CHRISTOPHER K. HO: I AM A 70-YEAR-OLD BRITISH SCULPTOR

Hejduk’s teachings are foundational to Christopher K. Ho’s first solo exhibition at PHD Group, “I Am a 70-Year-Old British Sculptor.” An architect by training, Ho presents 30 sculptures and 10 drawings, bound together by modernist concerns of space, material, and form.

Ostensibly devoid of subject matter, the sculptures in brass and aluminum contain enigmatic references that invite closer inspection. Several works reveal origins through titles or identifiable shapes. Pei Cobb Freed (2023) recalls I. M. Pei’s firm and its Fountain Place building (formerly the Allied Bank Tower) in Dallas, while other sculptures reveal biomorphic experiments: an elongated shard approximates a giraffe’s neck; a dart-shaped plate mimics a tailfin. Some are self-contained puzzles—a curved edge on a base, for instance, matches the diameter of a sunlike plaque sitting above. Altogether, these sculptures are intended to be read as a series, presented in the exhibition on pedestals of varying heights, and collectively titled “Return to Order.”

The 10 new works on paper feature another of Hejduk’s favored architectural methods: the 90-degree axonometric, in which plan and elevation are represented equally, with no distortion. These curiously flattened drawings, made in direct correlation with the sculptures, reverse the process of building—from object to rendering to sketch. In a reflection of this return, analogue tools and materials are primarily deployed here: a parallel rule, hand-cut strips of Hahnemühle etching paper, oil pastel, gouache, watercolor ink, color pencils. A tension arises between the objective, precise measurements of classical axonometry and the subjective, emotional nature of perspective, experienced through the eyes of the viewer.

Playful and inquisitive, “I Am a 70-Year-Old British Sculptor” is an exhibition that compresses and expands; folds and stretches; ascends and cascades. From points of logic, questions arise: who is the 70-year-old British sculptor? Why the reappearance of such formal concerns? At the axis of the exhibition, a cruciform bench invites visitors to contemplate these entangled relationships of space, dimension, and material.

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