When Weapons Bloom for the 50th Anniversary of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery : To mark its 50th anniversary, the Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG), an iconic Australian cultural institution founded in 1975, is presenting its flagship exhibition, "SHARED." This retrospective celebrates half a century of passion, highlighting the works that have defined the gallery’s history.
At the heart of this celebration lies the striking installation "Gun No. 1" by Chinese artist Li Hongbo.
An undisputed master of paper sculpture, Li Hongbo utilizes the ancestral "honeycomb" technique to assemble thousands of thin layers of paper. The result is a poetic and political metamorphosis: what appears at first glance to be a rainbow-colored flower garden is actually composed of meticulously carved replicas of pistols and automatic weapons. By fanning out these cold, metallic forms into fragile organic structures, the artist symbolically disarms violence, transforming it into beauty.
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