Hotam #11: Curious Cabinets is the eleventh installment in Hotam, a quarterly artist journal produced by Ho Tam from 2013 to 2017. Using the magazine format as a point of departure, each issue takes on a different theme and form of execution. In this edition, artist Ho Tam spends over two years secretly photographing the bathroom cabinets of his friends, all over the world. The private space of the bathroom cabinet contains, for each of us, an array of personal objects and products which we use on our bodies daily, yet as a series, the cabinets are strikingly similar, and the product brands which have infiltrated our personal spaces reign dominant across the portraits. To be allowed inside the intimate space of a cabinet is endlessly fascinating. Ho Tam’s unconventional approach to the magazine format turns our conceptions of mass distributed media on it’s head.
Ho Tam is an artist from Hong Kong, educated in Toronto. He works across a wide range of mediums, including writings, photography, and film, in which he explores identity, politics, and public space. He is a graduate of the Whitney Independent Study Program and holds an MFA from Bard College. Ho Tam is also the founder of Hotam, an independent publisher based in Toronto.
