The Lives of Artists – Dahong Hongxuan Wang: Role Models at the Bluecoat
Maja Lorkowska, Exhibitions Editor
Bluecoat‘s Lives of the Artists season continues with Dahong Hongxuan Wang: Role Models.
Hongxuan examines the structural racism present in the world of film and has contemplated this subject time and time again while playing the role of Anna May Wong in several of Michelle Williams Gamaker’s works (whose exhibition Our Mountains Are Painted on Glass you’ll also find at the Bluecoat right now as part of the Lives of Artists season.).
In Role Models, the artist film follows the path of Anna May Wong who travelled to her ancestral hometown of Taishan, Guangdong, after rejections from Hollywood in favour of actors in the racist make-up technique of yellowface. The film is a documentary-style narrative featuring Anna as the director, ultimately in control of the filming process and the final result. Hongxuan describes her practice as exploring the different manifestations of the “rebel body” and the idea of rebelliousness in general, as a daily practice that permeates everyday life instead of a temporary state of mind.
