GBA4 | GBAFOCUS Friday, June 5, 2020 HONG KONG EDITION | CHINA DAILY Art the HKbox art galleries are open for Out of business again. Tai Kwun Contemporary is back with two new art exhibitions — including one on the timely theme of confinement. Chitralekha Basu reports. Ho Tzu Nyen’s Earth is a spectacular video installation, paying homage to a range of Jun Nguyen Hatsushiba’s video offers a surreal take classical European Renaissance paintings. Now on show at Tai Kwun Contemporary. on the plight of the Vietnamese boat people. ittingly, one of the two exhibitions as photo display boxes. of St James’ e ective and awkward. launched to mark the reopening of The steel cages contain a set of Settlement, a There are more pieces in the show Tai Kwun Contemporary on May 25 four photographs taken by Thai art- charity that helps underscoring the complicated, potential- explores the idea of being boxed in. ist Pratchaya Phinthong. At first rehabilitate people ly-unsettling nature of cultural encoun- FMuch of humanity has experienced the feeling glance the images could be mis- with special needs ters. Ming Wong’s three-channel video, of being sequestered in their own unique ways taken for glimpses of the sky, taken — wove the other one In Love for the Mood, tweaks a scene in the last few months, since the outbreak from inside a cave or dormant vol- using yarns dyed in the from Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s of the novel coronavirus. My Body Holds Its cano. They are in fact chunks of mete- most vivid shades of blue, classic fi lm, In the Mood for Love. The Shape, featuring new works taking o from orites, refl ecting the sky on their shiny yellow, red and brown, artic- Chinese actors in the original version the theme of incarceration, is thus likely to surface — a fi ne example of the life-a rming ulating the feelings that often are replaced by a Caucasian actress who resonate widely, if not universally. elements that often lie hidden where they are remain locked up inside people plays both the male and female leads, The show is set in F Hall of JC Contemporary least expected. on the autism spectrum. visibly ill-at-ease with playacting and building in Tai Kwun — a prison complex that Arguably the most striking piece in the show struggling with her Cantonese. Eisa Jocson’s was decommissioned in 2006 and has since is Phinthong’s sculpture, Fork. It’s a slab of Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s single-chan- performance Odds and ends been adapted into a cultural space and opened lead made with the remains of unexploded The second exhibition at Tai nel video captures enchanting footage of piece Manila Zoo to the public two years ago. F Hall used to be a ordnance retrieved from the farmlands in Laos. investigates the Kwun this season features Vietnamese men pulling rickshaws on a printing facility, and later, a female ward of the Polished and shining like a mirror on one side commonalities old and new works by eigh- sun-lit sea bed, surfacing above the water prison. Curated by Xue Tan, My Body Holds Its and left rough and hewn on the other, the piece between human teen artists contributed by from time to time to fi ll their lungs with Shape re-imagines the site in which it is located is mounted vertically. It’s roughly the same and animal the National Museum of water, alluding to the plight of the dis- — a sprawling 2,100-square feet white cube art height as a human being’s, standing like a mute behavior at a Art, Osaka and Singapore placed boat people of that country. In Ho gallery — as both limiting and liberating, or witness, as it were, to the heavy US-bombing time when more Art Museum. The show, called Tzu Nyen’s video Earth, the camera pans rather, tries to fi nd the spirit of freedom embed- during the Vietnam War (1955—1975). people are staying They Do Not Understand Each across an enormous cast of characters, ded in a space that was created to confi ne and Hong Kong artist Tap Chan’s contribution to indoors than out. Other, experiments with putting dis- as if to capture and illuminate details of control prisoners. the show is so understated it might be easy to parate elements in the same space and a painting resembling a scene set in a A part of the wall at one end of the hall has miss. Titled Speed of Night, Chan’s piece com- looks for meanings in the interstices. theater by turns. The composition and been dramatically removed and replaced with prises white poles with hand-painted spiralling The show is named after a video manipulation of light and darkness is glass panels, fortifi ed by a steel frame, reveal- stripes inserted in the wall. While automated installation by Tsubasa Kato, in very Rembrandt. Inter-textual references ing a corridor with three windows, framing hair salon signage comes to mind, the spare which two men from Japan and abound, with a nod to Theodore Geri- the scenery outside like a set of paintings. The look of the poles, near-invisible against the Korea who are strangers to each cault’s The Raft of the Medusa and Cara- piece, playfully titled pullherawaypull, is by walls, and their ponderously slow turning make other meet in Tsushima Islands, vaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas Thea Djordjadze, a Berlin-based Georgian art- the installation something of an antithesis of equidistant from both Korea and among several others. ist. Her other contributions to the show include the often loud and garish graphics generated the Japanese mainland. They do My favorite from the show is Wit an equally quirky set of three sleek angular by their salon counterparts. not speak a word of each other’s Pimkanchanapong’s Not Quite A Total metallic sculptures vaguely resembling two Berlin-based American artist Jason Dodge language, but manage to plant a Eclipse — a towering metallic sculpture benches and a foldable table but keep chang- has created an installation comprising two signpost together. Having failed with a single light bulb inside. Hun- ing shape, and purpose, depending on the companion pieces that might look like stacked to communicate verbally, one of dreds of motorized rotating blades cast observer’s point of view. up woven fabric, bound in strings. The total them climbs on the other’s shoul- steadily-morphing shadows on the wall, Also by Djordjadze is a set of two tall and length of jute fi ber thread that went into mak- Curator Xue Tan designed ders to hammer the staff into turning the room in which the piece is narrow steel vitrines, propped up against the ing each of these “equals the distance from the My Body Holds Its Shape the ground. It’s a telling image installed into a giant kaleidoscope. A bit wall. While their cage-like appearance serves earth to above the weather.” Tan Zhixiang, from around the theme of lim- of bonding across languages, like a totem pole for the modern age, its as a throwback to the idea of imprisonment Liuyang, China chose to weave one of the two its, hoping to inspire nationalities and cultures. The rhythms come across as highly mysteri- greater empathy that F Hall has been witness to, back in the pieces in black, whereas participants from Hong connection thus made is both ous, spurring one’s curiosity as to if the in viewers. day, for this show they have been re-purposed Kong’s St James’ Creation — the creative wing constantly turning blades can ever align to create a total eclipse or light up the room without a shadow. Contact the writer at [email protected] IF YOU GO My Body Holds Its Shape Curated by Xue Tan Date: Until September 2020 Members of Hong Pratchaya Phinthong’s They Do Not Understand Each Other Kong’s St James’ Fork is made from Curated by Yuka Uematsu and June Creation used yarns unexploded ordnance Yap Ming Wong’s video installation tweaks a in vivid colors to from the Vietnam War Date: Until Sept 13, 2020 scene from Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood Wit Pinkanchanapong’s towering metallic weave a part of Jason found in the fields of Laos. Venue: JC Contemporary Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts for Love by having a Caucasian actress sculpture is both mysterious and alluring, Dodge’s installation PHOTOS PROVIDED TO 10, Hollywood Road Central replace the Chinese romantic pair. like a modern-day totem pole. piece. CHINA DAILY www.taikwun.hk Exhibition Stirring a fi ne brew By REBECCA LO Standing Tea Bar gained him people. Most of the visitors in China and spread to Japan to coronavirus-related restric- international recognition, was live in the area and this show during the Tang Dynasty,” Lee tions, they had to be cancelled,” Tea has been synonymous a natural choice for TWT. caters to them. It was intended says. “We sourced many tea says Lee, regretfully. with Chinese culture since “I worked with Amy on oth- to be easy to understand. We wares from Japan and Taiwan, Besides his artist friends, ancient times. Yet it has never er HKDC shows,” Lee recalls. observed that many visitors and they show how tea became Lee approached a number of been the chic beverage that “Being a communications and like to gather around the Herb- part of those respective cul- Design for Asia Award winners inspires Instagram snaps the graphic designer, she under- al Pavilion to chat.” tures through packaging and to contribute to the show.