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M+, Hong Kong, © David Diao
David Diao 刁德謙
Da Hen Li cycle—Standard Measurement for Tennis Court 大亨里：網球場的標準量度
2007
David Diao’s Standard Measurement for Tennis Court 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.
Standard Measurement for Tennis Court, a cedar-green canvas reminiscent of grass and green-clay courts, divided into segments with white lines. The painting results from Diao’s attempt to recall Da Hen Li’s regulation-size tennis court, which is a significant motif in the Da Hen Li cycle. Diao used the court’s measurements as a point of reference to reconstruct the scale of the compound, and it became an anchor in his and his family’s recollections.
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