A Designer's Decade of Contemporary Art in China: The Book Designs of He Hao, 2003-2013

Almost a Hundred Design Projects: Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing, Araki Nobuyoshi, Lin Tianmiao, Wang Gongxin, RongRong & inri, Liu Zheng, Yue Minjun, Miao Xiaochun, Xu Weixin, Zhang Dali, Yang Fudong, Tim Yip, Chen Wenji, Zhan Wang, Yu Hong... An Asian Trend in Contemporary Graphic Design An independent print-media practitioner, He Hao has been working with distinctive and representative artists in the Chinese contemporary art world, including Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing, etc., and designed more than 100 high-quality books and catalogs since 2003. Recording the current state of art development in China, his works have become an archive of significance. He Hao’s practice shows an Asian trend in today’s graphic design: the replacement of transplanted Modernism with a contemporaneity informed by the culture and lifestyle of contemporary China and the East. An independent print-media practitioner, He Hao has been working with distinctive and representative artists in the Chinese contemporary art world, including Ai Weiwei, Xu Bing, etc., and designed more than 100 high-quality books and catalogs since 2003. Recording the current state of art development in China, his works have become an archive of significance. He Hao’s practice shows an Asian trend in today’s graphic design: the replacement of transplanted Modernism with a contemporaneity informed by the culture and lifestyle of contemporary China and the East. He Hao’s designs grow organically from the content. His sole concern is the discovery and presentation of the content, and his designs show no trace of his hand. This approach might best be called “essential design.” — Xu Bing He Hao is a designer infatuated with the dialogue between space and time. Sensitive to both the pressures of history and the endless transformations of all life forms, he remains in deep and focused meditation, a lone sojourner outside the commercial realm. — Bei Dao