JOHN BATTEN GALLERY / NOVEMBER 2004 / "The Real Toy Story "

Michael Wolf
The Real Toy Story
- a photography and toy installation
2 - 27 November 2004

The next exhibition at John Batten Gallery is by Michael Wolf - who has lived in Hong Kong since 1995 and has regularly visited China over the last nine years. He is a freelance photographer and worked on assignment for various publications – in particular, as a photo-journalist for the German magazine, Stern.

This is Michael’s second exhibition at John Batten Gallery – in late 2003 his large-sized Portraits of Chinese People photographs received critical acclaim.

The Real Toy Story is both an elaborate installation and a homage to China’s factory workers who produce most of the world’s cheap mass-produced plastic toys. Michael will completely cover the gallery’s walls in a large installation of approximately 12,000 toys and embedded amongst the installation will be photographs of the factory workers who produced them.

The Real Toy Story is a continuation of Michael Wolf’s interest in the people and societal changes taking place in Southern China. Forthcoming new work includes: The Back Door – photographs taken in Hong Kong’s back alleys; Corner Buildings – pre-1960s buildings of Kowloon; Architecture of Density – depictions of Hong Kong’s monolithic apartment buildings.