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M+, Hong Kong, © David Diao
David Diao 刁德謙
Da Hen Li cycle—Masthead 大亨里：報頭
2007
David Diao’s Masthead is part of a cycle of works entitled Da Hen Li. Created between 2007 and 2008, the series unearths Diao’s memories of the Da Hen Li house, his childhood home in Chengdu, China. Diao lived at Da Hen Li until the age of six, when he emigrated to Hong Kong, shortly before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Thirty years later, upon returning to his home town for the first time, Diao discovered that his former family residence had recently been razed to the ground, leaving almost no record of its existence. Comprising paintings of various sizes and media, including hand-drawn and ruled floor plans, silk-screened property deeds, laser-printed sketches, and texts in English and Chinese, the cycle is the artist’s attempt to trace his childhood through a personal recollection of Da Hen Li’s spaces.
Masthead is a long rectangular composition painted in red and golden yellow, the colours of the flag of the People’s Republic of China. It features the Chinese characters for ‘Sichuan Daily’—the name of a Chengdu-based newspaper—in the publication’s official calligraphic typeface. The Da Hen Li house was commandeered by the government and used as the headquarters of the Sichuan Daily until the building’s demolition in 1979. It can be seen as paired with Da Hen Li, a painting that depicts the house’s original name.
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