Canton National Bank, Baltimore

In 1785, Captain John O'Donnell sailed to Baltimore from Canton, China, on the "Pallas" loaded with exotic goods. The proceeds from his China trade were used to purchase the area of Baltimore he named "Canton." Two centuries later, painter Hung Lui, a native of Changchun, China, came to the US to study western artistic practices. Paintings made by Hung Liu in response to Baltimore's historic connections to China combine "identity fragments" from the cultural collision between East and West. Liu's shaped paintings unite historic and contemporary photographic images of China with "exotic" Western stereotypes of the Orient. The Contemporary's exhibition of Lui's work was installed in a vacant bank in the Canton district of Baltimore. A satellite exhibit at the Peale Museum explored both the city's Chinese immigration history and the development of the China trade, and featured three portraits by Charles Wilson Peale of family members of Baltimore's first China trader (on loan from the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA). An artist residency program facilitated project development (3 weeks in duration).