Maria Taniguchi at Perrotin Hong Kong

Galerie Perrotin, Hong Kong presents the first solo exhibition dedicated to Maria Taniguchi in Hong Kong, showcasing 5 brick paintings and 1 installation. Though the artist refers to them as “brick paintings”, these works are only a suggestion of a solid structure. That each brick is painted individually and the surface is constructed over a duration evince an engagement with labor and time.

The paintings appear to be either exterior or interior, or are even possibly not “walls”. That they lean suggests a relation to action, as though it had been extracted from somewhere or about to move out of place. These being the latest of a series of brick paintings, with its varying measurements, hint that they might belong to a much larger complete structure, or that these pieces are parts of an imperceptible whole.

In past video work, Taniguchi has imagined a bare fountain in a lunar room where a roving eye floats over 3D objects. In this show, Taniguchi creates a fountain with real water. We can trace the water as it is pushed out of the pump, through the transparent pipes, and back down, alive in an infinite loop, over and over. The sound of the water trickling down the pipes suggest a sense of timelessness, and viewers are immersed in this void.