NEW YORK, NY.- Gladstone Gallery is presenting an exhibition by Huang Yong Ping, the artist’s fifth exhibition with the gallery. This show presents Bank of Sand, Sand of Bank, an important historical work by Huang for the first time in New York since its creation nearly two decades ago. 

Bank of Sand, Sand of Bank derives its structure from the former HSBC Bank in Shanghai, built in 1923 by the British architecture firm Palmer & Turner. During the Chinese Revolution of 1949, this Neoclassical landmark was transformed into the Communist Municipal People’s Government Building, and later became the headquarters for the Pudong Development Bank in the 1990s. Huang’s 20-ton replica of this edifice, comprised of sand and concrete, contemplates the troubling history this building has lived through while questioning the power of ruling institutions. Through the use of unstable materials, this building, which is meant to stand for security and power, is transformed into a vulnerable and forgotten ruin that appears as though it could collapse at a moment’s notice. The work’s fragility and temporality visualizes the turbulent past and exchanges of power this monument has witnessed over time, while also providing a deeper narrative surrounding the longevity and effectiveness of governing bodies throughout history. 

Installation view, Bank of Sand, Sand of Bank (200/2018) at Gladstone Gallery, New York. Photo: David Regen. Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

Originally shown in 2000 at the Shanghai Biennale, this work connects to the artist’s interest in reproducing and recontexualizing significant monuments throughout history, infused with visual clues that address themes such as colonialism and cultural reappropriation. Bank of Sand, Sand of Bank is a particularly significant example of this impulse for the artist, who has also revisited sites such as the Colosseum, the Pentagon and Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottaban, Pakistan. In this instance, the building’s original structure adopts a Neoclassicist design and was originally intended as the Chinese headquarters for a bank founded in British-ruled Hong Kong in the late 19th-century by a British architecture firm. Huang highlights the structure’s complicated origins, both physical and conceptual, filled with an amalgam of blatant seizures of cultural property and ideological notions.