Opening Preview Reception on Tuesday, 6 December 2016
LIGHTSTAGE GALLERY PRESENTS A FIRST RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION OF ARTIST AND AWARD-WINNING PHOTOGRAPHER MARGOT ERRANTE. “20 YEARS OF CHINA — MOMENTS IN SHADOW” (二十年在中國 — 陰霾人生) :
We spend much of our days chasing the light, bright, the stark, the sometimes over-exposed. With a delicate and voluptuous precision, Margot invites us to dance in the dark, to revel in the innuendo of shadows and restraint, and to re-anoint our feelings and memories of China with this, her, journey over two decades to celebrate moments of humanity.
“China to me was very much about silence. This is how I learned to dig deep inside myself.” — Margot Errante
LIGHTSTAGE Gallery is pleased to present “Twenty Years of China – Moments in Shadow” a solo retrospective exhibition of works by internationally acclaimed Italian photographer and artist Margot Errante.
This exhibition comprises a participatory projection installation and sound installation and a collection of photographic works accompanied by written texts. The images represent Margot’s moments of China spanning from 1996 through 2016 through a country she has identified with as ‘home’ from a young age. “Twenty Years of China” neither purports to be documentary nor another compilation of historic moments nor a national narrative. The collection is bound together by the overarching theme of stories of humanity and Margot’s evolving relationship with the land, its people, and her artistic eye.
Often minimally-lit and drawing influence if not inspiration from chiaroscuro technique, Margot plays with light and shadow to draw attention to what might otherwise be unseen or overshadowed, seeking ever to transmit emotion rather than describe in explicit granularity.
Each photograph thus invites a reflective exchange between the recognition of Margot’s vision, her scaffolding of light and emotion, and the onlooker’s individual exploration of the stories suspended in the shadows of each photograph, the details shaped by stirred memories, their individual experience and imagination.
Margot first came to China as a student and a translator, and then a social researcher, a travel photographer, even spending a year’s research assignment living with the Wa tribe in Western China.
“Photography is all about overcoming my fears,” Margot said, reflecting on her unfolding journey home and to know herself, in China.
She presents a transition of images. First from the burnished, flickering glow of oil lamps and smoky fires, where so much is left unsaid, so much is shown if one has the patience and learned eye to practice to see. To then the stark lights of skyscrapers, fluorescents, the eyes and ‘beacons’ of humanity, which cast a stark, Western, omnipresent exposure onto every surface. And still the country’s soul runs wild, ever-present, through every piece of film.
The exhibition will take place at LIGHTSTAGE Gallery in Hong Kong from 6 December through 13 December 2016 with a retrospective of pieces, most of which will be shown publically for the first time, culled from photographs she took over the span of 20 years across Greater China.
This marks Margot Errante’s first solo exhibition and her second show at LIGHTSTAGE Gallery in Hong Kong. This fall’s exhibition will include a large collective portrait work created out of the ‘instant’ portraits Margot initially captured during her interactive portrait performance piece held at LIGHTSTAGE during this spring’s group show “HK:ID| identity and illusion”. INSTANT ILLUSION explored the ephemeral nature of identity and the immediate self, wherein Margot guided 100 participants (most strangers) to sit for and in many cases also take ‘instant’ photographs — creating instant identities, the illusion of identity. In that show Margot also presented a collection of works from her portrait series The Human Condition alongside works by fellow Hong Kong-based photographers Fan Ho, Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze, Scotty So, Austin Irving, Christopher Button.
Interested journalists and media may contact co-curator and LIGHTSTAGE Gallery Director Kalina King gallery@lightstage.co to enquire about walkthroughs of the exhibition and artist interview opportunities, as well as to obtain the exhibition statement and full list of works.
EXHIBITION 20 Years of China – Moments in Shadow 二十年在中國 – 陰霾人生
VERNISSAGE Tuesday, 6 December 2016 19:00 – 21:00 (open to public)
OPENING PREVIEW RECEPTION rsvp to RSVP@lightstage.hk
ARTIST TALK Sunday, 11 December 2016 18:00 – 20:00
EXHIBITION DATES 7 December – 13 December 2016 12:00 – 20:00 daily
LOCATION LIGHTSTAGE Gallery
MEDIA + PRESS ENQUIRIES Kindly contact Ms. Kalina King, Director, at k@lightstage.hk
LINKS + MORE INFORMATION #MargotErrante #20yearsofChina #MomentsinShadow= #陰霾人生 #LIGHTSTAGE #LIGHTSTAGEgallery #LIGHTSTAGEHK
Facebook Event for Exhibition: https://www.facebook.com/events/666280543531212/
SHOWING ORIGINAL WORKS BY ARTIST MARGOT ERRANTE
ARTIST STATEMENT + BIO: MARGOT ERRANTE
Margot Errante, born in Como, Italy, is an award-winning Hong Kong based photographer and artist. Her practice specialises in portraits and architecture, and in the past year Margot has focused on a style of portraiture with minimal lighting where she seeks to portray a mood, a feeling, an intensity.
Her career and path to recognising herself as an artist and photographer is not linear nor predictable, as is often the case for obsessively curious minds. “I like to think of myself as a researcher, not in the academic sense of the word. It means that I don’t know but I am willing to find out.” While art had always been a major interest and passion, it was relegated as a hobby for many years.
“I am a person who is easily bored, and it took me a long time to understand that art and photography were the only steady interests in my life. I started to look at photos and take photos at age 8 and never stopped. Some say that when you do too many things you do nothing well. I say that experience is what shapes you, the wider the better, and when you least expect it all dots connect.”
After studying in Paris and London, she came to China over 20 years ago, studied Chinese at BLCU in Beijing and started out as a travel photographer. She has worked as a Chinese, Italian, English, French and Portuguese translator and cultural mediator, taught in Chinese secondary schools and universities, and written a Chinese Language Course.
She then specialised in ethno-linguistics, focusing on Chinese regional dialects, and later in Cultural Anthropology and ethnic minority groups. In 2004, she lived in an indigenous village deep into the jungles of the Sino-Burmese border, researching the Wa minority people. She presented her photography from this period at solo exhibition in Como (Italy) in 2005.
Her media career spans wide. She was selected as the photographer for a Italian diplomatic mission across Asia, traveling from Italy to Japan by car. She wrote and directed a TV documentary about Canada’s First Nations and wrote, directed and hosted the TV program “Beijing Express” on Beijing’s pre-Olympic transformation, both for CNBC.
In 2010 Margot co-curated the Hong Kong Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale.
Her photographs have been featured in publications such as South China Morning Post, Wallpaper, China National Geography, Home, PRC, Ming, Domus China, Hinge, Perspective, MPW, and two books: Beijing Architecture & Design (2008) and 500 Years of Italians in Hong Kong and Macau (2013).