Berliner Philharmoniker virtuoso flautist and 2025 Institute of Creativity distinguished visitor at HKBU, Egor Egorkin brings a new concept flute recital to Ping Pong Gintonería – an entire evening of classical flute x club music performance. A member of the world’s greatest orchestra, Egorkin is also an innovator in sound design and production, pioneering a new direction for the flute, through abstract textures over an ambient DJ set into a full-on lounge atmosphere. Says director, Juan Gregorio Martinez, ‘We, at Ping Pong, are delighted to welcome Egor Egorkin to Hong Kong. This programme is a rare opportunity to explore a true crossover performance from elite classical music to the dance club.’
Entering Chen Wei’s new solo exhibition at Blindspot Gallery is akin to stepping into an alternate space-time continuum. Where visitors enter, the title is displayed on a semi-transparent silver partition, illuminated by undulating waves of light that oscillate like a musical frequency. This partition functions as a threshold, inviting visitors to traverse into the world of the Chinese artist, renowned for his meticulously staged photographs and his enigmatic universe, situated between dream and reality.
Chen has conceptualised and curated the gallery space, integrating its peeling walls and concrete flooring to construct an environment reminiscent of a theatrical stage. Through the subtle interplay of light, shadow lines that echo the linear compositions of his artworks and a carefully orchestrated dialogue between colours and textures, the exhibition creates a cohesive visual and spatial experience. The artist demonstrates here that image-making is not his sole end but that he rather operates as an architect or a stage designer whose apparatus aims to question our collective sense of reality and our ability to seize it.
Installation view of Breath of Silence by Chen Wei at Blindspot Gallery, 2025. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
The artist has long been fascinated by the liminal space between the real and the virtual world. His photographs are entirely constructed within his studio, conceived methodically as cinematic tableaux that often verge on the absurd yet remain impeccably balanced. His compositions impart a sense of perfection so striking that it borders on the surreal. However, the objects and scenes he captures are drawn from everyday life: stacks of paper, lemons, a door handle, a man engrossed in his mobile phone – familiar elements that, once framed by the artist’s lens, detach from reality and transition into a realm of uncanny strangeness.
A significant portion of the works presented belong to the New City series, initiated in 2013. This body of work can be interpreted as a portrait of Beijing, where the artist is based, or more broadly as a reflection of any city that, like the Chinese capital, embraces rapid modernisation in an unceasing pursuit of vertical expansion and dazzling spectacle. Over time, the series has evolved, continuing to mirror the country’s social transformations as observed by Chen. More recently, his works have drawn inspiration from the Covid crisis, the growing influence of social media and the advancement of artificial intelligence.
Figures are scarcely present in Chen’s work, probably because they are crushed under the weight of unfulfilled desires and the illusion of progress or absorbed by social media and its promises of a better world. Breath of Silence (2024), the work that lends its title to the exhibition, is a large-scale nocturnal photograph depicting the silhouette of a man, backlit, hunched beneath a transparent tent. This tent, resembling an oversized, yellow-tinged rain cape, also evokes the protective coverings used during the pandemic. Anchored by large stones, it completely encloses the figure, reinforcing a sense of absolute solitude. However, the man is illuminated by the beam of a blue spotlight – a hue reminiscent of the core of a flame. Surrounding him, a yellow halo further accentuates this interplay of light. This composition generates a striking tension between the absolute stillness of the scene and the evocative palette of fire, seemingly smothered beneath the plastic shroud.
Installation view of Breath of Silence by Chen Wei at Blindspot Gallery, 2025. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
This tension is also evident in the three videos Light Me (2021), which open the exhibition. These moving images resemble lightboxes, so subtle are they in their motion – flickering halos of light and shadows that imperceptibly stretch, suspending time itself. Each video presents an individual entirely absorbed by a phone or computer, so captivated that their consciousness is fully immersed in the virtual realm. What is revealed to the viewer are absent bodies, positioned within a cold, blue-toned environment, while the screens burn with an icy flame.
Opposite this series of videos, the LED sculptures from Trouble City (2025) shine brightly, their multicoloured points of light twinkling in the night, drawing attention to and embellishing the structures they adorn. Like the gleaming towers that define contemporary cityscapes, they symbolise economic success, attracting workers from across the country. Yet these structures remain under construction, their scaffolding still visible. The scrolling messages they display are company slogans aimed at corporate employees, which the artist generated using ChatGPT: phrases such as “Work hard. Have fun. Make history.” or “Watch anywhere. Cancel anytime.” These pieces of text, barely discernible beneath the vibrant LED motifs, appear almost concealed. The use of artificial intelligence to generate these slogans inevitably raises questions about their authenticity, reinforcing a central theme in Chen’s work – the perpetual confusion between reality and its simulacrum.
Further, in the large photograph Tears on the Ground (2024), a solitary column stands alone, surrounded by glass spheres within a deserted place bathed in sandy hues. This may represent a train station or a waiting room. Transitional spaces seem to hold particular significance for the artist, who presents locations functioning as passages between distinct worlds and states of being. A floating curtain separates the two exhibition rooms, symbolising this transition. A blurred image of a rain-soaked landscape, captured through a window, is projected on its light surface. Movement from one side to the other occurs fluidly, accompanied by the persistent sound of rain throughout the gallery. This experience parallels the crossing of the mirror in Alice in Wonderland. What worlds do we traverse? Fantasies, dreams or tangible territories? The work, in any case, casts its soft, bluish-golden lights throughout the space, acting as a lure.
Installation view of Breath of Silence by Chen Wei at Blindspot Gallery, 2025. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
Opposite, The Stars of Last Night (2024) seems to offer key insights for deciphering the artist’s work: the photograph depicts the abandoned front of a traditional shop, likely closed due to its inability to compete with the profitability of larger retailers. The broken display window, with its scattered and damaged neon lights, speaks of a world that has ceased to exist. However, a door to the left stands ajar. This is the same door found in other works, characterised by its fine, semi-transparent stripes. What world does it open to? If the shop’s display is merely a facade, where are the behind-the-scenes elements? We find ourselves at the heart of a cascade of mise en abyme, copies of the same image recurring infinitely within itself, without a reference point to identify the real. And after all, is this necessary?
One leaves the exhibition with a long-lasting sense of internal emptiness yet paradoxically also with one of hope: beyond or despite illusions, and in whatever world we inhabit, we can still create marvels to hold onto.
此外，大幅攝影作品《Tears on the Ground》（2024年）中，一根孤零零的柱子矗立於沙色調籠罩的廢棄場所裡，周遭是一些玻璃球。這裡或許是個火車站或是候車室。過渡性空間似乎對這位藝術家有著特殊意義。他所呈現的場所，充當著不同世界與存在狀態間的通道。一道輕盈飄動的簾幕分隔了兩個展廳，正是象徵著這種過渡。一副透過窗戶拍下的被雨水浸透的模糊風景影像，投射在簾子通透的表面上。觀者流暢地穿梭於簾幕兩側，伴隨著展廳內始終縈繞的雨聲。此番體驗，猶如《愛麗絲夢遊仙境》裡穿越鏡子的情節。我們究竟穿越到了何種世界？是幻想、夢境，還是真實可觸的疆域？無論如何，這件作品在整個空間內灑下柔和的藍金色光芒，好似誘餌一般。
放置於對面的作品《The Stars of Last Night》（2024年）似乎為解讀藝術家的創作提供了關鍵見解：照片記錄了某間傳統店鋪的廢棄門面，很可能是因無法與大型零售商的盈利能力競爭而關門歇業。破碎的櫥窗裡散落損毀的霓虹燈，訴說著一個已然消逝的世界。然而，左側的門微開著。這扇門有著精緻的半透明條紋，正是在藝術家其他作品中反復出現過的那扇門。它通向哪個世界？若這店鋪的陳列只是表像，那麼幕後的元素又在哪呢？我們發現自己置身於一連串套層結構的核心，相同畫面在其內部無盡複現，卻沒有任何參照點來辨別何為真實。畢竟，有必要嗎？
There is a common cultural trope that in order to be a great artist one must struggle, undergo hardships and/or suffer from heartbreak. For artist Danh Võ, this is “fucking romanticised bourgeois bullshit. It’s coming from a privileged perspective.”
Võ is here to shift established perspectives and ask what it means to make great art – a question that he and his classmates found themselves constantly asking while at art school in Denmark. “I was lumped into a fixed idea of what art could be,” says the Vietnamese-born Danish artist, who is now based in Berlin. “Denmark is so privileged: you get money when you study; you have all the resources. The art academy was great, as were the people you met there. But we were all trying to think differently and figure out: how do we make good art?”
After making what he describes as “horrible paintings” as a student, Võ took a break and, in unconsciously trying to erase everything learned about what art could be, he found “a liberty, to work in completely different way” – a way that equates art with architecture. “For me, it’s specifically about testing a space through an object. That’s what you do as an artist, no? Whether it’s a palazzo, a park or a found space.”
He’s tested various spaces, from punctuating the iconic ocular hall of Paris’s Bourse de Commerce building with large tree trunks to exhibiting his works alongside those of modernist icons such as Isamu Noguchi and Park Seo-bo at Querini Stampalia in Venice, where various art-historical periods – from rococo to baroque to contemporary – were reflected through the resulting convergence of history and architecture. “When you put these works alongside portraits of popes and nobility in a palazzo, it entirely reshapes how you consider each object and your experience of the space.”
Most recently, he’s asking viewers to reconsider their relationship with and perception of M+’s Found Space – the institution’s unique foundational feature and default basement – with his new installation, Danh Võ In Situ: Akari by Noguchi. A series of plywood frames, often used in Võ’s sculptural installations, form vertical, gridded intersections of space, in between which Noguchi’s iconic Akari lamps are embedded. Adjacent to this, sandwiched between two of Haegue Yang’s vertically suspended Sonic Rescue Ropes (2022), is a similar structure configured into a bleacher-like form, interspersed with plants, functioning somewhere between an amphitheatre and living room.
The structure mimics the intersecting lines of the museum itself, whether one is looking bottom up or top down. For Võ, Found Space is reminiscent of a highway intersection in Los Angeles. “The vast infrastructure and the big columns holding up the building; it helps me visualise how to use the space.”
Given that the entire West Kowloon cultural complex is built on reclaimed land, it was a literal blank canvas for new institutional models to emerge. Found Space was accidentally discovered during M+’s construction process, when the team found Airport Express and Tung Chung Line rail tunnels cut across that area diagonally. The tunnels were excavated and then covered with concrete to cement a new foundational feature, overcoming what was initially a design challenge. The idea of revealing something which always existed but was hidden is thematically carried through Võ’s practice.
“I curate other artists’ work but focus on bodies of works which are less exposed – like Noguchi’s playscape.” That’s not a facet of his work that people focus on. It’s not the first time Võ has shown his work in Found Space, let alone Noguchi’s at M+. The artist’s We the People (2011-16) was exhibited here earlier, and he installed an iteration of Noguchi’s playscape, Noguchi for Danh Võ: Counterpoint, outdoors in 2018. “Another thing that was lesser known is Akari lamps. What I find troubling is that they’re not so visible in the design field.”
Akari are functional. They are sculptures but also lamps, reflecting Noguchi’s design- and architecture-driven practice. They also signify Võ’s interest in equating art with architecture in the way they’re exhibited in the artist’s modular installation. The structure is adaptable, parts of it are interchangeable and items within it can be swapped with other objects such as the artist’s own works throughout the duration of the exhibition.
Noguchi created more than 100 sculptural lighting designs between 1951 and 1986; the name “akari” means “light” or “illumination” in Japanese. After the Second World War, in an attempt to rebuild the nation, a government programme took designers, architects and artists around the country to see if they could revive traditional craft practices. Akari were paper lanterns which traditionally had candles inside, and were bought to cemeteries to worship ancestors. The practice had died down significantly after the war. Noguchi took this craft and created his own version from mulberry bark paper and bamboo. Heavily inspired by Brâncuși, the Japanese artist created forms reminiscent of the modernist sculptor’s work, and then added a light bulb to them. “What you see in these beautiful structures is the fusion of two giant modernist thinkers [and] artists,” says Võ.
His interpretation adds a third, contemporary dimension to this modernist melange. “This comes back to highlighting other artists’ work within my own practice, whether it’s Noguchi or my father. If things already exist, then it’s good, because I can just be the observer. But if things are under the lid, then I think it’s worth the time and energy to reveal another perspective that I feel has been neglected or under-prioritised.”
The need to revitalise practices, customs and even spaces rendered defunct comes from a personal place and inspired one of the works Võ is most proud of – his father’s writing. Growing up in Vietnam, Võ’s father learned how to write Vietnamese in Latin script. He knew the form well but couldn’t read any western language. When the family migrated to Europe, his skill, ironically, was rendered useless, except when it came to creating signage and menus for the family-run food business.
This prompted a simple question for Võ: “What is it that handicaps or produces a skill and when does it get expressed for its quality? And then, how do you make it into a qualification or skill or something productive?” In his quest to find an answer, Võ included his father’s handwriting in his own work. 2.2.1861 (2009) was an artwork in which Võ’s father hand-copies a letter written by a French missionary, Jean-Théophane Vénard, to his father, before he was beheaded in Vietnam. Here, Võ’s father’s skill is being celebrated as art rather than relegated to being the labour behind a menial task. This outlook can also be applied to spaces, as the random discovery of Found Space led to it becoming part of an art institution, a new status with a new value.
It’s fitting that an artist who’s witnessed the evolution of M+ during its construction process was tasked with developing a three-year project that is supposed to prompt the institution to reimagine ways of exhibition-making and continuously evolve the space, while rendering it multifunctional. One condition is consistent, says Võ: “People have to engage. It should be fun.”
Auditorium, Tsuen Wan Town Hall / Hong Kong / Jan 11, 2025 / Ernest Wan /
Founded by Sanders Lau as recently as 2022, NOĒMA has already taken to calling itself “Hong Kong’s leading chamber choir” – and indeed, with its programmes in this 2024/25 season of numerous serious and challenging works, it puts other local choral groups in the shade. It had a slightly different line-up of singers for each of its past concerts, and for its recent performance at Tsuen Wan Town Hall, it comprised four sopranos and three each of altos, tenors and basses. Among them were four members of the renowned British choir Tenebrae — one of each voice type — who in the days before the concert had shared with the other performers their expertise in the British 20th-century a cappella music that constituted that evening’s programme.
The evening opened with John Tavener’s The Lamb (1982), a simple setting of William Blake’s famous Songs of Innocence. This served as a gentle warm-up for the choir, producing a sense of rapt wonderment. In the Hymn to St Cecilia (1942) by Benjamin Britten, the choir sang from the outset with a lilting fluency befitting the patron saint of music. The important lengthy soprano solo was sung by Tenebrae’s Katie Trethewey, whose fluttering vibrato was a letdown, while the same group’s Tom Robson, in his brief tenor solo near the end (“O wear your tribulation like a rose”), made an unforgettable contribution, with a voice sweet and clarion.
Sanders Lau conducting NOĒMA. Photo by Calvin Sit. Courtesy of NOĒMA.
The rest of the works all deal with death and the beyond. Lau led the singers in a moving rendition of Herbert Howells’s Requiem (1932), its emotional power deriving from the ably sustained slow chords and the many attendant dissonances, especially in the two sombre Latin-text movements. The ensuing Lux aeterna by John Cameron (1996) fits a similar text to Nimrod from Edward Elgar’s orchestral Enigma Variations (1899). The performance of this miniature, riddled with swoops of sevenths, was a rushed affair little suggestive of celestial peace, and was at any rate superfluous and anticlimactic, so luminous already was NOĒMA’s pianississimo delivery of the words “Et lux perpetua” in the Howells.
After the intermission, the choir was divided into two for an echo effect in William H Harris’s Faire is the Heaven (1925), and this time fine pacing and vocal control evoked serenity and brought out the harmonic surprises towards the concluding “endlesse perfectnesse”. This was followed by Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell (1918), a set of six motets of increasing textural complexity, a welcome choice inasmuch as the programme had thus far been dominated by homophony. The male singers now came to prominence, as their cries of “Thy God, thy life, thy cure” in the opening motet forcefully demonstrated. Imitative passages proved effective, and the lines “Eternal be the sleep” in the fourth motet and “But let them sleep” in the fifth were either chordally or contrapuntally hypnotic. The encore, Richard Rodney Bennett’s A Good-Night (1999), gave further comfort and closed what was indeed a good night of choral balm.
是夜表演以泰雲納的《羔羊》（1982年）揭開序幕，該曲為英國詩人布雷克名作《天真之歌》譜出簡約的合唱作品，是合唱團的熱身表演，營造出令人欣喜和投入的氣氛。在布烈頓的《聖西西利讚歌》（1942年）中，合唱團由初段開始便輕快流暢地演唱，恰如其分地歌頌了作品所描寫的音樂守護神。較長的重要女高音獨唱部份由Tenebrae的Katie Trethewey演唱，然而她飄搖的顫音令人失望；篇幅較短的男高音作品由來自同一合唱團的Tom Robson主唱，他以甜美清脆的嗓音在曲末唱出「O wear your tribulation like a rose」（苦困就像玫瑰配飾一樣），令人一聽難忘。
中場休息後，合唱團為哈里斯的《美哉天庭》（1925年）分成兩組來呈現回音效果，優美的節奏和聲音控制塑造出寧靜安謐，更以令人驚喜的和聲完成尾聲的「無盡完美」。接下來是柏利的《離別之歌》（1918年），這首合唱組曲由六首贊歌組成，曲式質感層層遞進，為至今僅以主線旋律為主的選曲一新耳目。男歌唱家主導了這首作品，在首段贊歌中高呼 「Thy God, thy life, thy cure」（你的上帝、你的生命、你的療藥 ），有力地展現曲式的層次感。多個模仿段表達出更深的感染力，而第四首贊歌的歌詞「Eternal be the sleep」（從此長眠）和第五首贊歌的 「But let them sleep」（且讓他們睡去）在和弦或伴奏上都展現出懾人魅力。合唱團在安歌環節帶來貝納特的暖心作品《良宵》（1999年），為美好的合唱之夜作結。
Angela Su’s work flows from the intersection of science and art, where intricacy meets imagination. With roots in biochemistry and visual arts, her practice is a dance between the tangible and the ethereal, as she weaves delicate lines into intricate drawings, often unsettling and always profound. Her creations—whether on paper, in video or through hair embroidery—speak of bodies in flux, beings in metamorphosis, and the tension between control and chaos.
Su’s art explores the shifting nature of the human body, its transformations, and the interplay of science and fiction. Through her meticulous renderings of invented anatomies, she questions the certainty of the medical gaze, creating speculative worlds where bones become snowflakes, veins twist into vines, and organisms float in space, suspended in the in-between. Her hybrid figures exist in a state of becoming, fragile yet fierce, inviting us into the mystery of the body as it unravels and reforms.
In her hands, the body is a site of resistance, a vessel for transformation and a story waiting to be told. With each line, Su reimagines the universe, drawing us into a world where the boundaries of the possible stretch beyond the limits of flesh and form, offering us a glimpse of something both intimate and infinite.
Jessica Wan: Can you tell us why you decided to undertake your residency in the UK?Angela Su: From April to June this year, I participated in a private artist residency programme in north London, which partly aimed to allow artists to leave their own workshops and take a rest. Because of how busy I have been these few years, I have been constantly stressed, so it was a welcome respite. I first visited London in 2018 at the invitation of the Wellcome Collection, for a two-week residency in the Contagious Cities project that it had commissioned. The last time I was in London was to take part in Frieze London in 2019. I had good experiences both times I was there, so I have been hoping to stay in the city for a longer period.
I had planned to take some taxidermy courses during this residency, but it didn’t happen in the end. I found several places that offered courses when I was visiting in 2018 but, perhaps due to the pandemic, many of them had been cancelled. A friend told me about Get Stuffed, an old place in Islington which has been run by at least three generations. The shop is inconspicuous; its windows and door are behind bars. All visitors have to make an appointment and are only allowed to enter after ringing the doorbell.
As I got through the door, my heart began to race and my eyes widened. Taxidermy mounts of different sizes filled the 300 to 400 sq ft shop space, not in an orderly display like those of a boutique but rather like in a workshop. Through these piles of lifelike animal carcasses was a narrow aisle, with a messy desk at the end of it. I didn’t know if there was a huge workspace hidden at the back, but I imagined there was, and it was a bloody one. Apart from the ordinary mounts of rabbits, white mice and birds, there were also rarer specimens such as bears, lions and kangaroos. The shop owner told me that these carcasses were all donations from zoos and not hunting trophies. Often when an animal died in a zoo, the zookeepers didn’t know what to do, so they asked him to make taxidermy of the body. Other, more common animals were also obtained through humane channels.
The shop owner emphasised that it takes years of training and practice to become a taxidermist. Even if you know how to taxidermy one species, it doesn’t mean you’d know how to do it with another. If a piece is not properly preserved, it might collapse, rot and breed maggots. He was honest enough to tell me that, rather than taking a class on taxidermy, it’d be better to buy books and teach myself, and to practise consistently. I casually asked if I could film his work process, and he answered that his shop had been passed down for generations, the techniques were not shared with outsiders and filming the taxidermy process was not allowed. He also mentioned that many artists, such as Damien Hirst, had collaborated with him. The real human skull used in Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull [For the Love of God, 2007] was provided by him. After just a 30-minute conversation, I felt that this shop owner was extremely professional and had a true craftsman’s spirit. But at the same time, he had a certain attitude, as if he didn’t want to entertain visitors who were there to satisfy their curiosity, let alone tourists like me. However, after a local friend explained, I learned that years ago, Get Stuffed had been attacked by an animal rights organisation, which is why the shop’s windows were protected by iron bars. No wonder the shop owner was so wary. Is it right to use animal carcasses as art pieces? I don’t really have an answer to that question. I only remember walking down the aisle in the shop, feeling as if time had frozen, as if I were walking between life and death.
Hunterian Museum, London. Photo: Angela Su.
JW: In a similar way to how early architectural drawings were heavily influenced by anatomical perspectives and the structural form of the human body, your works often lie at the intersection of different disciplines. How have your studies influenced your work?AS: It might be because I majored in science during university that I have always been interested in research beyond the realm of fine art. I often read books about the history of medicine or the history of technology and think about how to incorporate these discussions into my work. This time in London, I noticed that bookshops often promote books on popular science, which might have something to do with the post-pandemic times, or perhaps it was related to the widespread discussions on [subjects like] artificial intelligence in recent years. So, I took the opportunity to buy many popular science books. I love London because of its long history, including the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. I was incredibly excited to see Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine in the Science Museum. The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History in Hackney [in east London] has a certain Victorian Gothic horror feel to it, which also fascinates me.
Whenever I visit a country, I make a point of visiting the local medical museum. I remember when I visited London in 2018, the Hunterian Museum was closed for renovations, so I was fortunate to have the chance to visit this time. I didn’t expect such a small-looking museum to have so many anatomical specimens, neatly arranged in bottles. The way the specimens are presented is different from the Natural History Museum or the Grant Museum of Zoology [both also in London], which retain a 19th-century atmosphere. Typically, historical museums of this kind only use ordinary glass, which reflects light, making it difficult for visitors to clearly view the exhibits. But the Hunterian Museum is different; it uses expensive, non-reflective museum glass, allowing visitors to get closer and view the specimens in high definition. I wanted so much to sit down and sketch right away, but the collection was so vast that I couldn’t possibly finish it all.
The Natural History Museum in London emphasises historicity, but I noticed that the explanatory texts throughout the museum often mention reflections on colonial history. Institutions like this often face historical issues, as many exhibits were acquired through unfair means during the British Empire period, either through trade or plunder. However, they openly acknowledge this history and claim to be working towards better ways to address these issues. Of course, I can’t know for sure whether the museum will truly handle these complex problems, and it’s possible that displaying these explanatory texts is already enough to avoid criticism. On the other hand, precisely because of the need to address decolonisation, artefacts that used to be part of the permanent collection at the Wellcome Collection before the pandemic [that perpetuate racist, sexist or ableist views] have been removed. This is quite disappointing. I’ve heard that these artefacts can now only be displayed sporadically in temporary exhibitions within specific contexts.
Sewing Together My Split Mind, Straight Stitch by Angela Su, Hair embroidery on fabric, 2020. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
JW: What was the thinking behind the three hair embroidery pieces you exhibited in the Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art exhibition at the Barbican Centre in February? AS: It was a very interesting exhibition, and many of the works were related to freedom of expression. Unfortunately, in February, the Barbican Centre abruptly cancelled a talk titled The Shoah after Gaza, which addressed the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. In response, a collector called on the artists participating in Unravel to withdraw from the exhibition in protest and to support freedom of speech. I believe six artists eventually responded to this call. One thing to clarify is that the Barbican’s public programming department and its art exhibition department are two separate entities. Personally, I see this incident as a public relations and administrative disaster. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is highly complex, involving nearly a century of history and conflict. Rather than calling on artists to withdraw from the exhibition, it might have been more productive to organise a dialogue or forum on how art and cultural institutions can navigate such challenging and contentious situations.
I think the curatorial team handled the situation well, given the pressure. They placed notices in the gallery spaces vacated by the artists who withdrew, explaining the context to visitors. They respected the artists’ choices and didn’t hide any facts. Malaysian artist Yee I-Lann’s approach was commendable. She didn’t withdraw but made an intervention by displaying books on Gaza’s history in front of her work, inviting the audience to delve deeper into the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, for artists, the dilemma is whether to let the work continue to be shown and keep the conversation about freedom of expression alive, or to withdraw as a form of protest. It’s a difficult decision. Simplifying such a complex issue into a binary opposition by demanding that artists exit or cancel exhibitions seems reductive. After careful consideration, I decided to continue exhibiting my work.
I exhibited three pieces from my Sewing Together My Split Mind: Straight Stitch series. I began this series in 2019, focusing on bodily perception and representation while exploring the trauma and healing caused by social events. The objective of stitching is to heal but the process can be incredibly painful. After trauma, how do we heal? Can we ever fully recover? Or will trauma leave permanent scars? Is it even possible to choose not to heal? The audience is free to find their own answers to these questions.
JW: After this residency, what other subjects do you want to continue exploring? AS: Probably subjects related to technology and artificial intelligence. These are popular topics in recent years but I don’t want to give the impression of jumping on a bandwagon. I’ve always been interested in science fiction and speculative literature, and these elements often appear in my work. My first solo exhibition, in 2008, was about imagining cyborgs, and my 2013 solo show explored the relationship between humans and machines. In 2015, I initiated a science fiction publishing project called Dark Fluid. The book uses science fiction to imagine the future of Hong Kong. The project invited artists, cultural workers and activists involved in social movements to participate in a writing workshop, after which each participant created a short text or visual piece. These works, along with essays and workshop transcripts, were included in the book.
Two months in London felt too short, and there were so many things I wanted to do. One of my regrets was not being able to meet with Hong Kong artists who have relocated there. Indeed, I think the topic of Hongkongers moving to the UK is worth exploring. While this isn’t part of my own research focus, I hope that in future, artists will take this up as a subject for their work.
Jessica Wan: 你剛剛提到解剖學，而早期的建築繪圖深受解剖視角和人體形態結構的影响。那麼，這些研究是怎麼影響到你的創作呢？Angela Su: 可能因為我大學主修科學，所以我一直關注非純藝術領域的研究，經常讀一些關於醫學歷史或者科技歷史的書籍，然後思考如何把這些討論融入我的作品中。這次到倫敦，察覺書店很多時候會推廣科普書籍，這可能是疫情後的現象，也可能與人工智能和量子物理學近年的廣泛討論有關，我於是趁機買了很多科普的書籍。喜愛倫敦，因爲它的歷史久遠，見證了啟蒙運動和工業革命這兩個重要年代。當我在倫敦科學博物館 （Science Museum）裡面看到Charles Babbage 的Difference Engine, 我會感到非常興奮。位於Hackney區的The Viktor Wynd Museum Of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History帶有多少維多利亞時代歌德式恐怖，也令我著迷。
我通常到每一個國家，都會特地到當地的醫學博物館。記得2018年到倫敦的時候，亨特博物館（Hunterian Museum）正閉館進行裝修，所以興幸這次有機會可以參觀。沒想到這看起來小小的博物館裡有那麽多一瓶一瓶的生物解剖樣本，而且樣本的呈現方法並不像自然博物館（Natural History Museum）或倫敦動物學博物館 (Grant Zoology Museum)般保持原有19世紀的風格。通常各地這類型歷史悠久的博物館一般只採用普通的玻璃，這種玻璃會反光，觀眾很難清晰地觀賞展品，但亨特博物館不一樣，它用的是不反光的貴價博物館玻璃（museum glass），讓觀眾跟展品的距離拉近，可以「高清」地觀賞展品。我當時很想坐下來速寫，但因為藏品太豐富，根本畫不完。
Jessica Wan: 記得你有三幅髮絲刺繡作品參加了 「Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art」 這個展覽。Angela Su: 對，我被邀參與了巴比肯中心（Barbican Centre）在二月份舉辦的展覽「Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art」。這是一個很有意思的展覽，其中有很多作品都和言論自由有關。奈何，巴比肯中心在二月份臨時取消了一個關於巴勒斯坦人在加沙被屠殺的講座（The Shoah after Gaza）。某藏家有見及此，立即呼籲參展Unravel的藝術家退出展覽，從而向巴比肯中心抗議及表達對言論自由的支持，好像最後有六位藝術家響應了。要澄清一點，巴比肯中心負責公眾項目的部門與藝術展覽的部門是屬於兩個不同的單位。這次事故，我個人認為是一場公關及行政災難，加上以巴問題複雜，牽涉起碼近一百年的歷史和衝突。與其呼籲藝術家退出展覽，不如舉辦講座對談，探討藝術文化機構怎樣可以處理和面對如此複雜兩不討好的情況。
這次我展出了三幅屬於 《Sewing Together My Split Mind: Straight Stitch》系列的作品。這個系列是從2019年開始創作的，主要關注身體的感知與表象，並探討社會事件所致的創傷與癒合。縫合的目的是治癒，但這個過程非常痛苦。經歷創傷後，我們該如何療癒？我們真的可以痊癒嗎？還是創傷會永遠留下疤痕？可以選擇不療癒嗎？觀眾可以自行決定屬於自己的答案。
Jessica Wan: 這次駐留後，有什麼想要繼續討論的主題嗎？Angela Su: 可能是關於科技、人工智能之類的主題吧。這些都是近年熱門的話題，但我不想給人一個投機的印象。其實我一直對科幻小說及推想文學很有興趣，作品也不時流露科幻或關於科技的元素。我在2008年的第一個個展是關於cyborg賽博格的想像；2013年的個展是關於人類和機械的關係。2015年我發起了一個科幻創作出版計劃叫《暗流體》。《暗流體》這本書以科幻小說為方法，是一個探討關於香港未來想像的思考練習。這計劃邀請藝術文化工作者以及活躍於社會運動的人士共同參與一個寫作工作坊，工作坊後參與者各自創作一部短篇文字或圖像作品，連同論文及工作坊的文字記錄，一併收錄於此書當中。
Rossi & Rossi / Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong / Sep 28 – Nov 14, 2024 /
The adjective that you will most often see associated with Nepali artist, preservationist, novelist and scholar Lain Singh Bangdel (1919–2002) is “iconic”. He is the man who single-handedly brought contemporary art into the Himalayan country, while at the same time being the most dedicated scholar of Nepal’s artistic past, painstakingly and doggedly compiling catalogues of looted or lost art, and making a remarkable contribution to our understanding of Nepal’s history and artistic heritage. A pioneer and the first truly international Nepali artist, Bangdel kept his deep interest in his country’s ancient art rather separate from his own artistic practice, which mainly consists of very modernist oil paintings, with clear influences from his contemporaries from all around the world.
A recent show at Rossi & Rossi Wong Chuk Hang’s gallery was a very rare chance for people in Hong Kong to get a glimpse of the work of this household name in Nepal – a small but still quite comprehensive overview of the different styles and approaches Bangdel adopted throughout his career as a painter.
Bangdel was born near a tea estate in Darjeeling, India to a Rai family – an ethnic group indigenous to the Khotang valley in eastern Nepal. Before settling in Nepal in the second half of his life, he travelled extensively in India and Europe, absorbing new ideas and influences that he would then apply to his own work, switching styles and approaches but always painting about Nepal, its scenery, its people and its colours.
Bangdel graduated from the Government College of Art and Craft in Calcutta, now Kolkata, with a degree in Fine Arts in 1945, and spent his time in the city not only studying arts but also writing a number of novels about Nepal in Nepali. Initially, he adopted a rather classical, 19th-century style of writing, until his novel The Cripple’s Friend (1951), which is regarded as the first Nepali work of fiction written in a realistic style. This literary shift foreshadowed his growing interest in contemporary ways of describing modern life, whether in visual art or writing, which is the art form for which he is most recognised today.
Mother & Child by Lain Singh Bangdel, Oil on canvas, 1965. Courtesy Rossi & Rossi.
In 1952, he left for Europe, letting himself be inspired by Picasso and other cubist artists, Gauguin, Cézanne and, more generally, modernism. In the early 50s, Bangdel was part of a group of Asian artists residing in Paris, including Zao Wou-Ki and Sanyu from China; Affandi from Indonesia; Zubeida Agha, one of the first Pakistani modern artists; and Paritosh Sen and Akbar Padamsee from India. Like them, Bangdel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, which is when he became exposed to and absorbed the techniques and aesthetics of the modernist movements that were being developed in Europe at the time.
Unlike some of his Asian contemporaries in Paris, though, he never explored western scenery or themes, transposing onto his paintings only the techniques but not the subject matter; whether they are landscapes, depictions of social vignettes or portraits, his paintings are always unmistakably about Nepal. The Rossi & Rossi show features examples of the different styles he used to paint Nepali themes. In his realistic phase, Bangdel painted portraits and self portraits in a nearly academic style, infusing just a slight touch of irony or tenderness, depending on the person portrayed – keeping the irony mostly for his self portraits. When he moved onto abstraction, he depicted Himalayan villages as geometrical clusters of colour set in the middle of a grey-to-white scale of snow and mountain peaks, or azure rain, in works such as Rainy Season (1974) and Winter in the Valley (1984). In spite of their abstraction, with only patches of colour depicted amid a snowy landscape, a close look reveals recognisable Nepali village architecture, with its characteristic tiles, thatched roofs and multiple front windows. In A Village near Kathmandu (1963), on the other hand, he sticks to more representational depictions of the Himalayan countryside, with rural houses in red and yellow, thatched roofs faithfully reproduced, contrasting against the sharp white of the snow-covered peaks behind them.
All of these works were produced after Bangdel had returned to Nepal and decided to settle down there – initially, at the invitation of King Mahendra, who had asked him in 1961 to live in the country to help modernise the art scene there.
In the 60s and again in the 90s, Bangdel showed how deeply he had been influenced by Picasso, especially with paintings such as Mother and Child (1965), where this eternal theme is explored through precise contours and blurry details, against a very colourful background; and even more so in Mother Nepal II (1990) which, in its nearly monochrome blue and pale blue palette, recalls the Spanish artist’s Blue Period. Not that Bangdel’s work is derivative, even when the influences he has absorbed are so recognisable: in works such as Misty Mt. Everest (1978) he mixes abstraction, in how he depicts the mist and the clouds, and very careful realism, in the portions of the painting that show the mountain’s granite in all its details. In order to pay homage to his deep knowledge of traditional Nepali sculpture and his work as a conservationist, the show, co-curated by Rossi & Rossi and Kathmandu-based Swosti Rajbhandari Kayastha, is also dotted with classical Buddhist statues and sculptures, in bronze and hard stone, which are what we more commonly associate with Nepali art. In this, too, Bangdel caused a revolution of sorts, pushing both private and public institutions to become more engaged with protecting the country’s cultural heritage.
From his own personal observations in his copious writings, we can see how he positioned himself as a “Nepali that is new to Nepal”, balancing the desire to be fully acknowledged as a Nepali artist, in spite of the decades he had spent out of the country, and to be someone who challenges the traditional notions of figurative art, in line with the task that had been given him by the king. The lasting influence and prestige of his work show that he was more than successful in his endeavour.
他在1952年前往歐洲，受到畢卡索和其他立體派藝術家、高更、塞尚以及泛義上現代主義的啟發。 在50年代初，Bangdel與一群亞洲藝術家在巴黎居住，其中包括來自中國的趙無極和常玉、印尼的 Affandi、巴基斯坦最早的現代藝術家之一Zubeida Agha，以及印度的 Paritosh Sen 和 Akbar Padamsee。Bangdel與他們一樣在法國美術學院學習。他在那裡接觸並吸收了當時正在歐洲發展形成的現代主義運動的技術和美學。
可是，有別於在巴黎的一些亞洲同代藝術家，Bangdel從未描繪過西方的風景或主題，他只在畫作中運用了所學的技巧，而非主題。無論是關於風景、生活片段還是人像，他的畫作總是毫無疑問地以尼泊爾為主題。Rossi & Rossi的展覽展示了他描繪尼泊爾的各種畫作風格。在他的寫實創作階段，Bangdel以類似學院派的風格繪畫人物肖像和自畫像，並根據描繪的對象加入些微的諷刺或感性元素（諷刺通常只會在他的自畫像中出現）。當他轉向抽象創作後，他在《Rainy Season》（1974 年）和《Winter in the Valley》（1984 年）等作品中將喜馬拉雅村莊描繪成位於灰白色的雪和山峰或天藍色雨水中的幾何色彩斑塊。雖然這些作品比較抽象，只在雪景中的描畫了幾塊色彩，但如果走近觀察就能辨認出其中的尼泊爾村莊建築，包括其特色瓦片、茅草屋頂和多個前窗。然而在《A Village near Kathmandu》（1963 年）中，他卻用更具體的方式描畫喜馬拉雅鄉村。他以紅色和黃色繪畫農村的房屋，寫實呈現茅草屋頂，與背景中亮白色的山峰形成鮮明對比。
Blue Lotus Gallery is proud to announce the latest exhibition, Shooting Hoops by Austin Bell, coinciding with the release of his self-published book of the same title.
In this ambitious project, Bell catalogued every outdoor basketball court in Hong Kong—an impressive total of 2,549 courts. His journey took him through the city’s nooks and crannies, relying solely on public transport. Through aerial photography, the images highlight the unique designs of these courts, their ubiquity, and their stark contrast against the city’s vertical density.
This exploration not only mapped the locations of the courts but also captured the diverse topography of Hong Kong.
Tai Kwun Contemporary proudly presents renowned contemporary artist Alicja Kwade’s inaugural solo exhibition in Hong Kong. Alicja Kwade: Pretopia showcases nine works that spanning different periods of the artist’s career, together with newly commissioned installations tailored to the history and architecture of Tai Kwun’s F Hall. Blending various mediums, including sculpture, sound, light, and performative installation, Kwade draws inspiration from abstract scientific and philosophical concepts, posing questions about reality and social structures. Alicja Kwade: Pretopia is on view from 10 January to 6 April 2025 as part of Tai Kwun Contemporary’s new Breakthrough series. Additionally, Kwade’s first site-specific public art in Hong Kong, Waiting Pavilions, is now on view. The work transforms the landscape of the Prison Yard, investigating the passage of time in the setting of a former prison, bridging the past and present within this landmark heritage site. The work was unveiled on December 20, 2024, and will remain on display through the second half of 2026.
Artist Alicja Kwade (born in Katowice, Poland, and currently based in Berlin), is one of her generation’s leading contemporary artists. Leveraging her expansive experience in outdoor public sculptures and installations, Kwade has crafted a perceptually extraordinary multiverse at Tai Kwun called Pretopia, a conceptual state preceding utopia. We see a clock turning in reverse, rocks floating in orbit, an anti-fragile chair, and clock hands faintly shifting its visibility with time. The exhibition offers a sensory experience in a sculptural environment that intertwines reality and illusion. It invites the audience to contemplate and reflect on their perception of time, space, systems, and the world.
Alicja Kwade: Pretopia is part of Tai Kwun Contemporary’s new Breakthrough series, which underlines emerging artistic positions through solo presentations, commissions, and innovative formats. For Spring 2025, Alicja Kwade: Pretopia is presented alongside Hu Xiaoyuan: Veering and Maeve Brennan: Records. These solo exhibitions by three female artists explore materials and storytelling through diverse approaches.
During the exhibition, Tai Kwun Contemporary will host a series of diverse public and education programmes, including Family Day at Tai Kwun Contemporary and Teacher’s Morning! and Teacher’s Workshop offering insights into the artists’ exploration of material and narrative. Guided Tour: Who’s Next? invites docents to share their perspectives on the artist’s creative process, techniques, and sources of inspiration with the audience.
The 1980s were volatile. Amid uncertainty over Hong Kong’s future before the signing of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the FCC’s relocation in November 1982 to its current home, the Old Dairy Farm Building, offered some stability for a club with an itinerant history. A few months earlier, in August 1982, the city’s social climate had plummeted as the Hong Kong government announced the sale of a key piece of land to the Bank of China, triggering the Hong Kong dollar and the city’s stock market to tumble. The site was symbolically significant: Murray House, the officers’ quarters of the British Army at Murray Barracks at the bottom of Garden Road. The sale was a first step in the dismantling of British military facilities in Admiralty.
Visitors at the opening of ‘IM Pei: Life is Architecture’ mimicking IM Pei, who is photographed on-site in front of his Grand Louvre project in Paris, circa 1984. Photo: John Batten. Courtesy M+.
The current big show at Hong Kong’s M+ museum is devoted to the work of Chinese-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei (known universally as IM Pei, 1917-2019), designer of Hong Kong’s Bank of China Tower and other prestigious projects, including the Louvre
Pyramid in Paris. The exhibition avoids discussing the controversy surrounding the construction of the tower but gives an excellent introduction to Pei’s vision of contemporary architectural design and planning, one that reflects Hong Kong’s own urban development challenges.
Born into a middle-class Suzhou family, Pei’s father, Pei Tsuyee, was an accountant and career banker for the Bank of China, working in different cities around the country. IM Pei was born in Guangzhou and the family then moved to Hong Kong in 1918, where his father opened the Bank of China’s first branch outside the mainland. Away from China’s volatile economy, political uncertainty and regional warlords, he built a stable, profitable foreign exchange business for the Chinese Republican government, which later had branches in London and New York.
IM Pei’s formative years and early education were spent in Hong Kong. In 1927, the Pei family moved to Shanghai, again for Pei senior’s work. These early Hong Kong experiences and connections would later be useful, and his cosmopolitan persona, including learning written Chinese and spoken English, was formed in Hong Kong.
Pei moved to the United States in 1935, studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University. His teachers included Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier and Bauhaus school founder Walter Gropius, and he adopted their architectural milieu: a modernist design sensibility of clean, angular lines. For a 1946 graduate masterclass led by Gropius, Pei’s conceptual design for a Shanghai art museum dismissed the Chinese motifs often seen in Shanghai architecture of the period, as they were “added to public buildings in a superficial way”. He demonstrated the inklings of a personal style in this early design.
He identified two Chinese elements that were to feature in later projects. Visiting his grandfather in Suzhou and the city’s famous gardens as a child, he appreciated, as related by Gropius, “bare Chinese walls” and “small open patios”. These design elements were realised when Pei worked for a prominent New York property developer, William Zeckendorf of Webb and Knapp, on large-scale, high-rise office and residential designs between 1948 to 1955. These projects included ground-level “social interaction” spaces for art, gardens and open plazas. The company strove for architectural excellence and profitability, and Zeckendorf later quipped that employing Pei “was a matter of de’ Medici looking for a Michelangelo”.
Site model of the Bank of China Tower (detail), with surrounding buildings and environment, acrylic and wood, 1988. Courtesy Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited. Photo: John Batten. Courtesy M+.
Pei already had a reputation for high-quality work when he set up his own architectural practice in 1955. Comprising a multi-disciplinary team working collaboratively, it designed commercial and residential projects, including for Webb and Knapp. However, its scope expanded in 1966 with his appointment to design the John F Kennedy Library at Harvard. Immediately, his company was selected to design more prominent and prestigious public and international buildings and museum projects, increasingly using geometric forms in its designs. Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, said that Pei was selected to design the library because his work was “always beautiful”.
Pei’s first project in Hong Kong, Sunning Plaza (built 1977-82) in Causeway Bay, reflects his designs for similar US projects. It was a quality commercial office tower and residential block with a small, interconnecting outdoor plaza, sadly demolished in 2013. The plaza provided the district with a rare outdoor space in which to sit, eat and drink. One late-night bar built its identity by providing live music and free peanuts, with the discarded shells thrown onto the ground, trampled underfoot by customers.
Pei’s landmark Bank of China Tower (built 1983-89), with its tall, triangular form, is one of Hong Kong’s defining images. Seen in advertising and travel promotions, it ranks alongside Lion Rock, the view from The Peak and double-deck trams as an icon of the city.
The Hong Kong government’s announcement to sell the Murray House site was controversial. It was accused of favouritism towards China, as the land’s selling price was considerably lower, with payment terms spread over 13 years, compared to a recent sale to the MTR Corporation of a similar-sized parcel of land in Admiralty. The official spin surrounding this, and similar later land deals, would become familiar, culminating in the agreement to build a new airport at Chek Lap Kok: each deal was promoted as “confidence” by the mainland in Hong Kong’s future.
The Admiralty area, reflected in its name, had been the centre of British armed forces and government activity in the colony and region since the earliest days of colonisation. The Bank of China land sale was the first in the slow transformation of the area to predominantly civilian use. The large Victoria Barracks army site became Hong Kong Park in 1991. HMS Tamar’s naval facilities were returned and, after extra land reclamation, became the new government headquarters and Legislative Council complex in the early 2000s.
Surrounded by major roads and on a sloping site, the Bank of China Tower’s location was described at the time of construction as “difficult”. According to Sandi Pei, Pei’s son, who worked on the project, and the M+ exhibition curators, Pei “… negotiated with government officials [and] by exchanging a public area in one [western] corner for another space, the site was reshaped into a parallelogram with the tower framed by triangular gardens.”
As the building took shape, its fung shui was questioned, together with the intention of having such angular, knife-like architecture. Pei dismissed such talk, reflecting his banking client, and its majority shareholder, whose mainland campaigns argued against such old-fashioned, superstitious ideas. Undeniably, the unique, sharp-edged form of the building is strong – especially seen from near the chief executive’s residence (the former Governor’s House).
Lease brochure cover showing an illustration of office tower and apartment tower (detail), Sunning Plaza, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, 1981. Printing ink on paper. Courtesy Chien Lee. Photo: John Batten.
Working with his long-time structural engineering collaborator, Leslie E Robertson (1928-2021), Pei developed the building’s form by constructing four steel corner columns, onto which weight transfers from its distinctive triangular/diamond framework. The building’s great height and angular appearance give it great presence, alternatively contrasting and blending with Hong Kong island’s mountain-backed and harbour-fronted urban topography.
If there were initial spatial restrictions, these are not obvious now. The tower’s footprint on the renegotiated, reshaped site aligns with Central and the surrounding roads, and the tower has good ground-level pedestrian access and an imposing presence. Its architectural height is 315 metres; its two distinctive antenna masts give it a total height of 367 metres.
Despite its height, the Bank of China Tower does not dominate Hong Kong like tall buildings in other cities, such as Taipei 101 in Taiwan. The building backs onto The Peak and, with mountains and other high-rise buildings running through Hong Kong island, views of the tower are blocked even from nearby Sheung Wan and Happy Valley. It is the tower’s architecture that has a strong, now iconic, presence.
The early controversies are now largely forgotten; however, Pei ensured the tower’s place in the city’s imagination because he strongly believed that “architecture is not about isolated objects in space. It is a civic art that contains and ennobles human activity in an enduring way that uplifts society.”
I.M. Pei: Life is Architecture, M+, Hong Kong, 29 June 2024 – 5 January 2025
This article was originally published in The Correspondent, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Hong Kong magazine, October 2024.
It’s no simple task to pin down Wu Jiaru’s practice. Blending mythical themes with personal experiences, contemporary cogitations with historical perspectives, her paintings, sculptures and other artworks are the results of constant discovery. Her artistic creations have been shown in New York, London and across Asia. On the occasion of her most recent exhibition, A Brief Digression, presented at HART Haus, Wu sat down with Artomity for a conversation about the way she makes art, the flow of people and goods, and the way information is lost and recovered through multiple stages of translation.
Brady Ng: We’re visiting your studio. Tell me about it. Wu Jiaru: It’s like a storage unit! My studio is in HART Haus, which is basically a coworking space for artists. When I need to make larger pieces, I use the public spaces that are more open. My own studio space is mainly for storing artworks.
I’ve been renting space here since I graduated from City University of Hong Kong in 2017.
BN: Jeffrey Shaw, who is one of the pioneers of digital media, hired you as a research associate. Did he influence what you do? WJ: He is an inspiring figure. But at the same time, I don’t really categorise my career as an artist based on media.
BN: Your show A Brief Digression is currently at HART Haus. What’s it about? WJ: I’ve made a lot of art about identity as it relates to people’s relocation. That reflects my own status in Hong Kong, where I’m an immigrant. But this year, I realised those changes aren’t limited to myself. Everyone has a lot of baggage—metaphorically and literally.
Installation view of A Brief Digression, 2024. Courtesy the artist.
I thought about the journey of objects that have travelled with me to different places, and the care that I give them when I wrap up and pack them over and over again. There are some themes of logistics, of going from point A to point B, but that route is not always straightforward. There could be detours and long paths during the journey.
BN: What’s the digression that you refer to? WJ: It’s the English translation of a phrase I’ve been thinking about (不達). There are different layers of meaning from there, like taking longer to do something if you try to go too quickly (欲速則不達) or failing to express oneself precisely (辭不達意).
These ideas are a bit like logistical paths being congested, and goods not being able to reach their destinations efficiently.
BN: You were a one-person crew during the show’s installation. WJ: I worked on the entire exhibition and installation process on my own. I’m quite familiar with HART Haus, so I wanted to experiment and make adjustments to create something that is site-specific. I’m more patient with the space here.
BN: You’ve been in Hong Kong for nearly a decade. Do you still carry that identity as an outsider or immigrant? WJ: I don’t think I can shed that identity. It’s not that I emphasise it but people see my work and say that a born-and-bred Hong Kong artist probably wouldn’t follow the same line of thinking or might not make art like I do.
That’s how these keywords became associated with me, but that doesn’t bother me.
Grandma’s Twelve Lovers ii by Wu Jiaru, Oil and acrylic on elmwood, 30.4 x 21.3 x 2 cm, 2022. Courtesy the artist.
BN: How do you specifically think about layering different ideas into your work? WJ: It’s like muscle memory for me. I prefer to express myself in ways that aren’t so direct. Sometimes, this can feel like it’s a puzzle. I also want to keep it interesting for people who like my art, so they don’t get bored. Their interactions with my artworks can lead to different feelings or conclusions.
Putting my work out there makes me feel vulnerable. I want to explore new things as much as possible—at least that keeps me happy.
BN: Some of your artworks in A Brief Digression have a quality of vulnerability. They’re literally hidden in cardboard boxes. WJ: Yes! It’s all about being in a package or being like a message in a bottle—it’s floating in the sea but nobody knows when the contents will be taken out by another person. Yet a stranger may eventually come along, open it and reveal a surprise within.
BN: Francis Bacon appears in your work repeatedly. You even made a moving-image work, C Bacon (2015), that directly refers to him. Why? WJ: I find his sense of aesthetics and his life story appealing. He was also the first artist whose work left an impression on me when I was a kid, and I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s how someone can express themselves.” It’s impossible to shake off the feeling or imprint after that. He’s a constant source of inspiration, and there are times when I try to unlearn things and break Bacon’s composition.
It’s also his use of colour. As a painter, I think a lot about how colours come together in a scene or image, and I appreciate how he approached this. On that note, when it comes to colour, I also like Matisse a lot, but not his lackadaisical brushstrokes.
Overall, my practice is informed more by western or expressionist styles, even though my artistic education was chiefly in the Chinese-Soviet style.
BN: You were one of the 2022 Asian Cultural Council grantees. What did you do during your six months in the US? WJ: I visited museums often and spent a lot of time walking around New York, and I worked hard to develop an understanding of what the artistic circles were like there by having conversations with artists. I was the most interested in Asian artists who have gone over and are now based in the US, especially if they were originally from Hong Kong or mainland China. Through my interactions with them, I tried to find out how they subsist.
There were a lot of other things that were memorable, like the subway and the people in general. The energy was different there. I was also a different person—I was more open and small talk was easier with strangers.
After a while, I left New York and visited Angel Island [in San Francisco Bay]. It was an immigrant station in the early 1900s, where immigrants from China and other parts of Asia were processed and sometimes detained for a long time. But it happened to be Juneteenth [June 19, a public holiday marking the end of slavery in the US] when I visited, so the museum was closed. I made some 3D scans of the spaces on the island, and it was an eye-opening place.
For instance, the people who were kept there were separated by race. Chinese people had their meals in one cluster, Europeans were in their own group and so on. There are plaques that describe all of this at the site.
spillover_iv by Wu Jiaru, reflective paint and oil on linen, 90 x 60 x 5 cm, 2024. Courtesy the artist and P21.
BN: Your research focus was on Asian immigrants in the US. How did you approach that?WJ: For some of the people who are a bit older, like the ones who emigrated in the 1970s, I felt like I would be too intrusive if I asked them about their history and experiences, and I felt like that interaction may not be meaningful for them.
So I decided to let those encounters unfold naturally, as fate would flow. Instead of actively seeking out people to interview, it made more sense to me to let connections happen without forcing them.
BN: You travel with a bolt of linen. WJ: A larger roll of linen is part of my show at HART Haus, but I also have another that’s smaller and lighter, and I also bought a bolt in New York and sent it back to Hong Kong. For me, travelling with linen is about anticipating the opportunity to make new work. But I also worry a lot, like can my oils be sent to different places? Would the tubes break? Would they dry out? Would the fabric tear, would the frame warp?
BN: What was your conclusion from the residency? WJ: That I can’t live in New York. It’s a great place to experience and the people are inspiring. But the city’s pace is hasty and it can be difficult to find a balance there.
I feel more comfortable in Hong Kong. No matter what sort of event or opening I go to, there are other people who aren’t constantly in work mode. This place is where I feel comfortable.
BN: Tell me about your tattoo. WJ: It’s a red line on my left arm. If a collector buys this work, they can claim my left arm and anything attached to it. This is written into my will. The logistics and execution will be up to the collector.
There is a point about the legality of all of this: is it, in legal terms, the same as selling a human organ? I’m not sure, but the point of the artwork is about consent rather than the actual transfer of my arm to the person who has the right to claim it.
BN: Has somebody already bought this artwork, Will (2021)? WJ: Yes, and their name is in my will. They can transfer the ownership to another person if they want.
After I die, whoever owns this artwork shall receive a copy of my will, which explains this work in more detail. So the artist statement will only be fully revealed after my passing.
BN: What are you working on now? WJ: I have some series of paintings that are being developed. Some were shown at Supper Club [an alternative art fair held at the Fringe Club in March 2024]—my spillover paintings that are darker and a bit more violent.
I want to continue to develop Unknown Tales. Four of the paintings [Unknown Tales iii, iv, v, vi, all 2024] are in A Brief Digression. I want them to be a continuation of my solo show at Flowers Gallery [To the Naiad’s House, 2022] and include themes of mythology and intimacy.
BN: Tell me about the reflective coating that you use in some of your paintings and sculptures. WJ: It’s related to the scenes I saw in 2019, particularly during the evenings in Western District. That was the first time I experienced tear gas smoke. Right when the canisters begin to release smoke, there’s a flash. I wanted to recreate that moment. I tried it with a lot of silvery materials, and the coating I use now is the closest to the flash effect I want to emulate, in the moment when light fills everything. Now, it’s a flash linked to persistent memories.
BN: We’re speaking in Cantonese now. I’ll file this article with Artomity in English. Then, they’ll translate that text back to Chinese for print, and we’ll end up where we started, but different. WJ: [Laughs] That’s very much like my art practice. Things get lost and found in translation.
要理解吳佳儒的作品一點也不容易。她融合了神話和自己的個人經歷、現代思想和歷史觀點，她的畫、雕塑及其他藝術作品就是她持續探索所衍生的成果。她的作品曾於紐約、倫敦和亞洲各地展出。就她最近在 HART Haus 舉辦的展覽「不達」，吳佳儒與 Artomity 坐下來討論她創作藝術的方式、人和物的流動，以及信息如何丟失並透過多個階段的翻譯恢復。
過了一段時間後我離開了紐約，去了舊金山灣的天使島。這裡是 1900 年代初的一個移民站，來自中國和亞洲其他地區的移民都會在這裡進行移民程序，有時甚至會被長期拘留。我去的時候正值六月節（6月19日，代表美國奴隸制結束的公共假期），所以博物館休息了。我對島上的空間進行了一些 3D 掃描，這是一個令人大開眼界的地方。
BN：你帶著一捆亞麻布旅行。WJ：我在 HART Haus 展覽有一卷更大的亞麻布，但我還有另一卷更小更輕的。我還在紐約買了一捆寄回香港。對我來說，帶著亞麻布旅行是在等待著創作新作品的機會，但是我也對很多事情感到擔憂，例如我的油可以寄到不同的地方嗎？它們的管子會破裂嗎？它們會變乾嗎？布料會撕裂嗎？畫框會變形嗎？
