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"When I first came to Hong Kong, I was slightly amused and on occasion turned off by the wild color schemes often used to paint many of the buildings. I was vaguely reminded of cartoons: pink, red, yellow, green, orange, as if to camouflage the true nature of what was going on inside."—Michael Wolf
Aperture is pleased to offer this very special limited-edition photograph from one of the artists best known earlier series Architecture of Density. One of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world, Hong Kong has an overall density of nearly 6,700 people per square kilometer. The majority of its citizens live in flats in high-rise buildings. In Architecture of Density, Wolf investigates these vibrant city blocks, finding a mesmerizing abstraction in the buildings' facades. Here Wolf examines residential housing complexes which are tightly packed together to accommodate the popultion—nearly 7 million people living on 426 square miles. Photographed from opposing buildings with direct vantage points, he removes all reference to sky and horizon line, flattening the space until it becomes in the words of curator Natasha Egan" a relentless abstraction of urban expansion, with no escape for the viewer's eye." Wolf juxtaposes the work in Architecture of Density with that of his series 100 x 100— exploring Hong Kong from the inside as well as the outside, and the living space of the people who are exist in this dense metropolis. The work was recently published in a two volume slipcased set Michael Wolf: Hong Kong Inside Outside ( 2009, co-published by Asia One and Peperoni books) Michael Wolf (born in Munich, 1954) grew up in the United States, and studied at UC Berkeley and with Otto Steinert at the University of Essen in Germany. Two previous books—Sitting in China (2002) and Hong Kong, Front Door/Back Door (2005)—feature his much acclaimed photographs of China. Wolf lives and works in Hong Kong and Paris. |
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