FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 13, 2020

The Polygon Gallery is pleased to present Third Realm, a group show of contemporary art from across East and Southeast Asia, marking the first major exhibition at the Gallery since its closure in March due to Covid-19. Third Realm includes contemporary works of photography, video, drawing, and installation by seminal figures of the contemporary art scene.

“We are thrilled to welcome the community back to a fully reopened gallery, and proud to mark the occasion with a timely exhibition featuring some of the most important artists working in Asia today,” says Reid Shier, The Polygon Gallery’s Director.

Third Realm showcases a crucial period of artistic production from 2004 to 2019, and presents a comprehensive view of the contemporary Asian art landscape. Highlights include work by Thai artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, winner of the 2010 Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives; Cao Fei, the first Chinese artist to have a solo show at Paris’s Centre Pompidou; and FX Harsono, widely regarded as Indonesia’s most prominent contemporary artist.

Other participating artists include: Birdhead, Comfortable Collective, Gary-Ross Pastrana, Heman Chong, Jompet Kuswidananto, Lu Yang, Paola Pivi, Sun Xun, Surasi Kusolwong, Sutee Kunavichayanon, Xijing Men, Yang Zhenzhong, and Zhou Xiaohu.

Third Realm provides critical insights into the sociopolitical shifts at the turn of the century when the Far East’s economic prosperity began to command global attention. Often calling into question the limits and bias of the camera, the artists exploit the directness of documentary images to reveal the complexities of social change.

“Each work presented opens powerful doors into artistic and cultural worlds. The exhibition could not be more perfect for the time we are living in where humans, as social beings, are disrupted and find themselves in isolation. Third Realm is a show that wants to stimulate dialogue, research, communality and openness,” says Davide Quadrio, the exhibition’s curator and co-founder of the FarEastFarWest collection.

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Third Realm
Dates: September 4 – November 8, 2020
Address: 101 Carrie Cates Court, North Vancouver. Unceded territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), and xwməθkwəýəm (Musqueam) Nations.
Admission: By donation, courtesy of BMO Financial Group.

Press Contact
Michael Mann
m.mann@thepolygon.ca
604.771.6266

About The Polygon Gallery
The Polygon is one of Canada’s most acclaimed photography and media art galleries. The Gallery moved into its Governor General’s Medal winning building in 2017 after operating as Presentation House Gallery for 40 years. The organization has presented more than 300 exhibitions, and earned a reputation as one of Canada’s most adventurous public art institutions.
www.thepolygon.ca

About the MoCP
The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago is the world’s premier college art museum dedicated to photography.  As an international hub, the MoCP generates ideas and provokes dialogue among students, artists and diverse communities through groundbreaking exhibitions and programming.
www.mocp.org

About FarEastFarWest collection
A Shanghai-based organisation that commissions and acquires contemporary Asian artworks and is housed at the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago. FarEastFarWest was founded in 2007 by Eric Guichard and Davide Quadrio and serves as a production platform for artistic projects. The shared goal of its co-founders is to identify artists, select projects and produce historic pieces which address contemporary issues relevant to life in Asia.

Image: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Ghost Teen (detail), 2009, courtesy FarEastFarWest collection