01
2005
02 03 「INK CITY」
INK CITY is a thematic group exhibition presenting works by artists who have an inclination towards ink art and articulate a social voice on the notion of living together in a contemporary urban environment. However broadly or narrowly defined, ink art draws upon the practices and concepts of traditional ink painting and, in a contemporary context, reflects on the development of new techniques and forms of personal expression that incorporate an ink aesthetic.
Through a selection of paintings, calligraphy, artists books, installations, and video works spanning over fifty years, the exhibited works collectively showcase ink art s dynamic interpretation as well as the social narratives of an age marked by intense transformation. Rooted in Hong Kong and extending across the Chinese world, the works confront the city s turbulent political transitions, from the twilight of the colonial era through to today s political and social challenges; other works address universal themes of gender, identity, desire, and fantasy, which unite the hugely divergent experiences of the new Chinese diaspora. Above all, the exhibition celebrates the vision of artists from different generations and of diverse backgrounds who are united by a passionate exploration of the transformative power of art to shape ideas and drive social awareness.
INK CITY adopts its English title from the exhibited video work by the late artist Chen Shaoxiong. While Ink City is a video of a day- long journey composed of hundreds of ink wash observations that collectively convey a frenetic and fleeting transformation of the urban experience in China, the eponymous exhibition opts for its fragmentary approach in juxtaposing diverse artistic styles of ink art and visions which together form a shared narrative and sensibility. What unites the artists are the ways in which they are inspired by immediate encounters with contemporary life. This they engage with keen observations and eloquent commentaries, from the earnest to the whimsical, that are highly pertinent to the everyday.
Seeking references beyond the material and spiritual associations of ink art such as brushwork, the spiritual essence of a subject, or literati history INK CITY opts to focus on selected artists who tackle contemporary social issues more overtly through ink art. Indeed, while some very established contemporary artists choose to reference the continuity of the traditional ink medium, others have decidedly moved away from the confines of a visual tradition
02 03 Chan evolved to document the then-British colony and reflect honestly on issues of racial integration, migration, sexuality, urbanism, and fantasy. He is exceptional for his ability to imbue whimsical images with a sophisticated intellectual rigour as well as for his later confidence in artistic experimentation. These characteristics attest to the conceptual complexity of Hong Kong art, rapidly developing and balanced between the exuberance of form and the earnestness of concern.
The vitality of Hong Kong art has roots in the use of ink as the chosen medium for outspoken public and performance art. One example is the artist-as-activist Tsang Tsou-Choi, also better known as King of Kowloon, who spent a lifetime writing his family s genealogy on utility boxes, pillars, and other public surfaces in Luis Chan ｜ Untitled (The Indian and His Company) (1981) ｜ order to reclaim land that he was convinced had been stolen from ｜ Ink and colour on paper 69 x 135.5 cm his family by the British colonial authorities. In other cases, ink Courtesy of Luis Chan Trust serves as a conceptual tool for creating public interventions, as with Frog King Kwok, arguably the first performance artist in China transforming ink art into an artistic language that engages with who has incorporated ink painting in eccentric mixed-media, graffiti wider developments in the 20th and 21st centuries. In acknowledging ink installations, and performances in Hong Kong since 1967. His a contemporary legacy forged by the pioneers of the New Ink highly unconventional artistic practice, immersive and entertaining, Movement in Hong Kong including Lui Shou-kwan, Wucius Wong, also resonates on some level with the high energy and visual and Irene Chou, who developed new techniques from traditional profusion of life on the city s streets. ink art and championed personal expression rooted in its rich historic tradition INK CITY continues to expand on contemporary life and Hong Kong is an ideal focal point for the exhibition because it personal relationships at the intersection of ink art and society today. is synonymous with urbanism and offers multiple perspectives on urban life, complete with its attendant social challenges. No matter how heavy it rains, I still see Hong Kong through the While Frog King Kwok addresses the excessive waste of material gaps between raindrops. consumerism, the artists Sherry Fung Hoi Shan and Joey Leung – Lam Tung Pang, 2020 Ka Yin explore issues related to water scarcity and limited space through their colourful and meticulously rendered gongbi paintings. Hong Kong provides an ideal focal point through which to view In stark contrast, Chu Hing-Wah, a psychiatric nurse by training, the conceptual breadth of contemporary ink art in this exhibition. provides quiet yet powerful meditations on mental health and Comprised of hundreds of disparate islands and with its liminal feelings of isolation a sentiment paradoxically all too common in position between a continental landmass and an archipelagic sea, large cities. His self-taught approach refreshingly lacks the burdens Hong Kong serves as a node that is at once swept by a confluence of traditional training and reflects an unpretentious and honest of influence and one that seeks to master such tides. Its history, too, has been marked by more than a century of transitional moments, with its share of efflorescence and tumult. This multifaceted heritage makes for distinctive perspectives and practices with respect to the millennial tradition of ink art in China and to more recent developments.
This relevance of the city can be seen with Luis Chan, one of the beacons of the exhibition, whose extensive artistic range speaks Joey Leung Ka Yin ｜ The Listless Lion (2017) ｜ Ink, gouache, ball pen, acrylic and to the zeitgeist of modern Hong Kong. Beginning his career with coloured pencil on paper ｜ Diptych, each 36 x 104 cm watercolours of scenic vistas of the islands painted en plein air, Courtesy of the artist and Joseph Pang
04 05 experience of life. Lam Tung Pang, meanwhile, presents one of the most sensitive approaches to addressing the traumas of a city. His allegorical works Reforming Landscape (2019) and Image-Coated (2021) have an apparent bleakness that is nevertheless embraced by a hopeful yearning and a desire to reflect, heal, and re-emerge.
Given that a good number of works tackle concerns that are rooted in a dense urban environment, it is ironic that this exhibition was conceived during a time when the richness of in-person interactions has been completely upended by COVID-19. This uniquely isolating period has, however, resulted in new works that offer personal views of a pandemic reality since late 2019. Zhang Yanzi confined to an apartment in New York for over a year and unable to travel home created a long handscroll (a format well suited for painting in restricted spaces) entitled Painted Skin (2020), which chronicles masks and their connotations throughout history. Li Jin reflected on a tumultuous year of societal change, the shifting winds of political regimes, and the continuation of life in contrasting spheres of the private and the public. Contrary to many of Li Jin s jovial displays of the human condition, The Ups and Downs of the World (2020) takes Wilson Shieh ｜ Hong Kong Before 1997 & Hong Kong After 1997 (2017) ｜ on a more sober tone, with contrasting scenes of contemplation and Chinese ink and watercolour on paper ｜ Diptych, each 80 x 50 cm confrontation. Courtesy of the artist and Joseph Pang
Reimagining history and social narratives is a crucial means for contemporary art to foster conversations and spur momentum towards awareness and change, especially in addressing Hong Kong s unique history. While stylistically very different, the works by Howie Tsui and Frank Tang Kai Yiu allude to struggles and conflicts that are visualised in a conflation of the city s history and social commentary. Howie Tsui s dynamic algorithmic animation, Parallax Chambers (2018-ongoing), portrays the anarchic universe of a martial arts fantasy fiction as the ungoverned community of the historic Kowloon Walled City; the claustrophobic panic thus conjured hints at a visceral memory of the demolished site, with a sense of dissent right under the surface. In stylistic contrast, Frank Tang Kai Yiu quietly documents Hong Kong s layered histories in contention for nearly two centuries between competing forces from Great Britain, Japan, and China by diagramming the storied statues, landmarks, and symbols in the city s history, most notably the statue of Queen Victoria. Of all icons, Queen Victoria has been a popular symbol during Hong Kong s transitional moments and a target during periods of civil unrest. The statue of Queen Victoria,
Frank Tank Kai Yiu ｜ Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens (2020) ｜ along with other figures and buildings, frequently recurs in the Ink and colour on paper ｜ 94 x 73.5 cm highly allegorical works of Wilson Shieh. One of his best-known Courtesy of the artist series moreover reimagines buildings as human figures, with the
06 07 animations offering complex, multilayered narratives that obliquely question the manipulation of history and memory.
While the exhibition provides visual cues to the city s history and physical landscape, INK CITY also hints at deeper social dialogues about sexuality, femininity, and womanhood. Enamoured with the strong emotions often associated with the female nude across multiple painting traditions, Wei Dong paints explicit and raw scenes that depict almost grotesque nudes in discordant scenes, forcing the viewer to confront inherent contradictions. With a similarly provocative attitude, Evelyn Taocheng Wang creates intimate and highly personal vignettes that highlight the discomfort of being a Chinese woman in a foreign environment rife with noxious cultural and gender stereotypes. In a more earnest fashion, Tao Aimin dedicates her art practice to uncovering the truth and discomfort of womanhood by collecting the oral histories of a group of women in Hunan who share their most intimate stories through a secret, written language Nüshu. Yang Jiechang ｜ Please Take Your Umbrella (2006) ｜ Ink and colour on Korea paper, mounted on canvas ｜ 135 x 211 cm Courtesy of the artist and Chang Tsong-Zung The selection of works hardly scratches the surface in addressing the myriad issues that contribute to the identity of a place, let alone touch upon the layers of cultural influence. Cultural hybridity is a persistent motif in the exhibition, and few can match Walasse Ting in this regard. physical manifestations of economic wealth and dominance worn as Not easily categorised according to a specific medium or cultural costumes. In this way, Shieh refreshingly deconstructs Hong Kong s affiliation, Ting s iconic colourful and expressive paintings are distinct socioeconomic condition. informed by his Chinese cultural inheritance and by his connections to the avant-garde CoBrA group, Abstract Expressionists, and Bringing awareness to a city s current situation and past is often Pop Art. Over a prolific life in which he reconfigured the codes part of socially charged works, and can have universally applicable of Chinese painting with the spontaneity of action painting, Ting messages to the state of the individual in society. Such socio- also relentlessly pursued the unexpected and forged a respected political allegories, trenchant and sometimes disturbing, are practice that transcends cultural definition. apparent in the works of Paris-based Yang Jiechang and Beijing- based Sun Xun, which ruminate over official narratives and In the same way that a city is a cosmopolitan gathering space collective memory. Yang Jiechang s paintings employ metaphors of peoples that transcends diverse backgrounds and identities, about the demise of human progress where decapitated heads INK CITY imagines a cohort of ink art, with different modes refer to the devastating results of cultural upheaval and where of expression, firmly grounded in current social, political, and atomic explosions symbolise cataclysmic doom. The latter, the aesthetic concerns. By calling attention to this medium s potential provocative Tomorrow Cloudy Sky series, takes the visual message to engage with salient issues, INK CITY underlines the dynamism one step further with accompanying calligraphic text paintings of and breadth of what ink art can be today. dismal weather forecasts that provide an uncanny premonition to the seemingly innocuous statements of precaution. Coincidentally Katherine Don, Los Angeles & Tobias Berger, Hong Kong created in the same year, Sun Xun s earliest animation Shock of Spring 2021 Time (2006), which draws heavily on the socio-politically charged art of Marlene Dumas and William Kentridge, morphs citizens into tools of political propaganda. With direct references to layered stories and symbols of authority, the work established him as a thoughtful, even satirical, visual storyteller, with his use of ink video
08 09 Luis Chan
An important figure in modern Hong Kong art, Luis Chan is known for his fantastical urban visions unburdened by the history and conventions of classical Chinese painting. Born in Panama in 1905, he moved to Hong Kong as a child and began his professional career in a lawyer s chamber and at an advertising agency. After completing a home study art course, he explored watercolours and eclectic combinations of printmaking and action painting; he also cofounded the Hong Kong Artists Group and was active in both the Chinese and Western art communities. The observations documented in his oeuvre display the artist s lively artistic curiosity and openness and moreover offers a glimpse of an inner psyche of urban life in Hong Kong.
Created during the peak of Luis Chan s artistic production when he was already a veteran of the Hong Kong art scene the exhibited works highlight a shift in the artist s output, with a more unbridled response to current social issues and a confidence in experimentation. These works capture a refreshing zeitgeist of Hong Kong art and demonstrate the artist s masterful ability to absorb the everyday wonder in life with a sophisticated intellectual rigour.
Illegal Immigrants (1985) portrays the growing migrant and refugee population in Hong Kong. Beginning in the 1960s and ballooning in the 1980s and 1990s, there developed in this city of immigrants such politically charged terms as migrants , refugees , immigrants , and new arrivals that may refer to different ethnic groups, political asylum seekers, and socio-economic circumstances. Here, the tiered composition of dozens of people crowded onto a boat or forced to swim below with the fish introduces wonderfully cartoonish scenes of conflict and hierarchy that reveal the artist s genuine concern: a Hong Kong fisherman expressing surprise at the discovery of illegal immigrants on an outlying island; British and American politicians facing off and assigning blame; and Mainland Chinese swimming across the border into Hong Kong waters. Luis Chan thus captures a migratory cross-section of Hong Kong life
Illegal Immigrants (1985) ｜ Ink and colour on paper ｜ 136 x 69.5 cm Courtesy of Chang Tsong-Zung
10 11 with whimsy and acuity amid the historical backdrop of the Sino-British paintings characterised by fanciful landscapes and brilliant colours. Joint Declaration, which determined Hong Kong s return to China. Tapping into his subconscious, Chan created free associations from pre-existing marks and imagery. The work here displays the Aberdeen (1976) is a collage work that represents an equally artist s growing stylistic independence, bridging surrealism and the prolific creative period of Luis Chan. Drawing upon the practice tradition of Chinese ink painting with the insertion of figures and of painting en plein air, Chan embarks on a series of inspired objects of everyday life into a whimsical landscape. Such emotional cityscapes that capture Hong Kong landmarks with playful humour. and fantastical visions of urban life would become his signature In the 1960s he switched from realism towards a new abstraction, style and arguably also illustrated the conflict of cultures and an which coincided with a move from painting outdoors to creating unconscious reaction to the anxiety brought on by the turbulence works at home and in his studio, and also with a period of intense of change and of everyday life. experimentation in avant-garde styles that resulted in psychedelic
Untitled (The Secret Admirer) (1981) ｜ Ink and colour on paper ｜ 68.5 x 134.5 cm ｜ Courtesy of Luis Chan Trust
12 13 through a sequence of domestic scenes and everyday objects which together are not so much a didactic listing of objects but rather an amalgamated visual experience of daily life consumed by materialism and industrialisation. Chen s later ink animated series, Chen Shaoxiong while similar to Ink City in its message about a fragmented urban existence filled with sensory overload, boldly addresses historical depictions and journalistic scenes of China and the world in the 20th century, with the artist s biting observational critique.
Through scenes of everyday life stripped of excess detail, Chen s use of ink is a means to an end in creating a sense of immediacy Chen Shaoxiong s work explores collective memory, and in so and capturing a shared sense of urban life; the monochromatic doing tackles themes of urban expansion and social displacement, sketches are based on photographs by the artist or images set against the backdrop of rapid urbanisation and economic downloaded from the internet. In an interview with his friend, the transformation in China. Born in Shantou and graduating from the curator Pauline J. Yao, Chen shares a rationale for his mimetic printmaking department at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in reality: A photograph represents an opportunity, but does not 1984, Chen Shaoxiong cultivated a distinctive conceptual voice necessarily call up a memory. In the process of copying the images in his art, with a range of forms that include video, installation, by hand, even more opportunities come forth. The artist thus stays painting, performance, and collective action. He was also a founding true to his openness towards form and medium while seeking the member of the Big Tail Elephant Group, a collective of conceptual best ways to communicate collective memories and ideals in a life artists working in Guangzhou in the 1990s, and later participated in filled with dramatic urban and social changes. the Asian artist collectives Xijing Men and Project without Space. Selected video stills Ink City (2005), a video journey through a day composed of observational ink sketches, begins with the arrival at a modern airport and a blustery drive into a city flanked by buildings old and new, both under construction and towering dozens of stories above. The animation of fragmented images presents a cacophonous soundtrack of city scenes people in restaurants, on the subway, crossing crowded streets chronicling the frenetic experience in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The three-minute video ends abruptly with a drive down a brightly lit city highway after an evening of putting one s child to bed and going out for drinks and music with friends. Distilling a seemingly innocuous record of the urban experience through a skillful modelling of light and form in the rather unforgiving medium of ink and wash Ink City, when viewed completely, offers a fleeting feeling of frantic social change.
Ink Things (2007) is a continuation of Chen s animated video series, with hundreds of monochromatic ink drawings capturing mundane objects of daily life in an unanswered search for meaning in a consumerist society. The three-minute animated video is as visually captivating as it is musically mesmerising. Combined with a score by composer Zhu Fangqiong, the video flashes objects such as a clock, an air conditioning unit, clasped hands, and cooking utensils to pulse with the beat of instrumental percussion. Some moments slow down with ominous overtones to record, for instance, Ink City (2005) ｜ Duration: 03'00'' ｜ the passage of time through a shadow of a thumbtack; others race Courtesy of the artist's daughter and Pékin Fine Arts
14 15 Chu Hing-Wah
Chu Hing-Wah works mainly with ink and colour on paper, creating expressive paintings economical in depiction yet highly evocative and imaginative of an honest lived experience in Hong Kong. Born in Guangdong Province in 1935 and moving to Hong Kong in 1950, Chu travelled abroad to pursue a grant for psychiatric nursing training at Maudsley Hospital in London from 1960 to 1965. Returning to Hong Kong to serve by day as a nurse at the Castle Peak Hospital, Chu by night studied painting at the University of Hong Kong with Irene Chou and Martha Lesser. Chu draws inspiration from his observations as a mental health professional and the experiences of his patients, with his artworks exhibiting an intuitive sense of empathy for people s sense of social isolation and mental anguish.
In contrast to the noise experienced in the dense urban environment of Hong Kong, the quiet and stillness of Chu s paintings encourage viewers to pause and share a moment of being alive. People in the Garden (1987) is an early and evocative work that tenderly captures a quiet scene where six figures in a garden are as still and as calm as the tree above providing shade for them. The stark contrast between the verdant greenery and the brick and tile enclosure is warmed by human presence, just as people from all walks of life breathe a sense of life into a dense urban city.
What is particular about the figures is that Chu depicts both people from our everyday social world who share a common social language alongside patients observed throughout his professional life, who use different means to communicate. With direct gazes and serene expressions, his figures are indistinguishable and seem all at once impenetrable, vulnerable, complex and ultimately deserving of one s empathy and connection for we are all one and the same, on some deep human level. Chu s compassion for people and his deep respect for life are abundantly visible in his works, sharing the ultimate truth that our greatest blessing is to be alive. Sincere and
People in the Garden (1987) ｜ Ink and colour on paper ｜ 176 x 96 cm Courtesy of the artist and Private Collection
16 17 not overly sentimental in observing people in their environment, Chu is able to create a sense of nostalgia for the unique aspects of Hong Kong life.
To Live, We Have to Work (2017) is a composition wherein Chu incorporates text directly into his observational portraits and landscapes. Following his retirement from nursing in 1992, Chu has embarked on a life of leisure, with expressive observations of colourful scenes in Hong Kong as well as universal human experiences unmarked by a particular cultural context. Over the last two decades, however, Chu has expressed a greater concern for the social world, acknowledging an increasingly unsettled mind in the 2000s. He confesses that in an unstable, untranquil world, a universe beset with natural disasters, and the uncertain state of society have all weighed heavily on my mind; my feelings are often reflected in the moody quality of my paintings. To Live, We Have to Work is a sober rumination on life, amounting to a tenacious act of survival a commentary on surmounting constant deceit as well as the trials and tribulations of life in order to exist. A handful of characters performing mundane tasks are nestled between the words, sparsely envisioning the struggle of survival that Chu desires to express. In an uncharacteristic use of text with imagery, Chu s concept is powerfully captured in the unvarnished depiction of a common Hong Kong scene: an elderly grandma working tirelessly from dawn to dusk pushing a cart of cardboard alongside busy streets. While Chu continues to articulate states of human psychology by focusing on moments of alienation and isolation, one can see that his work increasingly settles into an implicit critique of modern urban existence from a place of deep compassion and unmitigated concern.
To Live, We Have to Work (2017) ｜ Ink and colour on paper ｜ 183.5 x 105 cm Courtesy of the artist
18 19 observed in its natural landscape, instinctively and contentedly bowing her head to drink from the pond. The artist s portrayal of human intervention and the inversion of nature is handled with vivacity and expressiveness, prompting the viewer to reflect on the Sherry Fung pressing concerns of water resources, as well as the destruction of animal habitats leading to many species being endangered or even Hoi Shan driven to extinction. The Beasts (2020) depicts the board of Jungle (Doushouqi, a Chinese board game), setting the stage for an intense struggle. With a fine brush and a rich colour palette, Sherry Fung Hoi Shan Superficially calm and peaceful, murderous intent lurks on all sides. directs attention to the scarcity of natural resources and fragility of From left to right, one sees a leopard, wolf, tiger, lion, rat, and dog, wilderness, with consequential implications. Born in 1993 and trained perched on their respective pieces some skulking, others peering, in traditional Chinese painting at the Chinese University of Hong some poised to pounce or snatch a bite, others looking greedy Kong, Fung applies a meticulous fine-line gongbi technique to depict and harbouring malign resolve. The animal figures exaggerated nostalgic and dreamlike scenes that allude to memories of Hong Kong appearances and postures, summoning motifs of traditional fables, over the last two decades. In her works, concrete jungles are where also reflect the influence of the Kan school in Japan, renowned dreams are made, while exotic beasts that take on all forms occupy for its screen painting. The setting of the game, meanwhile, harks centre stage. back to the artist s first realisation of the law of the jungle, and yet also hints at the ways in which the small and the weak can outwit Tête-bêche (2020) presents two related yet separated scenes: at the large and the powerful. Allegorically, this extends to the game the bottom, a sika deer pokes her head at a water fountain, without of life: if the rat can defeat the elephant, who is to say the common apparent success; at the top, viewed upside down, is another deer folk cannot steal a march on the powerful and thrive?
The Beasts (2020) ｜ The Beasts——Sacrifices (2020) Ink and colour on paper ｜ Set of three works, one piece 90 x 120 cm, two pieces 38.5 x 40 cm Courtesy of the artist and William Lim
20 21 Frog King Kwok
Best known for his eccentric mixed-media installations and performances involving graffiti-like ink interventions, Frog King Kwok is a pioneering conceptual and performance artist who has been breaking boundaries since the late 1960s. Originally trained in ink painting and calligraphy in the Hong Kong studio of seminal New Ink painting master Lui Shou-kwan, Kwok explored installation art, happenings (even coining a term of his own, haak ban lam ), and performance art in the 1970s before decamping to New York City for several years. There he encountered a vibrant scene which included Chinese-American painter Martin Wong, Taiwanese performance artist Tehching Hsieh, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, amongst other contemporary artists transcending cultural boundaries. Drawing on the amphibious nature of a frog as a metaphor for bridging cultures, he adopted and expanded his persona of Frog King , who frequents every public installation by the artist. Departing from the realist traditions of ink painting, further deconstructing its visual motifs, and incorporating a graffiti approach to public display, Kwok cultivated an immersive world encompassing wearable art, public interventions, and found-object installations.
As a gesture to his pioneering contribution to the possibilities for contemporary ink art in Hong Kong, for INK CITY, Frog King Kwok realises a new happening and site-specific installation as a physical transition for bridging ink painting with social practice. His physical presence as a performance is documented in the ephemera created as a part of the process of production; the process itself is an essential aesthetic of his work. As an immersive installation, Breathing, Living Being (2021) presents calligraphic graffiti with the disposable nature of takeaway foodware and disposable paper bags in order to address a materialist consumer culture in Hong Kong. While featuring his longstanding practice of using ink as a conceptual tool, this immersive work brings about a quirky and visceral resonance with the high energy and visual profusion of life on the streets of Hong Kong.
Breathing, Living Being (2021) ｜ Multimedia site-specific interactive installation Courtesy of the artist
22 23 Lam Tung Pang
Reforming Landscape (2019) ｜ Ink, charcoal, and acrylic on plywood ｜ Triptych, overall 180 x 300 cm Courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery
24 25 With works that often reflect on collective memory and fleeting nostalgia, Lam Tung Pang shares the experience of other Hong Kong artists whose coming of age in the 1990s coincided with a city in transition. The uncertainty and resulting tensions find allegorical expression in Lam s oeuvre, offering a window into personal moments that traverse time and distance, longing and loss. Influenced by traditional Chinese ink painting, Lam s imaginative practice spans painting, installation, sound, and video. While experimental in nature, his works often bear an intuitive sense of Chinese aesthetics and a harmonious balance of natural elements, juxtaposing traditional iconography, found objects, and images of the everyday.
His iconic landscapes on plywood reveal Lam s impressive technical training, which the artist harnesses to address both history and memory by painting poetic vistas with an unsettling yet optimistic otherness. Reforming Landscape (2019) shows a figure studiously using his hands to shape a table of mountainous forms surrounded by water clearly analogous to the islands of Hong Kong. Like a heavy hailstorm, the dark spots and black backdrop provide high contrast to his usual colourful and playful assemblage of images and objects. Here, Lam s painting presents a sombre yearning and quiet malaise, suggesting that an individual (or a city itself, perhaps) is suffering a monumental trauma. Yet, as alluded to in the work s title, the desire to reform provides an underlying sense of hope that might emerge with positive transformation.
Water and weather, as conduits for change, also serve as the protagonists in Image Coated (2021). Lam s multimedia installation integrates video projections on windows and walls with permanent ink marker drawings, sound, and performance. On 28 May 2020, shortly after the announcement of the drafting of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, Lam staged a performance at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, looking out onto the iconic vista of the Victoria Harbour and the reclaimed lands of the city s waterfront. Like many days in spring, it was raining. Using a black permanent marker, Lam recorded the drops of water that streaked the windows as the wind blew the rain sideways. The rain, a symbol of cleansing, erasure, and silencing, increasingly blurs the city from view as a metaphor for an uncertain future. Not without optimism, the artist states, No matter how heavy it rains, I still see Hong Kong through the gaps between raindrops.
Someone, a day - 521 (2019) ｜ Charcoal and ink on plywood, TV screen with looping video ｜ 103.5 x 90.5 cm Courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery
26 27 Leung s portrayal of the fantastical mixed in with social references is evident in The Listless Lion (2017), where the lion and the Lion Rock spirit serve as an allegory of Hong Kong. The silhouette of the Lion Rock is composed of female legs adorned with floral Joey Leung patterns; in the centre, a sick lion rests atop one of the bent knees or peaks . The flowing hair stretches into the harbour, while at one far end a hand holds a pair of copper scissors, about to cut the hair Ka Yin off. With breathtaking agility, the artist depicts an iconographical landscape while the inscription of the top left frames the vista with a melancholic allegory that hints at a deeper malaise for the city and its future. With her meticulous technique, Joey Leung Ka Yin is amongst a younger generation of artists in Hong Kong who infuse the traditional genre of gongbi painting with refreshing and sometimes ironic references from contemporary popular culture. By appropriating familiar cultural symbols in the exquisitely fine lines of the ink brush, the artist creates a visual language at once humorous and yet tinged with a sense of youthful rebellion. In many ways, her artistic practice reflects on the value of conventional iconography, torn between preservation and transformation, illusion and disillusion.
Reality speckled with touches of illusion is apparent in Leung s paintings. Dream Balcony (2016) centres on the artist s signature girlish figures with flowing straight dark hair, submerged in a misty tiled bath. From their nude bodies emerge mysterious mushroom balconies, inside of which perch miniature girls set against the backdrop of a rocky landscape. The toy-like fantasy, complemented with miniature trees set on the bath ledge, is abruptly ruptured by the pair of eyes peeping through the exhaust fan on the top right. The balconies, while fantastical, are in fact grounded in the social reality of Hong Kong s real estate; since a certain size of balconies are exempt from plot ratio regulations, developers exploit this loophole no matter how small the apartment, thus inflating the final listed size of the apartment. The photograph collaged on the top left gives the work its name: a photo of a Marilyn Monroe look-alike on the balcony turns out only to be a photo taken outside the Erotic Museum in Barcelona, Spain, restaging the classic scene of Monroe wearing a white dress in the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch as though constructing an illusion Dream Balcony (2016) ｜ Acrylic, gouache, ink, ball pen, coloured pencil on paper within another illusion. and colour photo ｜ Triptych, Left: 105 x 36 cm, Middle and Right: 105 x 50 cm Courtesy of the artist and Grotto Fine Art
28 29 figure lost in the rocks below. The lonely scene contrasts with a group of eight characters huddled around a standoff between two bearded men, where, as is often the case, Li Jin himself appears as the protagonist. The artist subsequently portrays himself as Li Jin a cross dresser, a partner, a lithe dancer, a cloaked scholar, a dignified statesman, and possibly a nameless caretaker. Like the early scenes, the end of the narrative offers the consolation of a quiet landscape.
Widely recognised for his diaristic ink paintings, Li Jin is The accompanying inscriptions are particularly revealing, as Li Jin internationally acclaimed as one of the leading artists of his offers poetic texts from acclaimed aesthete, essayist, and historian generation. While Li Jin s works often display the human condition Zhang Dai (1597–1684), from rustic naturalist poet and recluse Tao as jovial, The Ups and Downs of the World (2020) takes on a sombre Yuanming (365–427), as well as from Buddhist chants. The blend of tone, with contrasting scenes of contemplation and confrontation scenes and texts offers an entry point to consider how each figure reflecting a tumultuous year the social turmoil during a global may or may not be connected, and may or may not be experiencing pandemic, shifting winds of political regimes, and fluctuating the same truth. The poignant observations provide respite, and the private and public spheres. The narrative unfolds with a muted seemingly effortless compositions compellingly transcend cultural pastel depiction of the Amitabha Buddha calmly overlooking an barriers to offer a shared experience of the human condition. isolated house perched precariously atop a cliff and a scholarly
Detail
The Ups and Downs of the World (2020) ｜ Ink and colour on paper ｜ 35 x 408 cm Courtesy of the artist
30 31 Shown in Hong Kong for the first time, A New Take on Scholars nostalgia and longing in the middle of the scroll, Li Jin wonders: Collating Classic Texts I (2009) is one of two long, colourful and How can people today possibly know the thoughts of the ancients? playful handscrolls in which Li Jin reinterprets an early painting, Mistakenly, they replace the old times with the new. Consistent with Scholars Collating Classic Texts (Northern Song dynasty, c. 11th Li Jin s iconic visual language, his response lies not in stating but century), in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Li in questioning, satirising, and exploring his own lived experience Jin s thoughtful response to the classic expands upon its details and cultural influences. In the various scenes where Li Jin himself and exaggerates its social dynamics with his own contemporary appears, he is often a caricature of himself poking fun at interpretation. The original work is a rare visual and historical indulgence, settling into serious discussion, or having a wild fantasy. record of the thriving cultural interactions between Han people The artist thus invites viewers to experience first hand the honest and minority ethnic groups during the short-lived Northern Qi and direct ways in which he sees the world including myriad period (550-577 CE). In his contemporary interpretation, Li Jin influences from the classical past and his interests in scholarly depicts colourful scenes of friends and scholars, including the explorations, which are seamlessly merged with the present and his artist himself, cavorting, drinking, snacking, listening to music, global encounters during travels abroad offering an unvarnished reading and writing, along with moments of active debate, solemn reflection of his own biography, interests, and imagination. Li Jin meditation, and even playful fantasies. continues his ruminations with a self-effacing statement, that while he was in Boston in spring 2008 in order to pursue a sense of The inscriptions peppered throughout the scroll are written both by antiquity...it was in vain. Li Jin excels at imagining and chronicling Li Jin and his respected peers; they provide context for the artist s a global contemporary moment, with endless potential in conveying ruminations on the past in relation to the present. In one scene of a shared human condition.
Detail
A New Take on Scholars Collating Classic Texts I (2009) Ink and colour on paper ｜ 49 × 1240 cm Courtesy of the artist
32 33 CURATORS EDUCATION AND PUBLIC PROGRAMMING TEAM Katherine Don, Tobias Berger Veronica Wang Tobias Berger Education and Public Programmes Curator Head of Art Louiza Ho Associate Curator for Education and EXHIBITION TEAM Public Programmes David Chan Joey Wong Assistant Curator for Education and Exhibition Manager Public Programmes Jill Angel Chun Daniel Szehin Ho Assistant Curator Editor and Project Manager Jessie Mak Ingrid Pui Yee Chu Senior Registrar and Operations Manager Associate Curator for Artist Book Library and Pauline Chao Public Programmes Assistant Registrar OTHER TAI KWUN CONTEMPORARY STAFF TECHNICIAN TEAM Xue Tan Mark Chung Curator and Exhibition Manager Lead Technician Erin Li Hill Li Assistant Curator Assistant Lead Technician Kong Chun Hei, Elvis Yip Kin Bon, EXHIBITION SUPPORT Cheung Tsz Hin, Li San Kit, Lonely Lau BEAU Siu Chung, Luk Chun. Wang, Herman Exhibition Architect Lau, Tom Chung Man, Chan Man Chun, Chan Eddy Wing Leung, Lok Man Chung Excel Trade Limited Technicians Exhibition Builder Fung Tsun Yin Jasper, Ho Tsz Yeung Fingerprint Audio-Visual Support Vinyl and Text Panel
GALLERY AND DOCENT TEAM EXHIBITION GRAPHIC DESIGN AND BOOKLET Jasmine Cheung Art Education Associate and Gallery Supervisor Katherine Don, Daniel Szehin Ho, Kobe Ko Jill Angel Chun Art Education and Gallery Coordinator Text
Kylie Tung Daniel Szehin Ho, David Chan, Gallery Operation Coordinator Ingrid Chu, Jill Angel Chun Editing and Copy-editing The entire docent team Cheong Ming, A. Fung, Joy Zhu Translation
Cacar Lee Graphic Design
Colham Printing Company Ltd. Printer
34 35 35Howie Tsui ｜ Retainers of Anarchy (2018) ｜ Inkjet print on rice paper ｜ 48 x 378 cm ｜ 34 Courtesy of the artist Wilson Shieh
With a penchant for surrealist depictions of Hong Kong s architectural and cultural icons, Wilson Shieh is one of the city s best recognised contemporary artists. In the carefully drawn style of gongbi paintings, Shieh s inventive figures whether in the form of the city s iconic skyscrapers or Ming porcelain vases confront his hometown s numerous political challenges as well as its shifting cultural and historical identity.
Wilson Shieh has always been an ardent proponent of using art to lure audiences into clever allegories of Hong Kong s political history and current events. A prime example of this focus is Go Save the Queen (2007), which features a stoic Queen Victoria on her throne while her husband, Prince Albert, carries a banner proclaiming a call to action, in a pun on the British national anthem God Save the Queen . Three rows of schoolgirls dressed in uniform stand obediently in a formation that recalls that of Qing Dynasty soldiers. Each row of girls holds weapons, evoking the passage of time from Hong Kong s dynastic past through to its colonial period and into its modern era.
The protagonist of the painting, Hong Kong s most prominent statue of Queen Victoria, was erected in Central more than 120 years ago. Since then, the statue has borne witness to the dramatic winds of political change from British colonisation to the Japanese occupation and then the handover to Mainland China and is thus viewed by the artist as a meaningful icon of the city's heritage.
Not only does Go Save the Queen address the city s history of cultural and political upheaval, it also upends traditional gender roles, winking at the vital role of women in the modern city's economic development. Shieh illustrates an army composed strictly of women, standing as royal guards, a role traditionally reserved for men. With this unusual combination of innocent schoolgirls and violent weapons, the artist recognises the physical strength of women, far from their stereotypes as soft-spoken and fragile. In doing so, Wilson Shieh boldly debunks outdated associations and advocates for a more accurate representation of current gender roles. Go Save the Queen (2007) ｜ Ink and gouache on silk ｜ 96 x 70 cm Courtesy of the artist and Private Collection
37 36 As the artist articulated in 2007: surface of the painting seems very calm, but it's the moment after a brutal killing. It's bringing together innocence and evil, peace and These are elements that are often present in my art: a kind of violence. When I use a female character to symbolise something contradiction and conflict. For example, students are supposed to that's traditionally represented by men, I am overturning a tradition, be very innocent, but in my art they are holding weapons. When creating a surreal feeling, even an absurdity, in the image. I put the two together, a feeling of contradiction is created. The Wilson Shieh, 2007
Flying Boys (2013) ｜ Ink and gouache on silk ｜ 43 x 42 cm Dividing Boys (2013) ｜ Ink and gouache on silk ｜ 43 x 42 cm Hanging Boys (2013) ｜ Ink and gouache on silk ｜ 43 x 42 cm Bridging Boys (2013) ｜ Ink and gouache on silk ｜ 43 x 42 cm Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist
39 38 Shock of Time (2006) is one of Sun s earliest video animations, one that represented a formative moment for him in establishing his artistic practice as a visual storyteller. This widely exhibited work situates him at a confluence of fresh approaches: ink painting Sun Xun as video art, his voice with regards to social and political change in 21st century China, and his deep personal concern about the manipulation of media, official narratives, and collective memory.
Alluding to the title, the video work begins with the phrase History is a lie of time , a phrase that concisely establishes Sun s personal belief that history and myth are not mutually exclusive but Known for his large-scale mural work and stop-motion animation fundamentally intertwined principles of reality. Hundreds of ink videos created from thousands of ink paintings and woodcuts, drawings on decades-old Chinese newspaper and magazine Sun Xun is one of China s most dynamic artists. Apart from their pages rich in political metaphors flash on throughout the work, evocative titles, his works often contain little dialogue and rely on with historical images of cement mixers, loudspeakers, and Mao the sounds and images of dystopian worlds to question what is suit uniforms referring to symbols associated with the Cultural perceived as truth and to explore the slippery dynamics of memory, Revolution. The vast array of images is all up for interpretation. history, culture, and politics. One temporal reality is manifested: a faceless top-hatted man with a cane and cape appears and disappears like a magician, while a A graduate from the printmaking department of the China Academy clock, gears, and a pendulum signify the passage of time. Soon a of Art in Hangzhou, Sun Xun incorporated his interest in film and headless man breaks through a wall with a sledgehammer, while video and other contemporary forms into his formal practice spilled ink morphs into a map of China, and loudspeakers further by establishing Animation Studio in 2006. Drawing upon the gush to a rapid crescendo with the phrase mythos expels truth . printmaking and painting fundamentals of Dürer and van Dyck, Sun Immersed in the country s century of tumult and rapid social took in influences from new media art in China as well as from the transformations, Sun s videos illustrate art as an evocative tool of social tenor of William Kentridge s animated drawings on the one communication with subtle yet decidedly political overtones. hand and the gestural paintings of Marlene Dumas on the other both widely celebrated South African artists dealing with themes of the intolerance and racism associated with Apartheid.
Selected video stills
Shock of Time (2006) ｜ Video 5' 29'' Courtesy of the artist
41 40 the city s handover, when the young activist-artist Pan Xinglei defaced the statue with red paint and broke its nose, protesting against dull, colonial culture . With Victoria Park as the key site of many of the city s demonstrations from the riots in the 1960s to the June 4th vigil to the more recent protests the sculpture Frank Tang has witnessed the turmoil of history. Together with other icons of Hong Kong including the (Victoria) Peak, Queen s College, Tin Hau Kai Yiu Temple, and the city s reclaimed coastline Tang s map outlines the major events that mark a tumultuous century of change and social tension in the city.
The act of mapping, diagramming, and deconstructing collective symbols is a recurring source of exploration for Frank Tang Kai Yiu. The artist is recognised for his Pocket Park series of colourful ink paintings that document the small verdant spaces tucked away in Hong Kong. While these meticulous renderings of natural elements such as tree foliage and landscapes demonstrate his technical mastery of the ink medium, it is the interplay of disparate subject matter that dominates the work, highlighting the intersection of humans and nature in the urban environment.
In a debut series of paintings exploring monuments, Tang furthers his scrutiny of the city s urban landscape along with the fascinating history of the statues and memorials that checker Hong Kong, thus carefully charting and uncovering the city s layered past. While invisible to the casual visitor today, the monuments and location are imbued with a turbulent history. In one work, the artist maps the central square of Hong Kong s Zoological and Botanical Gardens. As a site of British authority and collecting, the gardens hold the rich botanical resources of the region, and indeed reflect the expansive exploratory and colonising impulse of the 19th century. The gardens also house a prominent bronze statue of King George VI, which sits on the precise location of a former monument to the Hong Kong governor Arthur Edward Kennedy; the latter monument, however, was destroyed during the Japanese occupation. Below the statue appear the two iconic lions of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, which were shipped to Japan to be melted down into munitions but were somehow spared and returned after the war. Here, Tang observes that while such bronze monuments seem durable, ultimately what endures are the trees and the natural environment, bearing witness to the city s transitions.
Victoria Park (2021) documents the controversial displacement of one of Hong Kong s most iconic monuments, originally unveiled in Statue Square in 1896 on the occasion of Queen Victoria s birthday and Jubilee. Like the lions, the statue was taken from the city but was spared from being melted down in Japan. Damaged on its return to Hong Kong in 1952, it was repaired and then relocated to Victoria Park (2021) ｜ Ink and colour on paper ｜ 140 x 90 cm Victoria Park in 1957. Further damage came in 1996, a year before Courtesy of the artist
43 42 actions as a cruel teenager, the tale is recorded in the aesthetically intriguing nüshu script, historically passed on among women in a struggle against illiteracy. Paradoxically, perhaps the artist is taking the secrets shared among a handful of women in the most intimate of contexts, and revealing a shared universal message of women s Tao Aimin stories with the world.
Tao Aimin s artistic practice traces the tangible vestiges and spaces of women s lives and labour, with her work incorporating found object installations, printmaking, paintings, ink rubbings, and calligraphy.
Originally installed in an octagonal outline, Taos Secret Language of Women installation (2008) features washboard ink rubbing albums as physical documents of tales that are accompanied by silent acts of submission, dedication, mediation, anger, and resistance. Following personal interviews with rural women in China, especially those of an older generation, Tao collected the intangible stories as well as the washboards with worn grooves as a primary tangible record of their lives lived; without other written or photographic forms of documentation, their stories are at risk of disappearing with their passing. Fascinated by the ritualised beauty of an object that represents a common shared experience among women, the artist appropriates the collection of oral histories along with the practice of ink rubbing as an age-old tradition of commemorating a person or event, and honours these washboards as the lasting trace of these women s existence.
Tao further narrows in on the hidden stories told by women in a written language reserved for women only: Nüshu, a syllabic script invented by the women of Jiangyong county of southern Hunan province. As an ongoing series of anthropological works, Tao collects the deeply personal and daringly honest revelations of these communities of women along with the objects that honour their time, presence, and passing. When one listens to the connections made between generations of women, one sees how the intention of her work transcends the form in which it is Detail presented either as a washboard ink rubbing accompanied by audio files of women speaking in their dialect, or burnt root stick writings of their confessions, reflections, and hopes, spoken in Mandarin, English, or Cantonese. Nü Shu: When Girls Try to Break The Secret Language of Women No. 6 (2008) ｜ Each Other (2020) is one of many stories collected by the artist; a Ink on paper ｜ 70 x 56 cm remorseful confession of a young woman reflecting on her vengeful Courtesy of the artist and Ink Studio
45 44 If one had to pinpoint one consistent theme in Walasse Ting s artistic oeuvre, it would be the exploration of cultural hybridity. The internationally renowned artist is known by his choice of a name that playfully crystallises this in the juxtaposition of his Western first Walasse Ting name and Chinese family name, a common practice in the Chinese diaspora. The name Walasse, moreover, is derived from a homonym of his youthful nickname, which is also read symbolically as a tribute to the Fauvist master Henri Matisse. A native of Shanghai, Ting spent his adulthood in the pre-eminent capitals of Western culture, ultimately calling Paris his home. In cultivating his iconic artistic style, he fully embraced a creative freedom through associations with the avant-garde CoBrA group in Amsterdam as well as representatives of Abstract Expressionism in New York while always maintaining a rooted Chinese sensibility from his early training.
Two Oriental Ladies with a Purple Horse (1980s) ｜ Ink and acrylic on rice paper ｜ Triptych, each 180 x 300 cm Courtesy of the Estate of Walasse Ting and Alisan Fine Arts
47 46 Out of this hybrid cultural background, Ting became well known for his fluorescent, Fauvist depictions of women, birds, flowers, and animals traditional Chinese motifs here painted with calligraphic brushstrokes that define outlines and flat areas of acrylic paint in a manner reminiscent of Henri Matisse. Indeed, in China, Ting is highly regarded as introducing Expressionism and Pop Art to Chinese painting. Two Oriental Ladies with a Purple Horse (1980s) is a monumental ink work in Ting s distinctive expressive style with Pop Art flavour. The large horse, which dominates the frame over the two women in the painting, is a clear symbol of virility and male power. Since at least the Tang dynasty, the popular horse motif has not only symbolised qualities such as masculinity, endurance, freedom, and passion, but has also been seen to embody the pinnacle of Chinese culture itself. While the two standing women evoke depictions of the renowned Four Beauties of the Tang dynasty, they best allude to Ting s sensual universe, filled with fantasy and influenced by pop culture. Beauty Fantasy (1990s) continues the exploration of Ting s favorite subjects to create a free association of imagery that refers to the symbolism of Chinese painting and literature as well as that of Western painting. The composition evokes Manet s Olympia (1863) and its controversial depiction of a reclining nude observed by a maid with a bouquet of flowers and a cat. With vibrant colouring, Ting s own interpretation of the perceived prostitute is not intended to be erotic or controversial but rather a statement of fused inspirations.
Eroticism served for Walasse Ting as a source of natural connections. As Ting relentlessly pursued the unexpected, he experimented with more mediums, including sculpture, calligraphy, and even experimental poetry. Hot and Sour Soup (1969) is a great example of Ting s artistic breadth and collaborative fusion of expression. An artist s book that irreverently merges poetry, painting, and printmaking, it offers a glimpse into Ting s visual universe of calligraphic sensitivities punctuated by eroticism and vitality. His phallic and ejaculatory motifs both speak to wild creative expression and maintain an inclination towards ink art and literary connotations. Given the general curatorial tendency to exclusively focus on Ting s most popular motifs, this exhibition provides the opportunity to highlight the more experimental work that was clearly a key area of creative focus for the artist.
Hot and Sour Soup (1969) ｜ Illustrated book with 22 lithographs ｜ Each page 40.8 x 28.5 cm Published by the Sam Francis Foundation
49 48 Tsang Tsou-Choi (King of Kowloon)
Tsang Tsou-Choi, self-proclaimed as King of Kowloon , spent years covering electrical utility boxes around Hong Kong with wild graffiti-like calligraphy. For decades since the 1950s, to the frustration of the authorities, these writings appeared all over the city on public surfaces and were viewed as a visual symbol of Hong Kong. Convinced that the British colonial authorities of Hong Kong had stolen his family s land generations ago, Tsang since his thirties took to the streets to reclaim this territory by writing his family s genealogy, with variations of Tsang the King, under China, Britain and Hong Kong , followed by names from his family lineage, where they owned land or lived, and the locations of their burial sites that were demolished by the government. For decades these writings, sometimes incorporating phrases such as Hong Kong government , Queen of England , New China , appeared on walls, gates, road signs, utility boxes, pillars, and lampposts on the streets of Hong Kong.
What is most defining in these works by Tsang Tsou-Choi is that his activities did not take place in officially recognised art venues nor were they intended to be seen as artwork. Tsang s writing has been evaluated against the canon of traditional Chinese calligraphy, and his activities have been articulated as the voice of an outsider artist outside of mainstream society, to various degrees marginalised or oppressed. Yet as the curator and writer Hou Hanru astutely confirms, Tsang is a genuine insider of a specific social reality in a city like Hong Kong, where the real creative energy and efficient modi operandi exist and function exactly in the space beyond the officially sanctioned rules. A grassroots culture of independent thinking and action, the culture of DIY (Do-It-Yourself), is the very core of everyday life.
Calligraphy of Imaginary Family Genealogy (1999) ｜ Calligraphy on electric box ｜ Set of 2, each 153 x 76 x 41 cm Courtesy of Chang Tsong-Zung
51 50 are like the mou hap (Mandarin: wuxia) genre of martial arts fantasy where heroes, heroines, and villains contend in acrobatic, gravity- defying combat sequences, living out tales of loyalty and treachery in that half-lawless underworld. Unlike traditional martial arts fiction, Howie Tsui however, Tsui sets his disjointed narrative in decidedly urban settings; in the case of Retainers of Anarchy (2018), the backdrop was an alternate version of the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, which for a certain historical period was literally beyond the writ of the British Fascinated by supernatural lore and martial arts tales, Howie Tsui s authorities. Here, an encyclopedic vista of incidents unfold, almost work is known for distilling diverse influences from Chinese ghost Bruegelesque in the unflinching view of conflict and violence; events stories, Japanese manga, Hong Kong wire-fu films, among others into are often set against urban interiors which sometimes collapse into an enchanting kaleidoscopic vision. Born in Hong Kong, Tsui s distinct a sparse landscape. In his subtly subversive historical fantasy, Tsui perspective is the result of his divergent diasporic experience which explores characters frequently from the working class and on the took him through Lagos, Nigeria and Thunder Bay, Canada. Despite margins of society, wielding the martial arts genre as a narrative tool for the geographical distance from Hong Kong, Tsui remained tethered resistance. In Parallax Chambers (2018-ongoing), Tsui extends his vision to his birthplace through VHS tapes, sent by family, of martial arts TV to experiment with algorithmic animation, with help from his collaborators: series and Hong Kong films of the 80s and 90s. The moving images animated sequences of historical fantasy populate the video, with their from these sources have fuelled his practice, which synthesises combinations and their backgrounds determined algorithmically, along socio-cultural anxieties around superstition, trauma, xenophobia, with the lighting, camera angle, and speed. Characteristic in his works are surveillance, and otherness into tense, otherworldly environments. the formal illustrative details, and the abiding care for alternative visions of history, including that of visual culture. Above all, his oeuvre reflects a Howie Tsui s epic works frequently evince an opposition to authority steadfast care for a certain memory, at times nostalgic and at other and skewer canonised historical narratives. In this respect, they times imaginary, of a Hong Kong of a bygone age.
Detail
Retainers of Anarchy (2018) ｜ Inkjet print on rice paper ｜ 48 x 378 cm Courtesy of the artist
53 52 Quoted Elegance No. 1-5 (2019) considers the question of elegance, usually associated with beauty, refinement, and charm, in spite of the varying permutations in different individuals and cultures. The artist offers her own items of clothing in exchange for handwritten Evelyn Taocheng letters from people who explore their memories and stories about the meaning of elegance; the letters are copied and enlarged by the artist, mimicking the same handwriting. In so doing, Wang probes Wang the different meanings assigned to and associated with the body in a given culture and era, subtly unveiling the various opinions and biases about identity and gender.
Working across an expansive range of mediums, Evelyn Taocheng Wang offers a wry take on contemporary society and human behaviour in her work. Trained in traditional Chinese painting and literature in China, she ended up residing in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where she has adapted to being in the middle between cultures. Her artistic practice engages her fantasies and realities, external and internal, from the standpoint of an outsider artist, cosmopolitan, and immigrant. With her astute observations on upbringing, taste, class, and gender, Wang unflinchingly and courageously stares down cultural clichés and fantasies.
Wang has the knack for fusing the personal with a broader social relevance. One example is A Hongkong- Dutch Client Licking My Arm during the Massage Treatment (2015), part of her Massage Parlor series, drawn from her personal experience as well as that of her colleagues working in a massage parlour in Amsterdam. There, she made a living while exploring the lives and social connections of the people involved, with their hopes, desires, and confrontation of their identities. From the touching recollections of her colleagues to the trashy conversations of the clients, the artist addresses something both deeply personal and salaciously public, fusing the sexual and the political, the clichéd and the affective. The work delves perceptively into the domains of desire and gender moreover in a way that incorporates influences from Chinese, Japanese, and Western painting traditions.
A Hongkong-Dutch Client Licking My Arm during the Massage Treatment (2015) Watercolour, pencil and acrylic on paper ｜ 98 x 104.5 cm Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam and Private Collection, the Netherlands.
55 54 starkly contrasts with the serenity and awe-inspiring monochromatic grandeur of the natural surroundings.
What might be considered awkward, grotesque, or ugly can in fact Wei Dong be logical and seductive, in that Wei Dong embraces ambiguity and yet meticulously crafts each detail with astonishing clarity. The attentive and untrammeled depictions of flesh avoid classical restraint and convey a sense of true desire. In the same way, his gorgeous renderings of Ming-inspired landscapes are tributes, rather than imposing a desire to advance the discourse of a tradition. Despite the Recognised for his controversial compositions filled with lurid intentionally provocative imagery, in his work there is genuine beauty. polemics, Wei Dong is a technically versatile painter of acrylic and ink works. His trademark conflation of the classical and the modern, both Chinese and Western, conjures up surreal, biting commentaries on the modern psyche, driven by desire.
Wei Dong s paintings present a personal perspective on viewing Chinese society, which since the Cultural Revolution has been influenced by capitalist consumerism and pop art visual symbols. They offer a dense study of the contradictions between religion and politics, Chinese and Western motifs, and subversion and realism. His unusual juxtapositions moreover offer the chance to deconstruct assumptions about China s recent history, especially from a Western perspective. Daggers and weapons are counterbalanced with lipstick and makeup compacts; military jackets and communist uniforms are half-buttoned or worn loosely like casual pajamas; poetry and musical activities are replaced by lustful acts and wanton desires; serious expressions are belied by intimate moments of self-indulgence.
In My Hero (1999-2000), Wei Dong, a son of a military officer, puts forward a dose of rebellion in portraying four androgynous, lustful figures poised against a verdant, traditional Chinese landscape while donning items referring to military attire. Despite a fervent desire to provoke the viewer and create a sense of mischief, the artist lovingly crafts each detail and makes sense of the cacophony of provocative symbols with fantastical harmony. With his ability to render sumptuous folds of clothing like Ingres and capture the exaggerated qualities of Mannerist Renaissance paintings, Wei Dong holds his own all the while paying homage to a great tradition of Chinese landscapes.
In the early 1990s, Wei Dong established his captivating personal style in ink on paper and started obsessively exploring depictions of the human, often female, body. There is no mistaking the erotic intentions of his compositions, with their references to Qing courtesans and pin-up girls visual symbols from both Chinese and Western art. Set atop Ming Dynasty-inspired landscapes, Fireworks (2006) and
Shadow (2007) celebrate the natural world with two contrasting ideals Shadow (2007) ｜ Ink and acrylic on paper ｜ 130 x 66 cm of beauty and striking intimacy. Luscious visages of women brightly Fireworks (2006) ｜ Ink and acrylic on paper ｜ 130 x 66 cm fill the image with a self-conscious and pleasured satisfaction that Courtesy of the artist and Chang Tsong-Zung
57 56 Originally created for an exhibition titled Tomorrow Cloudy Sky proposed in Tehran, Iran, in 2006, Yang s series of paintings, illustrating vistas of bomb explosions with a striking sense of both beauty and terror, were accompanied by text-based weather reports. Yang Jiechang Please Take Your Umbrella (2006) is an example of his symbolic English-language calligraphic texts alluding to a foreboding future, in a seemingly innocuous statement of precaution.
Yang Jiechang s diverse exploration of ink art, calligraphy, and painting is underpinned by a deep concern for the politics and ideological struggles that affect China and the world today. Working with brush and ink in a raw and powerful expressionist style, Yang s practice can to some degree be traced back to his formative moments as a teenager exposed to the Red Guards and learning to write dazibao ( big character posters ) and later as an art student forced to adopt the rigid models of Soviet painting. Having studied calligraphy, Chinese art history, ink painting, and Buddhism, Yang fused his interests in illustrating history and articulating fallible moments of shared humanity with an artistic style that displays raw, essential immediacy.
A large ink painting of severed anguished heads piled high against a sanguine red background, Massacre (1982) was one part of a diptych created as his graduation work from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. For Yang, the work represents the moment I became an artist. It represented my thinking, resistance, and free expression. In direct response to years of rigid training in the Soviet style of Realist painting meticulously portraying peasants, workers, and soldiers Yang created the work as a cathartic release. The work s other pair, entitled Fire, is an equally monumental ink and colour painting, replete with all-consuming flames. Collectively, the works represent both a historical reference point in Yang s artistic trajectory and an earnest response to a period of dramatic change.
Massacre (1982) ｜ Ink and paper mounted on canvas ｜ 208 x 207 cm Courtesy of the artist and C3 Collection.
59 58 remained in New York City while living with her daughter. Without access to a larger studio, she created intimate works in direct response to the changes she experienced throughout the year. Illustrating multicultural symbols of face coverings from pop Zhang Yanzi culture, art, literature, and theatre, the scroll is divided into fifteen thematic chapters: Fear, Disguise, Absurdity, Scream, Hero, Peace, Guidance, Freedom, Revolution, Carnival, Protection, Spirit, Avatar, Battle, and Soul. From the feared face mask first worn during the early days when the spread of COVID-19 sparked worldwide racial A trained calligrapher and award-winning painter, Zhang Yanzi is discrimination to the heroic symbolism of Marvel s Spiderman, to recognised for her portrayals of the contemporary through a lens the protective beak-like mask of doctors historically used when that combines ink and antiquity, sources of interest and exploration treating victims of the bubonic plague, and the rare stone mask for the artist. Concerned with spiritual wellness and psychological artifact discovered in Jerusalem, each image is accompanied by a health, Zhang s unique visual language reflects on the human brief text articulating a personal exploration about different cultural condition and often depicts religious, botanical, and medical mask symbols and why faces are covered. This epic work takes imagery. Her Remedy exhibition of 2013 at Today Art Museum in in a kaleidoscopic range of themes and issues from a tumultuous Beijing, for instance, presented a powerful conversation on art year; in Zhang s words, it resulted from thinking deeply about and therapy through over one hundred works in ink, mixed media, anxiety and conflicts, respect and discrimination, correctness and installation, and ready-made objects. incorrectness, identity and belonging, among others, and to further explore the inner significance of a life stripped of its appearance Painted Skin (2020) is a 8-metre-long scroll work created during and colour. the early months of quarantine in the COVID-19 global pandemic. Unable to travel home to Beijing from the United States, Zhang
Detail
Painted Skin (2020) ｜ Ink and colour on cloth ｜ 35 x 800 cm Courtesy of the artist and Ora-Ora
61 60 Tai Kwun Learning and Experience
Join our learning and experience programmes, designed for visitors of different backgrounds and needs. We hope to explore possibilities in the dialogue between art and visitors.
Hi! & Seek Located on Tai Kwun Contemporary s second floor, Hi! & Seek is a space of dialogue and exploration. We are delighted to share with you the stories behind the exhibitions and the artworks. Send us your insights and ideas or questions and thoughts for the curator(s)/artist(s). Hi! & Seek is this time co-presented by Tai Kwun Contemporary, CUMT4007 Museum Studies class, BA Programme in Cultural Management, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Dr Vivian Ting.
Tai Kwun Contemporary Weekend Guided Tour Come spend your afternoon at Tai Kwun Contemporary! Learn about the art in our exhibitions by joining a tour with one of our friendly, professional docents. Saturdays and Sundays from 2 May to 1 Aug 2021 Cantonese 2pm | English 3pm Tai Kwun Contemporary
Family Day Join our Family Day at Tai Kwun Contemporary for gallery activities and family workshops! Each parent/guardian can bring one child (5+ years) to spend the day with us and learn about art. 9 & 23 May 2021 6 & 20 Jun 2021 11 & 18 Jul 2021 8, 15 & 22 Aug 2021 11am–1pm | 3pm–5pm Venue: Tai Kwun Contemporary Tickets: $80 per time slot | Family Pair (one adult with one child)
Teacher’s Morning and Teacher’s Workshop The Teacher s Morning and Teacher s Workshop constitute a knowledge-sharing and communication platform for teachers/ educators, delving into the latest exhibitions, artist workshops, and pedagogical discussions. The Teacher s Morning and Teacher s Workshop this time are co-organised by Asia Art Archives Learning & Participation Team and Tai Kwun Contemporary s Education & Public Programming Team. 22 May 2021, 10am–4:30pm 5 Jun 2021, 10am–12:30pm Venue: Laundry Steps, JC Contemporary& A Hall Studio 2 & 3 Artists: Jeff Leung Chin Fung, Lam Wing Sze 63 62 64