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Irreality at Para/Site In his first largely local exhibition, curator Tobias Berger presents the work of eight artist, five from Hong Kong, one from Guangzhou, and two from Shenzhen, on the theme of Irreality . Had the exhibition been a critical examination of the philosophical investigations into the nature of reality itself or the relationship between the mind, language, culture, and reality, it would have had real substance. As it is, the curatorial thesis is something of a cop-out. It takes as its starting point the irrefutable fact that reality is a private, selective, individual experience. It then suggests that it is impossible to agree on a general description but that an artist's reconstruction of reality, in all its striking irregularity, can help us understand how we perceive imaginatively warp, and ultimately alter our own and other people's realities. The exhibition does not test the truth of this argument in any sustained way. While experience is of course unique, it is also possible for two or more people to agree on the interpretation and experience of an event and form a consensus about is truth. If we accept that artists as communicators can make a reconstruction of something that helps two or more individuals agree on the interpretation and experience of a particular event, what then is it that makes the reconstruction be any better than the real thing---assuming that we can agree on what it and the real thing are. The present exhibition does not justify the selection of this group of artists and above any others. Presenting a reality, alternative or otherwise, is not in itself sufficient. Notwithstanding, a number of the artists do make a critical ontological examination of reality. Guangzhou artist Cao Fei merges real life and fantasy in a wittily satirical portrayal of working life. In her video Rabid Dogs , humans, stylishly dressed in Burberry, rampage through an office as a pack of mad dogs recalling the rather lame office joke, "You don't have to be mad to work here---but it helps!" Hong Kong artist Kwan Sheung Chi questions the construction of meaning, the role of the artist and the interaction of other people, places, and things as part of the work's cultural context. His work Mum After Duchamp: A Brief Chronicle of Tsang Yin Hung's Artistic Career is a deceptively simple installation that combines text, archival photographs, oral history, technical drawing, and a reconstructed textbook into a work that explores family values and the origins of identity. The work is the product of an ongoing collaboration between the artist and his mother, on their shared memories, on her background in technical drawing, and his critical examination of what an artist is.
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