Adrian Wong
Untitled (Grate I/II: Shan Mei Playground/ Grand Fortune Mansion)
Untitled (Grate I/II: Shan Mei Playground/ Grand Fortune Mansion) by Adrian Wong is part of a series drawn from architectural objects that mark the boundary of public and private spaces Wong encountered while strolling in Hong Kong. Intrigued by the accidental preservation of historical building material by renovations and rebuilding, Wong began paying attention to the experience conveyed by layered forms accreted to affect the visual historicity of a space. The geometric forms in the piece are welded together as a composite replica of a metal grate from a children’s playground next to Wong’s studio, a security grate door from his apartment complex, and the latticework that holds an air conditioner from an electronic store, and a front grate from an elementary school on his bus route. This melding is a recognition of objects that normally recedes into the background of one’s experience in the city by recognizing their role as partitions that break visual fields into parallax spaces or planes of movement.