PRESENTATION: Sarah Morris-Who is Who

Since the mid-1990s Sarah Morris has reinvigorated painting with her abstracted geometric snapshots of urban environments. Her work is often derived from close inspection of architectural details combined with a critical sensitivity to spatial systems. Often working in distinctive series that are created in conjunction with a film, she has explored the psychological typologies of Midtown Manhattan, Las Vegas, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi, and Osaka among others.

By Efi MIchalarou
Photo: Tai Kwun Archive

Sarah Morris solo exhibition “Who is Who” presents the feature-length film “ETC” (2024) with sound by Liam Gillick, as well as a newly commissioned, site-specific wall painting, “Lippo [Paul Rudolph]” Furthermore, a newly commissioned artwork is displayed on the Parade Ground as part of Tai Kwun’s “55 Squared” project. Fundamentally, “Who is Who” examines the everyday interconnections of an industrialised society, evidenced by a title that nods at the German philosopher Theodor Adorno’s contemplation of the “troubled world” of the 20th century: “Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life” (1951). Known for her paintings of vivid geometries and videos that explore the psycho-geography of cities, Morris’s work forms new understandings of systems and structures. Her cinematic portraits of cities create a chain of interrelation between global sites and production. Factories, insignias of power, and everyday objects appear as equals throughout her filmic work. Shot in Hong Kong in the spring of 2023, “ETC”, her sixteenth film, captures the city at a specific moment in time and continues her examination of urban interconnection, visualising the simultaneity of electronic and analogue life in Hong Kong. Playfully recalling the Electronic Teller Card in its title, an innovation by the celebrated graphic designer Henry Steiner for HSBC, “ETC” considers Hong Kong’s role as a global centre of commerce, featuring financial and governmental hubs such as Sham Shui Po’s Electronic Market, ATL Logistics Centre, the HSBC headquarters, and the Legislative Council Complex, accompanied by lesser-known locations. The city’s iconic characters and everyday ephemera navigate these landmarks: the graphic designer Henry Steiner, the architect James H. Kinoshita, and the actress Josie Ho star alongside countless inanimate characters like currency, buckets, taxis, fruits, escalators, and pens.  In an era marked by rapid change, “ETC” reflects upon the use of space, layering daily life with complex histories. The artist considers both micro and macro scales which propel the viewer into a field of fragmented narratives. The artist places herself and the viewer in many situations which reveal her distinct vision of the contemporary moment.

Sarah Morris began her career making graphic paintings that adapted the dramatic, emotive language used in newspaper and advertising tag lines. Her city-based paintings are executed in household gloss paint on square canvases, employing rigorous, all-over grids that reference architectural motifs, signs or urban vistas. Their vivid colours derive from each city’s unique vocabulary and palette, but, most importantly, its dynamic. In her film work, Morris both seduces and alienates the viewer, employing different kinds of cinematography, from documentary recording to seemingly set-up narrative scenarios. In her film ‘Los Angeles” (2005), for instance, Morris explores an industry fuelled by fantasy and examines the trenchant relationship between studio, producer, director and talent. In Capital, part of Morris’ series about Washington DC, Morris gained unprecedented access to the inside workings of Clinton’s last days in office. Following “Los Angeles”, Morris embarked on more intimate portrait films, such as “Robert Towne” (2005) and “1972” (2008), which shift the viewpoint from the panorama of a city to an individual portrait of one of its protagonists, as a way of examining it from the inside out. Following these works, Morris made “Beijing” (2008), a film about one of the most intricate and ambiguous international broadcasted events of past years – the 2008 Olympic Games. Morris’s more recent series of work about Rio de Janeiro depicts the multifarious and complex layers of this most contradictory of cities, from its highly orchestrated and eroticised surface image, to its vast urban sprawl. In the new series of “Rio” paintings (2012-13), Morris both expands and reduces her abstract compositions, and in the “Rio” film (2012), images of the city’s beaches, fruit stands, hospitals, iconic modernist architecture, football stadiums, factories and favelas are combined with images from the office of Oscar Niemeyer, the mayor of Rio and the parades of the city’s famous Carnival. In 2014, Morris’s focus shifted to Paris in the film “Strange Magic”, in which the artist explores a wide spectrum of narratives that operate under the umbrella of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy conglomerate. Commissioned for the opening of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the film, like Morris’s paintings, looks to decode the built environment, exploring cultural, economic and social typologies. Deconstructing the machinery behind France’s most desired commodities – champagne, perfume, fashion – the artist probes concepts of national identity and the inherent fantasy in the pursuit of luxury. As Morris has said of the work: “It all comes down to production. The production of space, the production of brands, the production of art. The production of dreams and desire, paradoxically intangible at the end of the day.”

Photo: Sarah Morris and Scott King, TXJSQE, 2024, Vinyl on billboard, 5 x 11.5 m, © Sarah Morris and Scott King, Commissioned by Tai Kwun Contemporary Photograph: Kitmin Lee, Courtesy of Tai Kwun

Info: Tai Kwun Contemporary, 10 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong, Duration: 16/3-14/4/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-19:00, www.taikwun.hk/