M97 Gallery is pleased to present SMALL GOD, BIG CITY, an exhibition of photographic works by internationally renowned artist Michael Wolf. The SMALL GOD, BIG CITY exhibition takes the viewer through the oeuvre of one of Asia’s most prolific photographers. The exhibition features over 100 photographs from seven of Michael Wolf’s bodies of work: My Favorite Thing, Hong Kong Back Door (2003), Architecture of Density (2003-07), Industrial Architecture (2006), Tokyo Compression (2010), Small God, Big City (2012), and Scout Shots; the recently released collection of small format pictures of buildings taken by Wolf in scouting trips around Hong Kong, while working on his Density and Industrial series.
Beginning with his back alleyway street photography with the series My Favorite Thing and Hong Kong Back Door (2003), Wolf’s camera is always interested in the human footprint and traces of the individual left, and often lost, amidst the chaotic density of the Asian megacity of Hong Kong, where Wolf has lived since the 1990s. The traces of human makeshift ingenuity recorded by Wolf is not sardonic whimsy, but fascination with the creative and improvisational ability and resilience of the individual, who is forced to be resourceful in an unfriendly environment where physical space has been commercialized and commoditized perhaps more than anywhere else on the planet. This struggle of the human spirit reclaiming and reinventing the limited physical space and means we are giving is a constant throughout Wolf’s photographic oeuvre.
M97 Gallery address: No. 97 Moganshan Road, 2nd floor, Shanghai, China 200060 T. (+8621) 6266 1597 – info(at)m97gallery.com
