Look East Gone West : A Solo Exhibition by Ho Rui An
Past exhibition
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Overview
A+ Works of Art is proud to present Look East Gone West, a solo exhibition by artist Ho Rui An. Ho’s first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia brings together works from a recent body of research that investigates the so-called East Asian miracle of the late twentieth century against contemporary shifts in global capitalism.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by a remark made by Margaret Thatcher during her historic visit to Malaysia in 1985. This visit by the figurehead of neoliberalism known for deregulating the UK’s financial markets was a moment of reconciliation between the countries following Mahathir’s Buy British Last and Look East policies earlier in the decade.
During their meeting, Thatcher infamously quipped to Mahathir: “although, Prime Minister, you may sometimes look East and sometimes may travel East, if you look far enough East and travel far enough East, you always come to the West!”
Co-opting this turn of phrase, the works in Look East Gone West displace and complicate the racialised imaginaries that, by inflecting the well-worn division between the East and the West through a narrative of progress, puts one on the side of the past and the other on that of the future.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by a remark made by Margaret Thatcher during her historic visit to Malaysia in 1985. This visit by the figurehead of neoliberalism known for deregulating the UK’s financial markets was a moment of reconciliation between the countries following Mahathir’s Buy British Last and Look East policies earlier in the decade.
During their meeting, Thatcher infamously quipped to Mahathir: “although, Prime Minister, you may sometimes look East and sometimes may travel East, if you look far enough East and travel far enough East, you always come to the West!”
Co-opting this turn of phrase, the works in Look East Gone West displace and complicate the racialised imaginaries that, by inflecting the well-worn division between the East and the West through a narrative of progress, puts one on the side of the past and the other on that of the future.