Cabos, Marine. "He Bo: The Extending Punctums." Foam Magazine, #51: Seer/Believer, September (2018), 213.
The authoritative Foam Magazine - an international photography magazine published three times a year by Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam - commissioned us to write an essay about the Chinese artist He Bo and his photographic series "The Extending Punctums". Created between 2013 and 2015, the series consists of 11 triptychs, blending an archival approach with an artistic sensibility to reveal the conflation of image and text.
This issue #51 of Foam Magazine is themed around the Myth, a subject that has been important in the visual arts as long as we know. The seer is a visionary, creating ways of understanding or framing things that at first appear otherworldly, impossible or irrational. Their interpretations enter our systems of belief and understanding. Who is the author: the seer who creates the stories or the believer who adopts and acts upon them? The photographer has the ability to transform and create connections through envisioning stories from ancient times to contemporary life. Through a process of endless repetition and re-interpretation it becomes a timeless given: a myth existing at the junction where fact and fiction collide. And at the end, we believe what we see, or do we?
