Faces of a City: 2 Generations, 4 Artists in MAM Collection

28/5 - 23/10/2016     Macao Museum of Art    

The exhibition entitled Faces of a City: 2 Generations, 4 Artists in MAM Collectionpresents the landscapes of Macao and the inner takes of photographers hailing from two distinct generations, presenting a unique visual dialogue. This exhibition features about 50 works from Lei Iok Tin and Ou Ping, senior photographers active in the mid and late 20th century, as well as young photographers Wong Chon Kit and Rusty Fox.

Two passionate old guard photographers, Lei Iok Tin and Ou Ping, present their shots of charming Macao from the 1940s onwards, bearing witness to the territory’s transformations and retaining an unforgettable collective memory. Since the early 1950s, Chinese patriots would install a National Day decorated archway, only seen in Macao, at major streets and near important landmarks, creating a rather magical landscape that can be seen on the photos now on display. Vintage streets, quaint alleys, Western and Chinese style residences side by side, the active shoreline… These sceneries have long disappeared or taken a wholly different appearance. Old Macao was remarkable, and the pioneering photographers’ works could take us on a retrospective journey to the beautiful tinge of old-day simplicity prior to Macao’s utter urbanisation.

Now Macao is experiencing another dramatic urban renewal. For young photographers, this might be either a creative limitation or a huge motivation likely to spur critical creations. Wong Chon Kit and Rusty Fox, the two emerging photographers clearly forsake the glamorous, glossy views of Macao as a gaming Mecca, expressing instead their inner ‘alternative’ feelings from a youthful angle, creating works with new concepts and visual effects. As generation Y photographers, they dare explore urban, natural and human contexts, as if telling stories beyond Macao’s sceneries. Their subtle imagery works as a subtext, as self-reflections on social environment, cultural divides and values, in a spiritual defiance to the dominant materialism in Macao.

The images of the city through older and younger lens, showing either the lingering love of the old-time Macao or the exploration of the new urban realities, deserve a review by local residents and visitors alike on our living environment, prompting us to deal with the subtle intertwinements of men and society.

The exhibition “Faces of a City: 2 Generations, 4 Artists in MAM Collection”lasts until 23 October. For details, please visit www.icm.gov.mo or www.MAM.gov.mo. For enquiries, please call MAM through tel. no. 8791 9814, during office hours. The Macao Museum of Art, located at Av. Xian Xing Hai, is open daily from 10am to 7pm (no admittance after 6:30pm; closed on Mondays). Admission fee is MOP5 and is free on Sundays and public holidays.