Michael Ho

Michael Ho’s work involves producing negatives, or more accurately, making tableaux from stains. Paint is pushed through the back of an unprimed canvas in mostly abstract patterns which harden to an unabsorbent ground. Once the canvas is reversed, these forms act as a kind of stencil, occluding figures which the artist first renders digitally and then onto the front of the painting in oils applied by hand. Each work is thus partially a mirror image, imbued with the same-but-different quality which characterizes gay desire. Meanwhile, the abstract patterns resemble rustling leaves or writhing microorganisms, summoning the threat of contagion that has long hung over cruising sites while imagining queer new forms of life being born and bred there. ...

High Art was born in 2013 from an interest in bringing together distinct perspectives in advanced practices that are significant to current paradigms in contemporary art. Since its inception, High Art has functioned to provide an economic and logistic framework for artists by reexamining established modes of art commerce and production while attempting to account for an expanding field of art. The gallery has fostered not only the emergence of artists (Olga Balema, Max Hooper Schneider, Julien Creuzet, Matt Copson, Lucy Bull, Hun Kyu Kim, Mélanie Matranga) but also the emergence of new networks and economies (Paris Internationale, Shanaynay). In May of 2017, High Art inaugurated a new space in the heart of the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The space, which is located on the ground floor of an 19th century Haussmannian building, is notable for housing Georges Bizet while he wrote the opera “Carmen”. In December of 2020, High Art opened a second location in a 12th century chapel in the heart of Arles, France. ...