Ho Tzu Nyen

Kiang Malingue is pleased to present Three Stories: Monsters, Opium, Time, an exhibition of recent films and video installations by Ho Tzu Nyen. This is the esteemed artist's second exhibition with Kiang Malingue, showcasing three independent bodies of work: Night March of Hundred Monsters (2021), O for Opium (2023), and a suite of more than forty Timepieces (2023).

Known for critically reflecting upon the construction of history, myth, ideas and identities by working across a range of media in the past two decades, Ho continues to explore subjects as diverse as yōkai (monsters, demons, or spectres as they are known in Japan) and its intertwining with histories of Japanese Imperialism; the history of the opium trade; and the concept of time in particular manifestations. Three Stories: Monsters, Opium, Time is a structured exhibition that alludes to trailokya or the three realms, the religious division of the world into three domains: the netherworld, the earth, and heaven, allocated to the three-storied building of Kiang Malingue.

In the place of the netherworld, Night March of Hundred Monsters is an ongoing project that is directly inspired by the Japanese folkloric tradition of envisioning a horde of monsters parading through nocturnal darkness. For the two Night March of Hundred Monsters video installations that are shown in a quasi-cinema setting made specifically for the exhibition, Ho has observed the tradition and compiled, in his signature style, an animated encyclopaedia of monsters in which each individual yōkai is carefully depicted.