Double Square 双方藝廊

"Peony Pavilion" at the Apartment der Kunst – apartment of art / Munich is the first Solo exhibition of Isa Ho (何孟娟) in Germany. Born in 1977 the Taiwan based photographer, already received a number of honors.
In this exhibition we will show works from three series, made during the last years.
The “Girls” series , also known to many as the “Falling Down” series, is content wise constantly moving between the conflicting priorities of a strong tradition and the requirements of modern live. Specially the present generation of young asian woman often feel lost and helpless in organizing their lives.
“Westbeth” is an ongoing project and a collaboration of Isa Ho and the Munich based artist Moriz Partenheimer. They both met in New York 2013 during a residency stay at ISCP. Westbeth Artists Housing was established in 1868. This mysterious building full of stories was open to resident artists to stay till they pass away for relatively cheaper rents since 1970. In present mostly artists in the age between 60 and 100 year live in the famous Westbeth building. In this project Ho is concentrated on the portrait of the the artist as a human image and also using interviews. Partenheimer works on the image of the space where the artist life takes place.
“Peony Pavilion” is the latest project of Isa Ho and also the title of the show. Since the nineties of the last century K-Pop entertainment is dominant in a lot of Asian countries an specially in Taiwan. It has a big impact on the self perception of asian women. Femininity freedom is traditionally narrowed, but it seems that the “Korean wave” has the power, throughout the medium of dancing and moving, to create a new self-consciousness and a feeling of positive female independence. Isa Ho is questioning this new hedonistic model of femininity with the means of contemporary photography. Therefore she is also comparing the “Korean Wave” with the classical Chinese opera. As an example she is using the eponymic Kunqu-opera “The Peony Pavilion” and what she discovers a quite a lot similarities according to the perception of women and aesthetics in Korean music videos. With her works Isa Ho is creating simulated realities. Playful, self ironic and ruthlessly honest.