Notes
On August 1υst, 2007, an insurrection took place at the Queen's Ferry Terminal in Central. The iconic landmark had been marked for demolition by the Hong Kong Government. After a ten-hour standoff, a congregation of protesters who have fasted for five days were forcibly removed from the site by 500 policemen. The cause was lost, but the incident managed to refuel discussion on Hong Kong history and generate queries about what the city meant to its inhabitants. As a theme, "Hong Kong" has certainly been on the minds of its very own homegrown artists. From its colonized years to post-Handover, an explosion of discursive topics has transpired--contemporary reactions to the city's both recent and distant past, the search for one's cultural identity given the fundamental shifts in political circumstances, the grievances against the overwhelming lack of space that leads to intense proximity of all entities or that precious moment of humanity in the midst of bustling, hectic city life. The artistic tropes employed are full of character and truly unique, just like the experiences they attempt to encapsulate. The cultural façade that ultimately materializes extends far beyond the hackneyed blanket claim--fusing together the East with the West. It is versatile, ever-changing and perhaps, even mysterious. A fishing village in Southern China, Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain in the year 1842 and remained its prized colony until the Handover of 1997, when it became a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. From World War II of the 40's and 50's to the Cultural Revolution of the 60's, numerous throngs of South-bound immigrants injected human as well as monetary capital into Hong Kong. Early Hong Kong artists consisted of these--they brought with them a cultural legacy that they proceeded to wield and hoped to carry on, perhaps even enhance. Famed Lingnan School painters Chao Shao'ang and Yang Shanshen were but a few examples. Upon settling in Hong Kong, such immigrant artists further invited Western Modernism into their aesthetic consciousness and produced cross-cultural works of art. New Calligraphy pioneers Lü Shoukun and Wucius Wong are among those who have conquered the challenge magnificently. As a Chinese society led by the British, Hong Kong went under its multi-pronged development. East collided with West, breeding multiple strands of artistic styles. Apart from the aforementioned artists who championed in new interpretations of Chinese ink painting, there were plenty of others who opted to employ Western media in their works, though not without elements of Chinese tradition. Hybrid Art was used by Hong Kong art historian David Clarke in describing the meeting of traditional Chinese culture and Western Modernism, "They (artists) apparently recognized that to ignore an increasingly internationalized art world in which Western definitions of the modern or contemporary were hegemonic would have meant condemning themselves to marginality, while to embrace Western modernism without equivocation would have meant running the risk of losing a sense of their own cultural identity."[1] An important theme explored by much of Hong Kong art is the notion of "identity." "Identity Recognition," in fact, was especially problematic prior to the Handover. The Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed in Beijing in 1984, stated that Hong Kong was to be handed over back to the People's Republic of China--it was a proceeding of events in which Hong Kong people had absolutely no voice or choice. On the issue and the identity crisis it generated, responses were varied among the Hong Kong artists. Some were optimistic; some were not. A hotly debated question, the creative flurry ensued through the 1980's and 1990's. A fertile environment nurtured a consortium of emerging young artists who have diverged from their predecessors in many ways. Resolved not to evade the polemic of Hong Kong cultural identity, they extrapolate from the artistic vocabulary of Western Modernism in their creative expression. A deliberate crevasse gapes open between the last generation and the current (originally trained in Chinese painting, Kum Chi Keung gradually evolved into producing installation art). Partly attributable to the education many of these young artists have received abroad, the phenomenon can be more aptly explained by "a desire to find medium of expression which are less "Chinese" in connotation."[2] Kum Chi Keung and Freeman Lau fit into this very rubric. Born in 1965, Kum Chi Keung was born and grew up in Hong Kong. Initially a practitioner of Chinese traditional ink painting, the artist began incorporating the paradoxical combination of "birdcage" and "flight" into his installation art. Truly an emblem of local Hong Kong culture, their ubiquity indisputable, these birdcages dangle idly on a branch while their elderly owners gather and play a few games of chess in the park. Chirping merrily along and watching the world go by, the birds exist in narrow quarters that span merely the interior of their cages. A metaphor for the scarcity of space in Hong Kong, the birdcage, juxtaposed with the notion of flight, held further significance during the period surrounding the Handover. Kum Chi Keung's Transition Space, an installation piece made in 1995 and later included in the traveling exhibition Inside Out: New Chinese Art between 1998 and 2000, consists of two large birdcages that respectively allude to China and Hong Kong. A row of five birds are positioned in between. While reveling in their short-lived freedom out of the first cage, they are but destined for yet a second. "Those who live in this particular moment of historical transition may feel helpless facing a political destiny that can only struggle between fate and an aspiration toward impossible freedom, like a caged bird longing for liberation."[3] Labyrinth (Lot 615) perpetuates the artist's ruminations on the quandary of liberty and space. Ten odd years after the Handover, Kum Chi Keung manufactures miniscule birdcages, configures them into an intricate maze-like structure, which he finally inserts into another large, clear birdcage. The spatial entropy conveyed likens itself to the experience of entering Hong Kong, a veritable urban jungle. As he said "In the convoluted maze that is Hong Kong, some manage to find their way out while others stay disoriented and hopelessly lost." Despite its transparency, the outer birdcage is after all a cage. The optical illusion arising out of the apparatus "cage within a cage" is an allegory for the bustling metropolitan's imbalance and the disorientation of Hong Kong's self-perception. Freeman Lau was born in 1958 and attended Hong Kong Polytechnic University. A renowned designer as well as an accomplished artist, he favours the "chair" in his creations. Apart from being a functional piece of furniture, the chair embodies concepts of "place," "status" and even "power." "Every time I travel to the mainland or visit my hometown, I am required to pass through customs. I'm from Hong Kong and I queue up for the booths labelled "Chinese citizens" while holding in my hand my PRC Home Return Permit. A profound feeling of uncertainty wells up in me as I ponder the dichotomy of "Hong Kong citizens VS Chinese citizens," a quandary which, in turn, has spurred the legacy of my Chairplay Series. In 1994, his very first sculpture The Search for Position delineated the silhouette of a chair and a figure--a comment on Hong Kong's obsessive and frenzied pursuit of "place" during the economic high tide of the time. In 1998, a year after the Handover, Freeman Lau took a heap of standard chairs used by the colonial government and constructed a wall at Fringe Club: Out of Chaos, The Search for Position II. The towering barricade symbolized the power exerted by the colonial government; it also stood as a monument to the Hong Kong's people search for their identity under this very government. The haphazard manner in which the chairs were arranged encapsulated the confusion and anxiety that inexorably plagued the city and its inhabitants. A progression of Freeman Lau's ongoing cogitation on "place," his manipulation of chairs was extended onto the aspect of "human" and the communicative possibilities between humans. His professional partner as well as modern ink painter Kan Tai Keung and sculptor Cheung Yee have instilled in Lau an inextricable bond with traditional Eastern ideology. Like many early Hong Kong artists, a negotiation with Chinese artistic conventions remained an integral part of his creative expression. Chairplay VI (Lot 617) is one of the artist's recent masterpieces. The large-scale installation is a four-person see-saw. The depression on one chair is counteracted by the protrusion of the other directly across. A balance must be achieved between the four directions, as if striving for a social equilibrium in human relationships, a state of being highly sought after in Chinese society. Hong Kong legend Tsang, Tsou Choi too, contributed to the longevity of Chinese traditional arts as he wielded his ink brush all over the city. His textual graffiti is seen on much of Hong Kong's "public furniture," the content reading of his own thoughts on the colonial government. The self-professed "Kowloon Emperor", Tsang first began covering bridges, electrical contractors, postboxes and others with his calligraphy when he was 35. Relentless in his endeavour, undeterred by multiple warnings, he persisted in laying down his family genealogy in all its entirety as well as his personal history as an emperor on exile. He was brought to the police station. He was sent to psychiatric institutions. However, nothing stopped him from writing, recording, expressing. The recalcitrant nature of his Chinese graffiti becomes an oblique representation of Hong Kong's desperate yearning for a cultural identity under colonization. His claim as being the emperor in exile blatantly challenged the authority of The Queen and unabashedly defied English colonial rule. For 50 years, Tsang, Tsou Choi roamed the streets of Hong Kong and was deemed a lunatic by many. In 1997, Hong Kong Arts Center and Goethe-Institut collaborated in a historical exhibition The Street Calligraphy Of Kowloon Emperor in hopes of instigating a re-evaluation of the artistic value behind the Kowloon Emperor's work. The earnest effort reached its pinnacle in 2003 when Tsang, the very first Hong Kong artist to have been bestowed with the honour, was invited to participate in the 50υth Venice Biennale. Subsequent to his passing away in 2007, much of Tsang, Tsou Choi's calligraphy has been eradicated save a single pillar at the Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier. Calligraphy (Lot 612) is an amalgamation of his calligraphy from year 2004 with the artist in action at the foot of Lion Rock--a snapshot of Hong Kong's collective memory. The photograph, which was taken by Lau Kin Wai in 1997, has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale. Witnessing the Handover was quite an anti-climactic experience for the Hong Kong people. The ceremony lacked in grandeur as well as in drama. On July 1υst, 1997, it felt as if the red truly began to seep in. Bidding farewell to a past spent under colonization, Hong Kong contemporary art gradually begins to show novel colours. "Hong Kong" remains a coveted theme among the artists, yet the scent of politics has receded substantially. A new collective focus has shifted onto the quotidian experience of urban life. Placing all facets of the city under a microscope, artists created works that would explore and articulate their thoughts on existing and on living. It differs from its Chinese counterpart in that Hong Kong contemporary art "departs from the spectacular to take close inspection of the quotidian"4 The SARS epidemic of 2003 affected a monumental influence on Man Fung Yi's creative impulses, an artist who was educated in the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. That year, her younger sister's life was hanging by a thread since contracting SARS and was even made to abort her 27-week-old fetus. Earlier in 2001 when she herself was pregnant, using lit joss sticks she singed holes onto silk cloths and created patterns as a form of prayer. She re-enacted the ritual as a heartfelt blessing on her ailing sister, who later emerged healthy once again. In gratitude, she named her work Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars. Man Fung Yi places her own personal life experiences under scrutiny. Reflecting on them, she creates exquisite works of brimming femininity and profound intimacy. The arrangement of holes into an aesthetic pattern is the key motif in Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars. The practice of singing holes onto silk is taken from Chinese antiquity--it was one of the many routine activities performed by domestic women. Having grasped the timing accurately, Man Fung Yi would patiently lift and lower the joss stick so that circular designs came into being. This act of art-making possesses almost a meditative quality--as she concentrates on her craft, wafts of incense smoke would saturate the room. The ritualistic nature of the creative process is charged with a lofty serenity while calling for rigorous introspection, much like the temperament of ancient Chinese literati. As of 2005, Man Fung Yi began to incorporate her "embroidery" onto sculpture. The circle and the metaphysics of the circular form, meandering in between transience and eternity, undecided amid obduracy and liberation, lie at the core of her expression. Tranquility (set of two) (Lot 616) belongs to the same series as Twinkle, Twinkle Little Stars. . The two works in the set are cast in bronze and assume the shape of gourds. The one on the left is decked with the artist's famed "embroidery" pattern; and the one on the right is given shape by a network of bronze wires. The void of the open gourd is balanced out beautifully by the materiality of the closed, culminating in a state of equilibrium exemplified by the yin and the yang of traditional Chinese culture. Such is the artistic journey of Man Fung Yi, as she wends her way through investigation and arrives at a tangible solution, all the while extending the thread of Hybrid Art. The Hong Kong Pavilion first made its appearance at the Venice Biennale in 2001. Artists from Hong Kong saw their international recognition broaden and ascend after the Handover. Hong Kong's urban cityscape is renowned for its great density. Standing in its intertwining streets, facing the towering skyscrapers or living in its cramped spaces, one cannot help but feel a sense of repression. In order to survive a hyper-capitalistic city such as Hong Kong, monetary revenue must be earned through endless labour. Like many of the city's inhabitants, Kevin Fung, Lik Yan finds the stress of living suffocating, but he manages to convert it into professional motivation and artistic inspiration. Born in 1964, Fung has apprenticed under Hong Kong woodcarving artist Tong King Sum since 1993. It is through his enigmatic carvings of wood that Fung expresses his thoughts on the condition of a Hong Kong existence. Baggage Series (set of three) (Lot 614) is Kevin Fung's most representative series, selected for the 15th Hong Kong Art Biennial as well as added to the permanent collection of Hong Kong Art Museum. A set of three wooden columns stand tall, a man, a woman and a boy who are carrying their luggage affixed on top. Thin columns allow for narrow cross-sections where the figures must balance themselves, much like the limited living quarters and restricted public spaces of Hong Kong. As they are positioned so closely to the edge of the column, every movement must be taken gingerly as if nearing the end of a cliff. The undefined faces of the respective characters represent many a passerby who grazes by the artist's shoulder every single day. While the subject matter is an honest portrayal of reality, Fung intentionally retains the original colour, cut, and grain of the wood, leaving the viewer with an alternate sense of softness and warmth. Chow Chun Fai, born in 1980 and graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, is an exemplar among the younger generation of Hong Kong artists. Frequently using Hong Kong as a point of departure in his art, he depicts myriad segments of urban landscape that includes old taxis or street scenes, etc. He excels at capturing the neglected details of daily life, transforming them and as a result, toys with a local's perception of his or her own hometown. The taxi in his paintings belongs to his father who once worked as a taxi driver. Chow Chun Fai thwarts our trite impression of taxis by illustrating the vehicle from various angles and in different parts of the city. Cropping, enlarging, or highlighting distinguishes disparate features of the taxi. Afterwards, in his Painting On Movie Series, he further experimented with scene perspectives by fusing two pictures into one, thus creating a panoramic view that redefines time and space. This technique generates unexpected delight in ordinary city scenery, while at the same time rendering the familiar unfamiliar. Chow Chun Fai's photography is fodder for his Hong Kong Street Series. Shuttling adeptly between different media, Chow Chun Fai shares with his viewers his inimitable Hong Kong experience in all its permutations. Painting on Movie Series: Little Cheung, "This is Kowloon City" (Lot 611) is a fine example of the acclaimed Painting On Movie Series by the artist. Much intrigued by the quandaries surrounding the identity of a Hong Kong artist, Chow Chun Fai appropriates visual images from local entertainment and wields them as material with which to ponder the nature of art. "Hong Kong" as an entity, is also being examined in these works. Popular culture constitutes a major part of Hong Kong's capitalistic and consumerist disposition. Hong Kong movies, in turn, feed much of its popular culture, which then contributes to the shaping of Hong Kong's image on the global stage. Painting On Movie Series is the pictorialization and perhaps also, the aestheticization, of a meticulously selected scene extracted from an iconic movie. Corresponding with the different spaces and locations at which the works are being exhibited is a different set of responses. The subtitles that are incorporated into the composition sometimes complement interpretations, sometimes they contradict--all possibilities and combinations only serve to enrich the multi-layered potential of the painting. Painting on Movie Series: Little Cheung, "This is Kowloon City" is derived from the last of a trilogy of movies on Hong Kong produced by independent filmmaker Fruit Chan. The film tells a story of a locally grown boy and his encounter with a girl immigrated from abroad as together, they observe the changing phenomena in Hong Kong during the Handover. Setting up for the scene that has been immortalized on canvas is the boy offering a description of the district--"this is Kowloon City, there are a lot of restaurants here as well as many airplanes." The Hong Kong International Airport was previously situated in Kowloon City before it was moved to Chek Lap Kok. The nostalgic vista of an airplane descending into an urban jungle and then disappearing among a plethora of buildings definitively formulated the world's perception of Hong Kong. The work invokes a reservoir of memories in Hong Kong people and testifies to a rapidly changing cityscape. The authoritative tone of the quote subtitling the scene underscores the importance of this particular piece of history as well as the integral role of the chosen location in the conception of Hong Kong. The appropriative quality of the work clashes with the artist's deliberately semi-realist rendering to create a veritably enigmatic piece. In 2007, Hong Kong Art Museum organized the pivotal contemporary art exhibition Made in Hong Kong in an attempt to cultivate analyses of the connection between Hong Kong art and Hong Kong culture. Chow, Chun Fai and Kevin Fung, Lik Yan were two of the artists invited to participate. In comparison with Chow Chun Fai, Anothermountainman's (Wong Ping Pui) work manages to exude an even more distinct regional flair. Along with artist Chan Yuk Keung, he was one of the representatives at the Hong Kong Pavilion of the 51υst Venice Biennale of 2005. There, he erected a tea house out of red, white and blue nylon fabric. Within this space charged with an unmistakably Hong Kong spirit, he hoped to engage in conversation with all his viewers. An accomplished creative director for advertisements as well as films, Anothermountainman began using this red, white and blue nylon fabric as basic blocks of his art in 2000. The series is aptly named "Redwhiteblue: Building Hong Kong." Originally wrapped around edifices under construction as a protective layer, "Redwhiteblue" was eventually fashioned into bags with which to transport souvenirs--it has become a veritable witness of Hong Kong's development over many decades. Though prevalent and omnipresent, the fabric remains subtle in all its durability and practicality. In the eyes of the artist, such is the quality of "Hong Kong spirit." Redwhiteblue: Building Hong Kong III (Lot 609) was created in 2003 and was selected for the Hong Kong Biennial of the same year, then subsequently purchased by the Hong Kong Museum of Art for its permanent collection. Anothermountainman inscribed on the redwhiteblue his earnest wishes for and honest thoughts on Hong Kong socio-economy, simultaneously an expression of blessing on its inhabitants who were weathering the Asian financial crisis and SARS epidemic at the time. Apart from the aforementioned series, Anothermountainman avidly produces photography as well. Executed in 2005, Speechless (Lot 610) comprises of a visually striking set of images on the subject of Hong Kong protests. July 1 Parade is an annual demonstration affair since the Handover, the one in year 2003 being the most dramatic for its scale and for its success in pressuring the government to annul the implement of Article 23 of the Basic Law. Truly a movement of the people and a platform for their grievances, July 1 Parade bears a different theme every year and is a product of a Hong Kong government without democratic suffrage. With the help of digital manipulation, the artist erases all text from the sea of banners and placards so that the viewer might contemplate the nature of political protest. John Fung, Kin-Chung, also an acclaimed photographer, presents in visual form his reflection on Hong Kong and the society's innate pressure on its members. 2006-04-15, T18:06:25 (Lot 613) claims as its subject the mid-levels escalator that begins on Lyndhurst Terrace in Central. After multiple exposures coupled with cropping and overlapping, the scene assumes an apparitional quality. The escalator is extended indefinitely within a dizzying montage of the image repeated over and over again, each oriented in a different direction, the final composition evocative of a metropolis morphing at an uncontrollable pace. Life in the city is a form of torture for Fung Kin Chung. Forfeiting life in order to live or survive, he feels, borders on the ludicrous. A society consumed with hyper-capitalism and consumerist desires is the Hong Kong he endeavours to portray through his lens. Excited by a sensational, kaleidoscopic effect upon the initial glance, one is then thrust into confrontation with the reality of a broken, damaged city. [1] Clark, David, Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization, (Hong Kong, 2001) p.13, 71
[2] Hou, Hanru, The City and the Artists, Flash Art, Vol. XXXIV, No.23, (Italy, March-April 2002) p.13
[3] Gao Shiming, "Neither East nor West North nor South, I am Here, Now", Reversing Horizons Exhibition catalogue, Shanghai, p.10
