Fine China
Ho Tam
May 16 - June 21, 2025
Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present several iterations of Ho Tam's Fine China project. The exhibition is presented in partnership with the CONTACT Photography Festival.
Ho Tam was born in Hong Kong in 1963. His family moved to Toronto in 1978. In 1997 Hong Kong was ceded to China after 157 years of British rule, making Hong Kong a Special Administrative Region of China. In 1998 Ho Tam produced the first edition of Fina China as a (now obsolete) blueprint. Two years later came the video, followed by the second edition of Fine China in a magazine format in 2014 which included accompanying texts. The third edition of Fine China was printed in 2021 and took the format of a chapbook, including four new images to reflect current times.
Ho Tam writes, “Entering the 21st Century, China has proven to be emerging as the next superpower. Fine China set off to examine the various issues as a project started in 1997. The first edition was simply a print of re-designed porcelain ware with reference to the history and culture. The second edition became a book project, with written texts that describe each object, in the form of a pseudo-art catalogue. This new edition is another revision, with four new pieces that speaks about the more recent events and political issues related to China.”
The latest photographs, printed this year, are a culmination of this twenty-seven year project.
Fine China is an exploration of China's past and present with a different take on issues within and outside a country of growing influence in the present day, with a collection of 24 photographs based on re-designed porcelains (fine china) with iconic /ironic images. It is a search for China's identity in the new millennium.
The video Fine China (2000, running time 8:33) transcribes a collection of found and original footage into a display of the original 22 re-designed porcelains that form the basis for the photographs, including images of panda bears, Jackie Chan, Mao and McDonald's. The video itself is a revisioning of the original Fine China folded blueprint from 1998 and premiered in 2000 with the support of Pleasure Dome (Toronto) for a project titled Blueprint: A Blueprint for Moving Images in the 21st Century. You can watch the video on Ho Tam's Vimeo page found here.
Retracing personal and collective memories, Fine China provides an alternative perspective for an aging civilization as it re-invents itself into a possible superpower of the future. The photographs capture these images from the video and include more recent images such as the corona virus and digital technology companies.
To view accompanying text for each individual image from Fine China (2025), visit our multiples and small works website here.
Ho Tam (b. Hong Kong) is a media/visual artist who has worked in advertising and community psychiatry. He received a BA from McMaster University and an MFA from Bard College (NY). From 1996 to 1997, he was a participant at the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program. Tam has exhibited in public galleries and alternative spaces across Canada. Over 15 of his experimental film/video works are in circulation. Permanent collections include the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery and RBC, Toronto. Tam is also the publisher of Hotam Press, an independent press of artist books, and currently runs a bookshop and gallery of the same name. Ho Tam lives in Vancouver, BC and has been exhibiting at Paul Petro Contemporary Art since 2002.