Continuing through June 25, 2016
In “T.V. Buddha,” Chicago-based artist Boyang Hou has employed an unlikely trope for repetitive, regimented formalist investigations. Here, a variety of netless basketball hoops are rendered with three tones of paint, flat upon single colored grounds. The circle-within-the-square motif of the enamel paintings is repeated in the installation itself, as painting after identically-sized painting encircle the small, square room. And yet again, the motif is reiterated as Hou finds a formal parallel to the hoops in the shape of pizzas, and has printed the hoop shape upon pizza boxes stacked waist-high on the floor.
Pizza boxes and basketball recall a rather specific, boyish kind of vernacular, the presence of which imbues the exhibition with irony; after all, it’s difficult to think of any two things having less to do with one another as academic, conceptual painting and sporty “dude” culture. That Hou finds exquisite formalism and sublime symmetry within such an environment not only encourages an art viewer to think more deeply upon that which they may too quickly dismiss, but also undermines lofty conceptualism with masterful wit.
