Júlio de Matos
Fading Hutongs
September 18 - November 14, 2009

Artist's Reception & Gallery Talk
Third Friday, October 16, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Meet photographer and architect Júlio de Matos who will travel from Portugal to join us for the evening
Enjoy light refreshments, wine from Wine Authorities, and a gallery talk presented by the artist at 7:30

Photographer and architect Júlio de Matos conveys the ephemeral nature of urban neighborhoods with his project Fading Hutongs. Dating from the 14th century, hutongs are formed by joining together multiple courtyard residences. These traditional Beijing neighborhoods and the communities housed within them are disappearing in the shadows of newly erected high-rises. Between 2005 and 2008, de Matos elegantly photographed Beijing's rapidly changing urban fabric.

Yung Ho Chang, Professor of Architecture and Head of the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reminisces about the hutongs of his childhood in the introduction to Júlio de Matos's book, Fading Hutongs:
"Fifty years ago I was born in a hutong on the east side of Beijing and grew up in another. Throughout my childhood, my universe was a courtyard enclosed by sky, earth and architecture and completed with trees, flowers, bicycles and other children. It was an introverted space that was filled with domestic activities and a sense of tranquility at the same time. I have long since left the courtyard house, and the Beijing with that kind of houses and hutongs has been on its way to disappearance, but as an architect I find courtyards and hutongs in almost all the buildings I have built."

Júlio de Matos was born in Braga, Portugal in 1951. He trained in industrial design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and in 1976 completed the Higher Education Architecture Course at the Porto School of Fine Arts. With a Fullbright Scholarship, he earned an MFA in Photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1981. His photographs are in the collections of museums in Portugal, the US and China.