The first solo exhibition in California dedicated to Chinese artist Hai Bo is currently on view at Pace Gallery. The
exhibition features Bo’s recent series, The Southern, a collection of photographs taken across Southern China.

Bo says the series is about “fantasy and virtual mental states.”

The image titled “The Southern Series No. 35, 2015,” explains the gallery, “conveys both the ephemeral and the eternal—the effects of the passage of time and the endurance against it.” The power of the photograph is accentuated by its size. At nearly five by ten feet, the image allows the viewer to enter into it, becoming a part of the work instead of just a spectator.

Speaking about the narrative power of Bo’s work, Elizabeth Sullivan, President of Pace Palo Alto, says, “Each photo is almost a poem or a short story—you want to fall into that photo and you see so much more than what is really there, and we can all interpret it in our own way.”

The Southern Series
by Hai Bo
Pace Gallery Palo Alto
through July 15, 2018

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