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M+, Hong Kong, © Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar 阿爾弗雷多．哈爾
Untitled (Water) 無題（水）
1990
Alfredo Jaar’s mixed-media installation Untitled (Water) is part of a series that was created following the artist’s two-week sojourn in Hong Kong in 1990. During his trip, Jaar visited, photographed, and spoke with Vietnamese exiles at detention facilities, which were often overcrowded. The work is composed of two parts: six large, double-sided lightboxes sit on the floor in a row in front of a wall, showing images of ocean waves. Hanging on the wall behind them is a row of thirty smaller black-framed mirrors. As the viewer moves closer to the work, they see their own reflection in the mirrors, as well as partial reflections of photographs—depicting crowds of children and adults standing behind chain-link fences—that are shown on the opposite sides of the lightboxes. Hong Kong was an important destination for Vietnamese refugees following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Jaar’s work calls attention to this part of the city’s recent history and underscores the fragmented representation of the effects of war in mass media.
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