filling the entire picture to form a mottled plane of light and shadow. Just as we are unable to stand apart from the mist-like post truth society, perhaps it is only within the mist or disorientation that we can penetrate the rumors or lies, and penetrate our own inner minds.

——Lu Mingjun, The Dark Night and the Light: Kang Haitao's “Landscapes in the Mist”
（Curator, researcher of art philosophy, Fudan University）

There has been a considerable tension between the macro and micro levels of Kang’s artworks. This reminds us of the science of astronomy, astronomy deals with the measurement of the distant astronomical objects solely based on limited information, which may cause blurry images of astronomical objects often times. They produce distant, enigmatic, and in most cases detailed segments. In this way, the landscape in the vast expanse of the universe comes across as being discovered by the artist. 

——Bao Dong, Astronomy of Landscape

（Art critic, curator, art director of Beijing Contemporary Art EXPO）

Kang Haitao’s creations are products of his inner experience. ‘I am only a person who records without judgment or reflection.’ This means that the representation of the real is not the only source of his inner experience – by pitting ‘record and narrate’ against ‘meanings and values’, Kang Haitao distinguishes his own art from various approaches to art emphasizing the importance of definite ‘meanings and values’ – either the traditional mainstream realism, or the modern art movement since the 1990s which has rebelled against, deconstructed and become estranged from mainstream values.

——Fang Zhiling, Memory of Light

（Art critic, curator, director of Hubei Provincial Academy of Fine Arts Museum）

Booth 

1D47

Duration