David Diao's Postmasters Exhibition Explores Memory, Displacement Through Tennis Court Motifs

David Diao's exhibition "I Lived There Until I Was 6..." at Postmasters Gallery from January 17 to February 21, 2009, explores personal and political history through formal abstraction. The show features three dozen canvases, with ten incorporating tennis court plans as recurring motifs. These references stem from Diao's childhood memories of his family's mansion in Chengdu, which was seized by Communist forces in 1949 and later demolished in 1979. A 13-foot-long painting titled Timeline documents key historical events including the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square, alongside personal milestones like his parents' deaths. The exhibition contrasts Diao's restrained approach with Jim Dine's recent work at Pace Gallery, described as unfettered and autobiographical. Diao employs diagrams, maps, and text to convey displacement, using the tennis court as a scale for memory since no photographs of his childhood home exist. His father died while playing tennis in New York in 1990, commemorated in a 2007 painting. The show includes references to Jung Chang's book Wild Swans and engages with art history through works like Balls, which echoes Jasper Johns's Painting With Two Balls.