12 BW-prints, video of making process and 60 wine bottles
80 x 120 cm x 7, 120 x 80 cm x 3, 100 x 100 cm x 2
Documentary video: http://vimeo.com/29083475
Mountains, rivers, birds, and beasts emerge in black and white against the dark, glossy surfaces of wine bottles. Across the world, wine labels frequently evoke medieval European architecture and romanticized nature. Through the act of collecting and re-examining these everyday objects, subtle relationships between people, products, and culture are revealed.
In Yi Shui Xi Cheng Series Two, Tang Kwok-hin collects 60 wine bottles and meticulously carves away the text and background from their labels, leaving only the printed images intact on the glass. He then photographs the carved labels and uses these fragments to construct a fictitious city through digital collage. Twelve individual photographs present multiple perspectives of the same imagined place, each revealing corresponding elements that connect across different bottles. The viewer is invited to become a traveler wandering through this newly formed landscape.
The work examines how global marketing strategies, consumer purchasing power, production costs, and cultural habits create a form of “cultural inertia” that shapes our fundamental understanding of the world. By deconstructing and reassembling these commercial images, Tang questions the limited perspectives imposed by such inertia and searches for hidden landscapes concealed within mass-produced objects.
Yi Shui Xi Cheng transforms ordinary wine labels — symbols of pleasure, lifestyle, and commodified nostalgia — into an imaginary cityscape. Through this process of carving, collecting, and reconstructing, the artist breaks free from conventional readings, offering a contemplative space where cultural fragments can be reimagined into something personal, coherent, and quietly subversive.
