Stephanie Bailey Four Discussions with Artists: Leung Chi Wo, Lam Tung Pang, Morgan Wong, and Lee Kit

n 2010, Hong Kong artists Lam Tung Pang, Lee Kit, Leung Chi Wo, and Morgan Wong exhibited their work at No Soul For Sale: A Festival of IIndependents as part of Tate Modern’s tenth anniversary celebrations. The artists were showing with Para/Site, co-founded in 1996 by Leung Chi Wo with Lisa Cheung, Phoebe Man, Patrick Lee, Leung Mee Ping, Tsang Tak Ping, and Sara Wong. One of Hong Kong’s most prominent non-profit art spaces, Para/Site’s mission is to “to establish and maintain a platform for artists and other art practitioners to realize their vision, in relation with their immediate and extended communities, with the aim of nurturing a thoughtful and creative society.” An active artist and assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong, with a B.A. and M.F.A from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and having participated in numerous residencies worldwide, Leung Chi Wo is widely regarded as one of the driving forces behind Hong Kong’s burgeoning arts scene. In the following discussion, he provides insight into a city that Milton Friedman once hailed as the perfect capitalist society, has undergone a transition from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region of China, and will remain under the joint Basic Law until 2049. As an artist, Leung Chi Wo’s concerns extend beyond Hong Kong’s status as the third largest art market in the world in auction sales and the fact that ART HK has become the Art Basel of Asia.

Leung Chi Wo—Art and Expression

Stephanie Bailey: How did Para/Site begin?

Leung Chi Wo: In the beginning we needed an exhibition space, so we created Para/Site. After finding the space, we realized we wanted a forum for art, so we organized talks and lectures. Then we were encouraged to move into a curatorial practice, so we produced thematic shows, and when we found a need for a critical perspective, we organized publications. That’s how Para/Site evolved. The whole thing happened because it was something we needed for ourselves. Para/Site is also a reflection of my own character in that I am very adaptive. I respond to the situation and to reality. I’m a kind of pragmatist, not an idealist.

Stephanie Bailey: You left Para/Site in 2007. Why?

Leung Chi Wo: Para/Site should be independent and have its own life without depending on me or any other founding member. I have met people who founded their space thirty years ago, and they are still the

72 Vol.10 No.3 directors; there are other artist-run spaces that have problems because the founding members cannot let go. I didn’t want that.

Stephanie Bailey: How did Para/Site come to participate in No Soul For Sale?

Leung Chi Wo, Photojournalist Leung Chi Wo: In Asia there aren’t with Two Cameras, 2010, C-print, 100 x 150 cm. Courtesy many independent spaces still of the artist. running. There was growth in the early 2000s; then lots of them closed down. Before the arrival of the art market, mutual support between artists was important, but then if you received support from commercial galleries or were being presented in international galleries, you had the space to work independently. So the organizations had to move a step forward if they were to keep going, and Para/Site became more of an art centre. I supported this development because we don’t have any good non-collecting or collecting institutions in Hong Kong that take part in this international conversation. Now the issue is to find a bigger, more permanent space, but there is not much space left in the city.

Stephanie Bailey: Aside from space limiting the scale Hong Kong artists and curators can work in, how does Hong Kong influence you?

Leung Chi Wo, Sara Wong, Leung Chi Wo: I get inspiration Office Lady with a Red Umbrella, 2010, C-print, 100 x from friends and socio-political 150 cm. Courtesy of the artist. conditions—1989, the transitional period of the 1997 handover, the post-economic crisis, the post- birth of the bubble and the market, and the shifts in the art fair from mainland China to Hong Kong. Tian’anmen Square was a climax. Every Hong Konger was politicized by those events. People started organizing themselves or leaving. We all got involved as students, and for most people it was the first time they marched in a demonstration. I think I found myself in the middle of a historical moment.

Stephanie Bailey: Hong Kong experienced a kind of mass migration from the 1980s in the run-up to the Handover. An estimated total of one million people emigrated to other countries between 1984 and 1997 with huge numbers of mainland Chinese immigrating into the city.

Vol.10 No.3 73 Leung Chi Wo: The first wave was in the mid 1980s, during the Sino-British talks; it was a time we saw a lot of classmates leaving. The second wave was after Tian’anmen Square. Then around ‘95 and ‘96 you saw people coming back.

Stephanie Bailey: Post-Handover, Nan Sussman estimated that some 500,000 of those who emigrated have since returned. Why do you think people started to return before the Handover?

Leung Chi Wo: The economy was blooming, the property market went crazy, some people could not adjust to their adopted homes or saw more positive coverage of Hong Kong in the news. There are many reasons. It’s part of our history.

Stephanie Bailey: How would you compare Hong Kong and mainland Leung Chi Wo, My Name is Victoria, 2010, performance. China in terms of art development? Courtesy of the artist.

Leung Chi Wo: Art is part of Chinese cultural history and has had an important position in society for centuries, even during communism and its propaganda. The mid 1980s was the most liberal time. Looking at the 1980s Chinese avant-garde, you can sense the passion—it was genuine. Now art in China is a mass market. Take a company in China that only makes wooden hair combs and is now one of the biggest publicly listed companies—it’s all about concept. This is a big business for 1.4 billion people. In Hong Kong, art has always been a hobby. It’s so different. People here show a very different level of respect, and even until now still think it is something personal.

Stephanie Bailey: Could the increasing popularity of Hong Kong as the third largest art market in the world in terms of auction sales and the development of ART HK and the West Kowloon Cultural district affect local art production?

74 Vol.10 No.3 Leung Chi Wo, Sign Read, 2011, 29 sets of school desks, each desk has a digital photograph and engraved texts. Courtesy of the artist.

Leung Chi Wo: Hong Kong is an art centre because we are lucky. Geographically it has always been a hub, and what’s happening in and around it makes it interesting. When it comes to our generation, we like to make art; we even like making a living off art. But this is not taken for granted. To work hard is normal. Making art in a very humble way is also normal. Art HK has drawn people who are consuming art. But though commercial galleries provide opportunities for artists to survive, they do not always allow the artists to grow. The West Kowloon Cultural District will not come into existence for some time, so we really need things that create diversity now. You don’t want only blue chip galleries and very small grassroots artist-run spaces; this is not balanced. You want to have different possibilities. That’s how the arts can be more inclusive, and that’s why I want art to be as diverse as possible. Society should allow many different practices. This also applies to politics.

Stephanie Bailey: How has Hong Kong changed post-97?

Leung Chi Wo: Take “one country two systems.” I imagine Deng Xiao- ping gave fifty years to Hong Kong post-97 because he saw the distance between Hong Kong and Mainland China and believed fifty years was enough time for the two systems to merge. But Hong Kong is becoming more conservative, while mainland China is becoming more liberal. The whole world changed after the Cold War, so what do we mean by Left and Right? Do you think the communist party in China is Left? It’s a market economy—everything is translated in terms supply and demand. Artists are producing for the art market and universities are becoming corporate. That’s pretty scary. There are so many things one has to respect besides making money.

Stephanie Bailey: Has this market focus affected censorship?

Leung Chi Wo: There is censorship everywhere, and self-censorship is popular amongst people dealing with China. The market in Hong Kong is so small. If you publish a magazine, just take away two rows of possibly controversial text and you can be distributed to 1.4 billion people. But we

Vol.10 No.3 75 still have a relative amount of freedom of speech in Hong Kong, and it is a privilege, because at least we can be protected if we stand up against something. In mainland China, there is no protection. I think we have begun to see politics starting from ourselves. This is important because it didn’t happen before. Politics in Hong Kong is not only limited to grand narrative politics: We are still concerned with our civil rights, and we safeguard them.

Lam Tung Pang—Art and Situation

Lam Tung Pang was one of the original artists who came to Fotan, an industrial area in the New Territories that gained increasing popularity after a group of students from the Chinese University, Hong Kong—including Lam Tung Pang—came looking for a space in 2001 after a university studio was destroyed by fire. That year, they launched the first open studio event in Hong Kong, 318 Studio Opening Show, proving that students need not wait until graduation to present their work. Renamed The Fotanian in 2003, the annual open studio event has since bolstered a growing dialogue between Hong Kong artists and the public. While many attribute Fotan’s evolution into an arts district to the migration of industry to mainland China, the economic recession, and the SARS-induced property crash in 2003, Lam Tung Pang believes the real force was a generation of artists determined to create a future on their own terms. After moving to London to complete a Masters in Fine Arts from the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design, he returned to Hong Kong in 2006 and organized a group exhibition with Hong Kong artists Chow Chun Fai, Kwan Sheung Chi, Lee Kit, Ma Chi Hang, Pak Sheung Chuen, and himself entitled Inside Out: Art and Life, held at Osage Kwun Tong. The show travelled to Osage Beijing in the same year and Osage in 2008.

Opening reception for 318 Open Studio, Hong Kong, 2007. Courtesy of Lam Tung Pang.

Stephanie Bailey: What was it like studying art in Hong Kong?

Lam Tung Pang: Our professors taught us that art is your life partner; you keep it as a hobby and do something else or teach to make a living. Artists didn’t have the system or structure to support them say between the 70s and

76 Vol.10 No.3 Inside Looking Out: Art and 90s, and they didn’t have the mentality to be professional. That’s why I went Life, 2008, installation view of paintings by Lam Tung Pang at to London; it was my own critical statement. I applied for a scholarship, and Osage Singapore. Courtesy of the artist. that became my story. It’s really common in Western cultures for students to travel, to study abroad, but in Hong Kong they aren’t so interested; they aren’t even interested in Beijing. Art has a lot of linkages to the local context of Hong Kong.

Stephanie Bailey: You organized Inside Looking Out: Art and Life, held at the Osage Kwun Tong, both in Singapore and Beijing, presenting the work of fellow artists based in Fotan. How did your peers influence you?

Inside Looking Out: Art and Lam Tung Pang: When I was in secondary Life, 2008, installation view at Osage Singapore. Courtesy of school, I was already interested in painting Lam Tung Pang. and drawing, so I have this kind of difficult, romantic story of being young and falling in love. I project this idea of art. So from my friends I keep a very good balance. They influenced me because they live differently to me. For them it’s like art is nothing; life is more important. This actually reminds me of the literati painters hiding themselves in the mountains and keeping away from the society in late Ming China. I proposed Inside Looking Out with two very simple ideas: to do a group show with artists devoted and concentrated to their work who are also long term friends who can honestly communicate with each other. I don’t think the show had a curatorial statement; we just gathered the works and presented them, but the turnout was important for us.

Stephanie Bailey: The exhibition expressed observations of daily life in an incredibly complex city going through constant change; this is a curatorial statement in itself.

Lam Tung Pang: I always relate work to the mentality of how people deal with life. I have this sense around all of my friends who are artists. We try

Vol.10 No.3 77 not to connect with society. This is an interesting position, to be against society but not strictly protesting; artists hide themselves and make work with very significant social meaning. Some people say Lee Kit’s work has nothing to do with politics, but for me it is the most political art.

Stephanie Bailey: You were one of the generations who experienced the transition of colonial Hong Kong to mainland China in the ’97 handover. How do you relate to this?

Lam Tung Pang: Transition is Hong Kong’s main theme. You can see strong tensions between local and mainland cultures, but the boundaries are disappearing, and of course there are strong forces against it. That’s what makes this time interesting. Hong Kong is always in between; this is a good position to be in as an observer. And for now, at least, we still have freedom.

Stephanie Bailey: Will it last?

Lam Tung Pang: It depends on the people. I think Beijing is very smart. They don’t need to suppress anything. The people here in Hong Kong will change themselves.

Stephanie Bailey: Does your work have a political dimension?

Lam Tung Pang: I think being a full time artist is already a political statement in Hong Kong at that moment but I would rather put myself as an observer now. Most people in Hong Kong whose family came from the mainland are against communism because their families escaped it. My family came from Fujian, and we went to China at every opportunity when I was younger. My father was meant to study at university but because of the Cultural Revolution he could not, so he kept reading and worshipping Chinese heritage on his own. I think this is quite a common story in Hong Kong. I grew up in these social conditions but I keep my concern for social issues for my work. When I draw or paint I feel uncomfortable if I do it directly, so I involve a lot of indirect methods.

Stephanie Bailey: Does keeping this distance in your process feel somewhat safer?

Lam Tung Pang: I don’t know if it’s intentional. My work always comes from an understanding of my surroundings and my memories, but people interpret it with their own meaning. That’s why I’m careful about using iconic images; I’m not interested in making strong statements. I need that grey area.

Stephanie Bailey: Does this grey area relate to your experiences as an artist in a culturally mixed society?

Lam Tung Pang: In Hong Kong, they say my painting is Western, but in London they say my painting is Asian. Just by using chopsticks doesn’t mean you are Chinese! But actually, I feel closer to London than I do to

78 Vol.10 No.3 Lam Tung Pang’s studio in Beijing. When I went to Beijing, the culture shock was even stronger, which Hong Kong. Courtesy of the artist. is strange because it was supposed to be like going back to your roots. This is contemporary life. People keep moving around—it’s all mixed up, and I like that. When I look at visual landscapes, of course I learn most from traditional Chinese painting, but I also learn from other traditions. My questions are: What do traditions mean today from a contemporary perspective? What do they teach me? What meaning do they give to my life? Many of my friends say my works have a strong Asian feeling, especially a sense of literati painting from China but without ink and paper.

Stephanie Bailey: How would you define the influences behind your work?

Lam Tung Pang: I think situations change, but I don’t think my work does. It’s about relationships between two things, so it’s always consistent from that standpoint. In London my thesis investigated what shapes my perception: Is it culture? Society? The way I live? I tried to look at phenomenology and Merleau-Ponty for my questions about perception, but it never seemed right. I ended up drawing a lot; it’s the most minimal way to express what you are thinking, so you really concentrate on your response to your surroundings.

Stephanie Bailey: Do you relate more to Asian or Western art?

Lam Tung Pang: I think I used to relate more to Western art as I was studying Western art in Hong Kong, but I don’t believe that art is split into either “Asian” or “Western.” I am more interested in what they have in common now. I relate to Asian art because of its concern with existential problems. This is the most important level of learning: I learn, I know, but I don’t understand, or I understand but I do not feel. Talking about consumerism, I understand but can’t feel because the Chinese tradition is the opposite; the tradition is to save money. But Hong Kong has a whole other level of consumerism. I understand it, but I don’t really feel it. And if I don’t feel it, I can’t make artwork from it. So I ask myself what I can feel. It’s about finding a common ground.

Vol.10 No.3 79 Mora g n Wong—Art and Interaction

Morgan Wong was born in Hong Morgan Wong, Alliance, 2007, interactive installation, Kong and specializes in media art. computer with motion sensor, projector. Courtesy of the Sensitively investigating Chinese artist. culture in the twenty-first century, he exploits the language of technology and interactive media to encourage active engagement with the artist’s thoughts. Having studied Creative Media at City University, Hong Kong, were he was also taught by Leung Chi Wo, he has actively worked in a number of jobs, from Web editor to project assistant. Wong describes his journey toward becoming an artist with a sense of flow. One of his first interactive installations, Alliance (2007), was exhibited at Videotage, a non-profit Hong Kong space specializing in media and video art; it eventually won an award at the 13th Hong Kong Independent Short Film and Video Awards in 2008. Consisting of a large screen displaying Chinese characters that combine to make meaningful phrases, the viewer is involved through movement detection. Characters shift and form in accordance with viewer interaction, creating unexpected phrases with a sense of unpredictability that expresses an inherent order in the chaos of change, adaptation, and alteration.

Stephanie Bailey: Do you see yourself as a Chinese artist or a Hong Kong Chinese artist?

Morgan Wong: I see myself as an artist based in Hong Kong. Although I would love for people to understand from where my ideas might be generated, it’s more important to focus on the uniqueness of each artist. Giving titles positions people within a restricted framework that may not always be appropriate; this is a limitation for the audience and might also be for the artist himself.

Stephanie Bailey: How would you define interactive art?

Morgan Wong: It’s really about interaction between humans and how important it is to trigger the audience into thinking. Rafael Lozano- Hemmer is definitely one of the first artists to inspire me. The philosophy behind his work Standards and Double Standards is about human interaction in real life, a real phenomenon with an artistic representation.

Stephanie Bailey: You grew up in Hong Kong when it was a British colony. Did the mix of East and West there influence your work?

Morgan Wong: Yes. I was brought up in quite a traditional family, where my father emphasized a lot of Chinese traditions. I feel very glad I was brought up this way, instead of receiving a very monotonous flow of information. I think this crash of cultures helped build my critical point of view, since I have always needed to think about who is really “right,” who is really “wrong,” and whether a point of view truly reflects a situation objectively.

80 Vol.10 No.3 Stephanie Bailey: Do you feel part of an “in between” generation?

Morgan Wong: Yes. I think these ideas of “Western”–“Chinese” are sometimes a hidden agenda in my work since the world is becoming more “flattened,” and the differences between the life of an American, Chinese, European, or whoever else, are much less than before. The loss of cultural characteristics is almost impossible to avoid these days. A work like Alliance, about Chinese characters, actually has a similar hidden agenda about communication among people to my latest video, Untitled; they are both in a way preserving Chinese culture.

Stephanie Bailey: There seems to be less importance placed on the cultural past in Hong Kong and mainland China these days.

Top: Morgan Wong, Morgan Wong: Yes. There is not so much importance placed on the past, Demolishing Rumour, 2010, video installation, bricks, which is expressed in my work Once you were Here (2009). There is not so concrete, TV, DVD player. Courtesy of the artist. much interest in old buildings, referred to in Demolishing Rumour (2010),

Bottom: Morgan Wong, shown at the Tate. There is not so much interest in old people, which A Demolishing Rumour, 2010, video, 21 mins., 3 sec. Story of an Eel Chef (2010) and Untitled (2010) touch on. One motive Courtesy of the artist. behind Demolishing Rumour was the demolishment of heritage in Hong Kong and mainland China, especially in Beijing. But actually this is a global issue, so it’s good to use the work to reflect on ways of thinking and on values in the world. I’m not really demolishing the past—I’m demolishing the “rumour” of the past’s demolishment. This is a pessimistic way of acting, but I hope the fulfilment of the rumour can stop the real situation from happening.

Vol.10 No.3 81 Stephanie Bailey: As Alliance demonstrates, developments are often Morgan Wong, Once You Were Here (detail), interactive random yet retain an element of natural or inherent logic. So even though installation, charred wood, concrete, speakers, computer China is becoming increasingly flattened or Western, this is also a natural with motion sensor, 200 x 200 x 200 cm. Courtesy of the development in the context of a contemporary “globalized” world. Does this artist. relate to your interest in the “middle distance” as defined by George Trow, where individual experience is disconnected from collective mentality as a result of television and media?

Morgan Wong: I enjoy playing around the “middle distance,” as it gives me a lot of room to reflect. Mainland China is definitely a middle distance; even inside China there is a middle distance. I once heard an art professional in Beijing say that contemporary art is actually very Western: It hijacked the Chinese art world, and all of a sudden people are trying to adapt. The West provided the model for contemporary art in China during the 1980s, but now a lot of techniques have been learned and artists have received a lot international exposure. Now it’s time to be confident, unfold our own ideas, and investigate our culture.

Stephanie Bailey: The discourse in mainland China between “traditional” and “contemporary” is interesting because this rejection of “Western- linked” work from the 1980s and 90s somehow limits artistic discourse. Contemporary art is a universal visual language in that it attempts to dissect contemporary culture using influences that are not singularly nationalistic.

Morgan Wong: Yes, in this sense visual art is a universal language, but once contemporary art was “imported” to mainland China, Chinese artists implemented it as an “authority.” There is a huge gap between traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy and the Chinese contemporary art world. This is also a case of the middle distance.

82 Vol.10 No.3 Stephanie Bailey: Is there a sense that Hong Kong and mainland China are “in between” political, social, and cultural states right now?

Morgan Wong: Yes, but the funny thing is they are going in the opposite directions. Since after the Handover, Hong Kong is changing to be more like the previous China, not the upcoming one. As for the mainland, I can’t say China is undergoing Westernization, but it’s adopting more Western ways and thus losing its own character. This goes back to what I said about becoming a flattened world. But this state of “in-between” is always interesting. More critical points of view will be voiced since we are always thinking about what is “right” and what is “wrong.”

Lee Kit—Art and Life

For Lee Kit, art is a lifestyle, not an occupation. A graduate of the Chinese University with a B.A. and an M.A. in Fine Art, he was one of the first artists who set up studio in Fotan. In the same year that Lam Tung Pang took part in 318 Studio Opening Show, he hosted his first solo exhibition at Chinese University Professor Lui Chun Kwong’s studio nearby. An artist with an unending interest in daily life and what it means on both an individual and collective scale, Lee Kit exposes the constructed nature of reality within the larger context of society through the creation of situations within exhibition spaces using painting, drawing, video, and installation in a way that de-stabilizes the relationship between what is real and what is not. From painting un-stretched canvases to resemble tablecloths and using them in communal performances and documenting them photographically to creating sugar packets with song lyrics printed on them and placing them in a café, Lee Kit recontextualizes the everyday to reveal deeper meanings that lurk beneath oft-contrived surfaces. Preferring the audience to interpret his work from a personal standpoint, just as he has interpreted the world around him, Lee Kit invites viewers to partake in a kind of performance where the freedom to redefine life is more important than anything else.

Stephanie Bailey: Was it a difficult decision to become an artist?

Lee Kit: I knew how to make money from a young age, so my mum said I could study whatever I wanted in life. I probably made everything happen because of my working practices.

Stephanie Bailey: How did you start the idea of your fabric paintings?

Lee Kit: In 2001, when I was a student, I opened the closest, saw one of my shirts, and painted it. I was painting on a table and was too lazy to stretch the paintings afterwards, so I folded them and put them away. At that time I was thinking about the form of painting. One day I went for my first picnic with friends. I brought along a few paintings as tablecloths and my camera, which I normally wouldn’t do. From then on, I started to constantly find uses for the paintings, like when I ate with my parents. It took so long to paint them that I thought I might as well use them. It was like finding a solution to what art is.

Vol.10 No.3 83 Stephanie Bailey: Someone Singing and Calling Your Name at Osage Soho was a turning point in your artistic practice that investigates the constructed nature of reality. How so?

Lee Kit: The whole show had a few components—the videos, the paintings—and the inclination was is to put all of these different pieces together. I wanted to do a show about karaoke because I had a lot of heartbroken friends who would get drunk, cry, sing karaoke, and hold each other. I looked at karaoke videos on YouTube and found it was generally like this—so I started making my own pseudo-karaoke videos with lyrics purposefully repeated to reveal social issues. I have done this before with pillows that were printed with song lyrics taken out of context.

Stephanie Bailey: The show included some of your first cardboard paintings featuring brand names like Nivea. Does karaoke relate to branding?

Lee Kit: Of course. Personally I am very addicted Lee Kit, Nivea (Cream), 2010, acrylic, enamel paint, and these kind of products. I was even as a child. tape on cardboard, 59 x 77 cm. Photo: Lee Kit. Courtesy I would feel them, touch them, look at them; of the artist and Osage Soho, New York. then the names would come into my mind and keep appearing, becoming more like people than products. You can’t escape branding. But I don’t want to just criticize; there’s no point complaining. Everything is branded. Branding is how karaoke functions; when you sing the song it actually cleans your mind, and in the end you have only one song in your head. With respect to my friends, when they sing karaoke, it’s a sentimental, emotional moment—but the reaction is the same. Critically speaking, I would say everything is readymade.

Stephanie Bailey: Everything—from product packaging to a karaoke parlour to the way we react to the way we live—is readymade?

Lee Kit, Sing any of them or all of them, 2009, video, TV monitors, karaoke system. Photo: Max Choi. Courtesy of the artist and Osage Soho, New York.

84 Vol.10 No.3 Lee Kit: Yes. Even a song is a readymade. People have their favourite songs like they have favourite brands. Like popular Western songs—Chinese people listen to them, but they aren’t in . I think: I’m in Hong Kong, why do I hear all of these songs? I randomly hear the Beatles all the time. I listen to Joy Division, and I don’t know why.

Lee Kit, Fragment (Love Songs), 2009, video, karaoke system, 7 mins., 55 secs. Photo: Max Choi. Courtesy of the artist and Osage Soho, New York.

Stephanie Bailey: Does it have to do with Hong Kong being a colony?

Lee Kit: It definitely has something to do with that, but when I started travelling outside of Hong Kong in my twenties, I understood it was like this everywhere. People don’t understand English, but they play English songs. But it’s probably the same as my friends listening to Japanese pop songs when we were younger.

Lee Kit, Smith & Nephew, Stephanie Bailey: And do your 2010, acrylic, emulsion paint, inkjet ink, and tape on cardboard paintings isolate brands cardboard, 76 x 100 cm. Photo: Lee Kit. Courtesy of the artist like you isolate lyrics to comment and Osage Soho, New York. on our relationships with them?

Lee Kit: The paintings are totally intuitive—just brand logos, but not critical at all. Technically, image transfer creates this fleeting effect, like the brands are fading, like they are a personal memory. It’s related to some emotion like hysteria or something in between happiness and sadness.

Stephanie Bailey: You once said Someone Singing and Calling Your Name wasn’t so much about Hong Kong as it is about cities in general.

Vol.10 No.3 85 Lee Kit: It’s about city life, but not only in Hong Kong. We are all globalized. It’s on two different levels: a particular city context and the question of why every city is becoming the same. It’s not about capitalism anymore. Globalization is just a massive number of companies controlling the world. But why can’t people respond? I wonder why there aren’t more alternatives, like not talking about art in the art scene—or talking about something more serious in a casual way, like politics, instead of singing karaoke in a bar. The main problem I think is how the system has brainwashed people.

Stephanie Bailey: And how that system is manifested in every aspect of daily life?

Lee Kit: Yes, and we are products too. I think this is a time to enhance individual practice, to change something within our daily lives.

Stephanie Bailey: You said being an artist in Hong Kong is a political act in itself, that how you live your life antagonizes the frantic pace and emphasis on efficiency in Hong Kong.

Lee Kit: I constructed my life through art, but I don’t think I can influence lots of people to be more concerned about political and social issues. But through some communication and participation, it’s possible. Before, I wasn’t political, and now I am. A political gesture in Hong Kong is to say that you want or don’t want something. In terms of life-style it is political, but not in terms of discussion. It’s very mild. Now I question whether my generation has been brainwashed, and I ask why. Even political issues have been “brainwashed.”.

Stephanie Bailey: How do you feel about the HK Art fair?

Lee Kit: I’m optimistic. Though the auction market and no taxes is the focus, it’s an opportunity to meet people and introduce something more. Relative to the number of artists in the city, we have all shown a lot. We should use the fair to promote younger artists, not for more opportunities, but for more experience in talking with people . . .

Stephanie Bailey: . . . and interacting with the market?

Lee Kit: It is always good to work outside of the system, but when it wants you, you can be part of it. Then you can leave again. That’s how to make the art scene sustainable from a practical perspective.

Stephanie Bailey: Is there such a thing as a Hong Kong identity?

Lee Kit: Hong Kong identity is a super-stupid notion. Historically, we know Hong Kong is a city with no personality. What can its identity be? An identity is an ongoing term. Hong Kong is all about individuals who create something—otherwise it’s nothing.

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