True Romance

HB381 is pleased to announce True Romance, a solo exhibition by Oslo-based ceramicist Lin Wang (b. 1985, China). Wang is especially known for her production of large-scale still life installations and sculptural assemblages which investigate the corporeality and historic resonance of porcelain. Over centuries, porcelain’s combination of a kaolin-rich white clay body with deep cobalt glazes has registered the ongoing effects of contact and trade, as well as the phantasmic projections of a long-standing dialog between East and West. Working between China and Norway, Wang’s interest in this interchange holds personal significance, tinged by her own wanderlust, homesickness, and experiences of cultural discovery.

Fine china, originally imported along the Silk Road’s overland trade routes and maritime corridors, has been notoriously difficult to reproduce throughout history, a Gordian knot which confounded European chemists who termed the mystifying substance “white gold.” One thread of Wang’s ongoing project on the topic, Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstanding, investigates Europe’s quest for Chinese porcelain, exposing deeply-held forms of looking and longing. At the same time, Wang often amends this perspective on alterity with her personal impressions; recalling the children’s fairy tales she was told as a young girl, she teases out the West’s own romantic mythos.