The Pearls That Were His Eyes


on view at Pearl River Mart Gallery
395 Broadway, TriBeCa
November 30, 2017-January 2, 2018
featuring: Ben Sloat
This site-specific installation uses the architecture of the Pearl River Mart Gallery as the framework for a layered exploration of cultural exchange, urban evolution, and authorship.
At its center are factory commissioned oil paint portraits of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, which interact with sumptuous golden wallpaper featuring a traditional scene. In this juxtaposition, Deng’s image represents a commodity, through a system enabled by his own creation. Presented among variously hand-altered sheets of construction materials, the wallpaper and portraits are duplicated, fragmented, and curiously disrupted.
The flood within these walls represents the economic, social, and political sea change that occurred in China from the 1970s to the 1990s, bridging traditional and modern worlds.



