Marking the artist’s inaugural show in Asia, White Cube is pleased to present a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Léon Wuidar (b. 1938).
Chronicling the artist’s remarkable six-decade career, the selection of paintings spans from the early 1960s to the present day, uniting Wuidar’s exuberant simplicities of form with his distinctive, exacting technical precision. Further illustrating the artist’s enduring experimentations with colour, line and composition, accompanying the paintings is a series of previously unseen works on paper, created by the artist in the 1990s.
Tiger in Mountains, Deer at Ocean / Blindspot Gallery / Hong Kong / Nov 28, 2023 – Jan 13, 2024 /
Tiger in Mountains, Deer at Ocean, curated by Leo Li Chen at Blindspot Gallery, focuses on Zhang Wenzhi’s latest series of works, primarily consisting of large-format ink-on-paper pieces, accompanied by a video.
Zhang’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in the historical context of Dalian, his hometown in northeastern China, now a modern port city. Throughout history, the region has experienced various periods of foreign occupation, with the British, Japanese and Russians all leaving their imprint. Zhang’s practice is embedded in this specific colonial history, as well as in the distinctive system of beliefs that once prevailed in that part of China, a fusion of Manchu shamanism, Japanese Shinto and Han religion. Within his artworks, mythological and hybrid creatures seamlessly intertwine with forest-dwelling animals, against the backdrop of the region’s complex history of rapid industrialisation and modernisation.
Bay of the Deer by Zhang Wenzhi, Ink and color pigments on paper, 199 x 119 cm (work size), 202.2 x 122 x 4.1 cm (framed size), 2023. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
Bay of the Deer (2023), a large work in ink and colour pigments on paper, welcomes viewers in the first gallery space. The focal point of the composition is a majestic deer, set against a tumultuous, fantastical landscape. Its inner musculature, painted with carnal pigments, is made visible, as if we can see through the animal’s skin. While the overall palette is black and white, the sky is pierced by a scattering of golden comets, their hues mirroring the luminosity emanating from the deer. In Manchu shamanism, the spotted deer is perceived as a messenger between human beings and divinities, and these celestial elements serve as a reflection of the animal’s spiritual presence.
The whole exhibition is derived from the artist’s discovery of a stuffed spotted deer at the Natural History Museum in Dalian, allegedly made by a shaman in the 1930s. From there, Zhang delved into the life and work of this local fisherman, who could communicate with the spirits of the forest and notably with the deer god Wusizhuye. His portrait can be detected at the foot of the deer in the composition, holding a drum, his head and shoulders covered by a scaled mantle, performing amid shells, lichens and monstrous beasts. In the video work Ballad of the Deer God (2021), the artist follows the lyrics of the shaman’s song, depicting the wild forest and its transformation. The drum and bells combine to produce a breathless, powerful sound that accompanies the images, recalling the sound of express trains when they accelerate.
The Shark-Deer Chronicle, [Back] by Zhang Wenzhi, Ink, archival materials mounted on paper, teakwood screen, 175.5 x 91.2 x 3.8 cm (each panel), 175.5 x 364.8 x 3.8 cm (4 panels unfold), 2023. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
Both Russia and Japan invested in infrastructure in the areas they controlled for a time. The construction of railways, such as the South Manchuria Railway by the Japanese, brought radical changes to the landscape. Their presence pervades the artist’s work as a symbol of this heavy industrialisation. In Expedition in Manchuria (2023), for instance, the emblem of the company is engraved on a forgotten stone standing amid the remnants of factories in ruin, where birds are now nesting. In Bay of the Deer (2023), the dark silhouette of the train emerges from the clouds like a deity, hurtling towards a newly built bridge spanning a tumultuous sea. We see the train again racing out of a rocky mountain in the masterpiece of the exhibition, The Shark-Deer Chronicle (2023), a four-panel folded screen featuring a giant hybrid animal, half spotted deer and half shark.
In this latter, large, ink composition, the mythical deity hovers amid an array of fantastical beings, suspended in the air and soaring above the ocean. One characteristic of these mythological creatures is their ability to undergo transformation, granting them the power to exist both on land and beneath the water. Fish, for instance, possess legs, human beings are dotted with fins, and sea dragons support fox-like heads. They embody the fluidity that connects different realms: reality and fiction, past and present or life and death. Zhang’s collage-like technique, together with the absence of perspective, strengthen these connections. At the same time, the artist plays with traditional motifs and various artistic styles to question this line of continuity. For instance, his graceful, swirling waves and clouds evoke classical iconography, drawing from both Japanese and Buddhist painting traditions. This mixed aesthetic is in powerful contrast with all the modern components of his compositions, underscoring the clash between tradition and progress.
Tiger Park by Zhang Wenzhi, Ink and color pigments on paper, 94.8 x 176.5 cm (work size), 97.3 x 179.2 x 4.1 cm (framed size), 2023. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
It is tempting to approach his work as a critique of the colonisation of nature, an idea that finds resonance in Tiger Park (2023), where a massive Siberian tiger roams in circles, confined in a tiny cage within a zoo. At the same time, nature, in his compositions, remains almighty. Birds incorporate industrial waste to make their nest, mountains absorb construction sites, and mythological creatures continue to strive and multiply. The artist leaves us with this ambiguity, inviting us to think beyond the usual dichotomy that opposes nature and civilisation.
Serpent’s Reef by Zhang Wenzhi Archival materials, ink and color pigments on paper, 86.3 x 172.7 cm (work size), 88.7 x 175 x 4.1 cm (framed size), 2023. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
Some of the research materials collected by the artist are glued onto the back of the panels, or directly incorporated into compositions, as in Serpent’s Reef (2023), where an army of deceased soldiers, depicted as fish, swim between old newspaper clips and a Japanese propaganda poster. With their dark, vacant eyes, they embody the soul of the warriors who fought during Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), and who are now drawn, hypnotised, towards the isle of death. Here, the enemies of yesterday join and move away from these old archives, prompting us to think anew about history. What is left from the past? Skeletons, stuffed animals or a vital impulse that can embrace time, space and all contradictions?
Although this exhibition showcases only a few of Zhang’s artworks, it provides a profound glimpse into the complex universe of an artist who successfully transforms his research into compelling, beautiful visual narratives.
Featured image: The Shark-Deer Chronicle, [Front] by Zhang Wenzhi, Ink, archival materials mounted on paper, teakwood screen, 175.5 x 91.2 x 3.8 cm (each panel), 175.5 x 364.8 x 3.8 cm (4 panels unfold), 2023. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery.
Whispers of the Soul / Villepin Gallery / Hong Kong / Nov 26, 2023 – Feb, 2024 /
In an art market flooded with so much noise, it’s easy to overlook the work of Lawrence Carroll. The Melbourne-born American artist, who died in 2019, created works that fill a room with silence and inspire contemplation. They encourage slowness and consideration in how we approach and understand painting.
Whispers of the Soul, Carroll’s first Hong Kong exhibition, at Villepin Gallery, features a selection of the artist’s sculptural canvases, photographs and sculptures. Curated by Olivier Kaeppelin and Arthur de Villepin, in collaboration with Carroll’s wife, Lucy Jones Carroll, the exhibition juxtaposes Carroll’s works with a scattering of others by Cy Twombly, Giorgio Morandi, Giorgio de Chirico and François Halard – artists who inspired Carroll and whom the artist admired. This curation enhances and creates dialogue between Carroll’s own works and the supporting artists. But make no mistake, Carroll’s works are the stars here.
Exhibition view. Courtesy Villepin Gallery.
Throughout much of his painting career – putting aside his album cover artwork for American heavy metal band Slayer – Carroll used a restrained, muted colour palette of whites and blanched colours that became a signature, repetitiously exploring their subtle variations, nuances and complexities over the decades. On the surface, his paintings appear to owe much to the minimalist movement, but Carroll’s work is nothing like the cool, detached, slick perfection of the work of Donald Judd, whom the artist admired, or Robert Ryman, with whom Carroll was exhibited in 1989 as one of nine young American artists in Harald Szeemann’s international exhibition Einleuchten at the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany. Carroll’s white is not that of a purist or perfectionist, a white on white. Most of his paintings are off-white, dirtied and stained with streaks of other colours and flecks of dust, iron, wood or whatever else happened to be in the studio the day the painting was created. In this way, the canvas is like a page of a journal – of which Carroll was a prodigious writer – containing traces of the artist’s day and activities. It is a white that encompasses everything, containing emotions, memories and experiences.
The paintings’ surfaces are made up of many stitched-together pieces of canvas or even patterned fabric, sometimes stapled or glued atop other pieces onto the wooden frame. Often the works were assembled from found materials, a nod to the arte povera movement, although Carroll’s visual language was formed before he knew much about that. Paintings are taken apart and reassembled, the surface layered with materials and gestures, reworked and textured. They may look haphazard, slapdash, but Carroll’s works belie the slowness, solitude and concentration that are required to build them. Nothing is random. The artist uses household paint, fragments of canvas and cloth layered with oil, wax and dust to create them, sometimes also incorporating objects like flowers, or a wax mould of his hands in Untitled (hand painting) (2014), hanging like a macabre fleshy trophy from the top of the canvas’s frame. Paint is used to both reveal and conceal. Traces of fabric print, stitches and fragments of sentences are visible beneath the layers of paint and wax, like a wall stripped of years’ worth of paint to reveal an old fresco beneath.
Carroll’s works embrace imperfection and the human hand, but they also highlight the medium itself – the canvas and the stretcher become the art object, rather than just the material through which to express art. The three-dimensionality of an object or sculpture is brought together with the two-dimensionality of painting to explore their relationship. Large, clunky paintings jut out from the wall like boxes, sometimes at a human scale. One needs to walk around these works, to interact with them and participate in the creation of their narrative. These sculptural paintings draw the viewer in with their intimacy and detail, materiality and texture, and scale of the support and form. The artist’s hand is visible in the uneven, hand-hewn, wooden stretchers, the stitching and creases of the fabric and canvas.
Exhibition view. Courtesy Villepin Gallery.
Getting closer to the paintings, perhaps you notice threads from a frayed piece of canvas, uneven staples holding fabric together, or marks left by the artist’s hand or paintbrush. The surface of his sculptural paintings bear the patina of the passage of time – such as the yellowing of wax of Untitled (La Città) (1998). They look a little worn and tattered. Other paintings created over the course of Carroll’s career contain Perspex boxes inlaid into the wood and canvas, filled with dried flowers, leaves or old shoes, like nostalgic mementos from special moments. Light in the room creates another dimension of time passing, as shadow and light play across the surface of the paintings, changing the colours with the shifting sun. The paintings are like characters or people, changed and affected by their environments and the passing days.
Carroll’s works quietly and elegiacally capture the human condition, with its layers and fragments of memories, experiences and emotions that we each retrieve and sift through over the course of our lives. But while they are sorrowful, mourning the loss, decay and passing of life and time, they are also joyous, revelling in the beauty of a fleeting moment, of change and of just being.
JC Contemporary / Tai Kwun / 10 Hollywood Road / Central, Hong Kong / Tue – Sun, 11am – 7pm /
Green Snake: women-centred ecologies focuses on the connections between art and the larger themes of ecology in the context of rising temperatures and extreme weather events. Gathering more than 30 artists and collectives from 20 countries, the exhibition presents over 60 works that draw on mythologies and world views with women at their heart to explore possibilities for other ecological relationships and imagine other futures.
Green Snake points to the extractive economies at the root of our ecological crises, economies that treat nature as a reserve of resources for exploitation. The exhibition asks what alternative narratives are activated through artists’ visions which celebrate nature as a generative force, many of them grounded in notions of care and interrelationship that are central to ecofeminism. The labour of care is essential to the reproduction of existence: this has been undervalued in patriarchal and imperial systems across broad geographies.
The exhibition title refers both to the celebrated ancient Chinese folktale about two demon sisters, White Snake and Green Snake, and to mythological snake-like figures across cultures and cosmological systems—just as snakes shed skins and emerge from hibernation, nature as a whole has a remarkable capacity to transform and re-awaken. In the eighth-century folktale Madame White Snake, the figure of Green Snake strongly represents women’s agency, sisterhood, and also gender fluidity; the tale has been widely reinterpreted in contemporary literature and cinema. On another level, in the exhibition, the snake’s sinuous curves echo the geomorphology of river systems and the vital energy of the water flowing through them. A number of artists in the exhibition have longstanding research interests in specific river ecosystems and in their associated mythologies. Dialogues between works rooted in different geographies highlight parallel struggles and parallel practices of empathy and care for non-human existence. The figure of an all-encompassing circle of planetary and cosmic renewal emerges in a symphonic call for a radical reorientation of the human within the whole.
Artists: AFSAR (Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research), Yussef Agbo-Ola & Tabita Rezaire, Maria Thereza Alves, Lhola Amira, Minia Biabiany, Adriana Bustos, Seba Calfuqueo, Cao Minghao & Chen Jianjun, Carolina Caycedo, Stephanie Comilang & Simon Speiser, Valentina Desideri & Denise Ferreira da Silva, Rohini Devasher, Gidree Bawlee, Guo Fengyi, Manjot Kaur, Jaffa Lam, Candice Lin, Lavanya Mani, Marzia Migliora, Ann Leda Shapiro, Karan Shrestha, Dima Srouji, Natasha Tontey, Cecilia Vicuña, Tricky Walsh, Dana Whabira
Curators: Kathryn Weir and Xue Tan, with assistant curators Tiffany Leung and Pietro Scammacca
A Dance of Landscapes and Civilisation / Alisan Fine Arts (Central) / Hong Kong / Sep 19 – Dec 9, 2023 /
The first solo presentation of Lin Guocheng’s work at Alisan Fine Arts showcased two series by the Hong Kong-based, mainland Chinese artist. Having studied at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, the artist merges a foundation in Chinese art with his knowledge of Renaissance art and modern technology, playing with perspectives, proportions and compositional elements. Examining the relationship between nature, humans and the evolving world, the resulting presentation celebrates a shared history and pays homage to cultural heritage.
Lin’s first monochromatic Landscape series echoes the spirit of Renaissance etchings and drawings, with volume and depth masterfully captured by his clever application and manipulation of lines. The influences of masters such as Albrecht Dürer and Michelangelo can be seen in the rendering of movement and fluidity, except that Lin’s subject matter of landscapes could not be more different. His portrayals of Chinese shanshui appear to take on lives of their own, flourishing organically and rhizomatically without order or structure. They overflow from the physical brims that contain them – the inside frames of the box that the artist has created – alluding to linear perspective, another innovative Renaissance technique.
In Along the Riverbank – A Variation (2020), the artist references the Tang dynasty painting by Dong Yuan (934-962), who revolutionised Chinese painting during that era. Gazing upon the monumental diptych, it is impossible not to be drawn in closer. With its tapestry of details documenting every knotted tree branch, water ripple and coastline crag, it teems with life and energy, and invites deeper introspection and contemplation typical of Song dynasty literati paintings.
In his Civilisation series, Lin examines remnants of the past and takes a deep dive into Chinese history by exploring the bronze age culture specific to Sanxingdui, an archaeological site in modern Sichuan province that dates to the 12th century BC. In Three Star Mound (2022), the artist recreates an ancient character gazing at an archaic bird, based on the bronze masks and relics excavated from the site. The exhibition is well timed, with the exhibition Sanxingdui currently ongoing at the Hong Kong Palace Museum.
In the two Star River and Totem (2023) paintings, he portrays auspicious Chinese animals, such as a leaping deer, a prancing qilin and harping peacocks, as well as soaring dragons. The animals are intricately drawn, and are set against colourful mosaic backgrounds that recall pixelated computer screens, swelling and swirling organically in tandem with the animals’ movements. The effect is to call into question the growing influence of technology on our world.
Lin is a masterful storyteller. He not only reinterprets Chinese historical subject matter from a western perspective, but also combines analogue with digital, and past with present. Armed with ink, markers and signing pens, his dreamscapes transport us to a different era. In reconciling the old with the new, his works are a celebration of our shared history, and also reminders that in order for us to move towards a sustainable future, we must honour our past while embracing the present.
Featured image: Three Star Mound by Lin Guocheng / 161 x 126cm | Chinese ink, colour & pen on watercolour paper, 2022. Courtesy Alisan Fine Art Hong Kong.
As we enter 2024, Alisan Fine Arts, a stalwart of the Hong Kong art scene since its establishment in 1981, is proud to announce the official opening of its new gallery in New York City. This marks a historic milestone as we expand beyond Hong Kong after an impressive 42-year legacy. The inaugural exhibition at the New York location pays homage to Walasse Ting (1928-2010), a celebrated Chinese-American artist known for his vibrant and expressive works.
Walasse Ting: New York, New York focuses on Ting’s artistic career and creations in New York City from the 1950s to the 1990s, including Ting’s black and white abstract paintings created during his participation in the Abstract Expressionist movement in the 1950s. In the 1970s, Ting’s interest in the human body and exploration of sexuality led him back to figurative art. As he moved into the 1990s, Ting began to integrate traditional Chinese materials into his work. His depictions of women, flowers, fruits, cats, fish, and horses are painted in a rich palette of bright acrylics on rice paper, layered with powerful effervescent brushstrokes in Chinese ink. These paintings are a sheer testimony to love, life, and beauty, which developed the distinctive style that we are so familiar with today.
The exhibition in New York coincides with Ting’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, Walasse Ting: Parrot Jungle, which is on view at the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale until March 3, 2024. The museum exhibition serves to reintroduce audiences to the artist’s captivating universe and underscores his role as one of the most unconventional and independent figures of his era.
Along with the New York gallery, Alisan Fine Arts currently manages three premises, including Central’s business district and Aberdeen in Hong Kong. Alisan Central will be closed on 31 Dec 2023 and 1 Jan 2024, while Alisan Aberdeen remains open on Saturday Dec 30 during the holiday season.
Featured image: Installation shot of Walasse Ting, New York, New York, Alisan Fine Arts New York Gallery, 2023; (From left) Reclining Beauty Watching Love Birds, Chinese ink & acrylic on rice paper, 96 x 179cm, 1990s; Reclining Beauty, Chinese ink & acrylic on rice paper, 45 x 58cm, 1990s; Kiss Me Kiss Me, Acrylic & pastel on Arches paper, 61 x 91cm, 1976; Kiss Me Kiss Me, Acrylic & pastel on Arches paper, 61 x 91cm, 1976; Three Oriental Beauties with a Green Horse and a Green Parrot, Chinese ink & acrylic on rice paper, 181.6 x 288cm, 1990s.
Mark Chung’s exhibitions often feature opposites and duality. Objects are intentionally broken or deconstructed alongside ones that are carefully built. Claustrophobic installations are created in which settings, artwork and videos offer freedom and space, depicting or alluding to grids-as-cages set against free-floating-clouds. There are intense, blinding light and spots of darkness; technical skill and analogue craft-worship. Objects used for one purpose are skilfully reobjectified. At times, there are moments of anger and then great empathy, often sudden.
Everything in Mark’s exhibitions is considered and holistic, his efforts often a balance of raw individuality and boyish camaraderie with friends who have assisted. There is considerable thought and a striving-for-better anxiety: to remain genuine and true, and not to be a slacker. That motivation is familial, a matter of working as his paternal Hong Kong Chinese and maternal Austrian families would expect: striving for the next level.
For a time, after his Wheezing exhibition in September 2020, and before he began studying in Amsterdam in late 2022, we would meet for lunch or coffee to chat. Our conversations were just conversations. A simple chat, unrecorded and unheard by others, not filed in an archive or quoted in a book with footnotes about time and place. Like most worldly interactions, they are just the unmentioned minutiae of time. Not to be dismissed, however, chats with friends and fellow travellers are purposeful for being mutually supportive and giving room, in this case, for an artist to consider ideas.
Installation view of Wheezing by Mark Chung during performance by Samson Cheung Choi Sang with audience on final day of exhibition. Photo: John Batten.
Wheezing was a pivotal exhibition. It visually tackled his own and others’ perception of the mixed and changing emotions associated with the optimism, the violence, the chaos and then the deflation of Hong Kong’s 2019 protests; and later, disquiet after the enactment of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. So, changing my mind, I did write something, because it was then unusual for an artist to visually consider the aftermath of the protests. Let me quote, again, from that Ming Pao Weekly article:
“Although I first met artist Mark Chung when he was a graduating fine art student at Baptist University’s Academy of Visual Art and have seen his art over the years in group exhibitions and often met him at Tai Kwun, where he works as a senior technician, we hardly knew each other. So we arranged to meet, and over the last three weeks we have had three long conversations discussing his life and art; and as it was a conversation, it included mine. The motivation to meet was Chung’s just-completed residency and resulting exhibition, Wheezing, at de Sarthe Gallery in Wong Chuk Hang, but that isn’t quite correct. What really jolted me was a piece of remarkably honest writing of Chung’s that I picked up at the closing performance on the final day of the exhibition.
“Here are some excerpts:
‘The apartment on the 4/F in my walk-up building always smells of old people slowly dying alone in the 2 subdivided flats in that apartment. Through the disorganized pipes buried under the floors, hidden behind the walls, tangled outside the building, I can vaguely smell their flats from the shower drainage in my flat … (later) I came home to realize that the toilet door was left open. The smell of rotting instant noodles, hair and excrement clogged-up in the sewerage, filled-up the house … There is no escape, the corruption of the city is in the air, the air is in your home … They weaponize light in the dark, where everyone is panting, surrounded by confusion and overwhelmed with anger … We can only wheeze under this mode of governance. It is almost impossible to see an end to this perpetual anguish that we have endured in the past 12 months … It was unthinkable that light could blind, air could scorch, water could burn, simple unquestionable morals vanish.’
“The gallery is inside a regular office building with central air-conditioning and a glazed, mirrored exterior. Chung’s intentions for the space were planned and discussed with gallery director Willem Molesworth. The gallery was completely transformed into a large whole installation. Chung ripped out the air-conditioning ducting, arranged it, serpent-like, hanging down and around the floor. He newly built a separate room with one long wall of strengthened glass. This he carefully smashed, fracturing it into veins of shattered shards; the smashing had to be precise: too hard and the glass would crash to the floor. It had to be damaged but kept intact. He fabricated a sculpture replicating Hong Kong buildings’ tangled plumbing, then set it – the opposite of on a plinth – into the gallery floor. False wooden walls were built in different spots around the gallery, and some were punched through as if an angry fist had let fly. Then the air-conditioning was intentionally mucked up by opening the exterior windows, allowing the hot summer air to be inhaled. One room was unbearably hot, the other uncomfortably cold. A bit like Hong Kong’s homes.
“Chung filmed the nightly ‘Symphony of Lights’ by drone, but instead of directly filming the display, the drone captured the lights caught in the mirrored facades of high-rise office buildings that ring Victoria Harbour. This video was prominently projected onto the smashed window and into the small room. The gallery was unlit, relying on natural light from a few distant windows. Anyone walking in front of the video’s projection was captured, hazy, shadow-like.
“The gallery was transformed into a muted, darkly lit, hot and cold place. Was I inside or outside? It could be a stuffy Hong Kong flat or on the streets during one of those (too) many nights of protests with the air filled with flashlights and tear gas.
“The space had been completely upended. It was no longer an upmarket art salesroom. The gallery and its commercial intentions were subsumed by Chung’s intervention. I liked that …(Chung) brilliantly juxtaposed Hong Kong’s recent political upheavals, worries, outrage and difficult living conditions into a beautifully pristine gallery space – that was now no longer a gallery space.”
Installation view of Befuddled by Mark Chung, Video projection on laminated tempered glass, dimension variable, Ed. 1+1 AP, 2020. Courtesy the artist and DE SARTHE.
Wheezing was the first of a trio of exhibitions, followed by Dead End (2022) and the current Splinter at Rossi & Rossi, in which each exhibition is specifically constructed in, around and from an already built space. Within these spaces, Mark constructs a new interior of walls, other elements and a scattering of static artwork, invariably focused around a dominant video and/or light installation, often intense and periodically pulsating.
Artwork seen in one exhibition might reappear in different forms in another exhibition. Volvulus, seen among the wreckage of Wheezing’s collapsed air-conditioning ducts, adopts the medical term for when the intestine twists, causing a potentially serious blockage. Mark visually depicts the imagined appearance of his apartment’s twisted drains by constructing a tight, labyrinthine collection of plastic drainage pipes. He first makes a mould, then injects it with polyurethane to produce a surreal spaghetti sculpture of entangled pipes, not unlike the actual drainage systems of the city’s residential buildings. As a metaphor, is he also evoking the arguments, discussions, accusations, debate and endless talk, equally passionate and convoluted, heard during the 2019 protests? Continuing Mark’s social observation and political commentary, a much stripped-down version of Volvulus reappears in Splinter as Torsion #1. The artwork has changed, as has the metaphor: Has Hong Kong’s previous openness to discussion now been blocked; is open debate now stifled by newspaper and online media closures, arrests, and the real and perceived intimidation of people and institutions seen to be disparaging Hong Kong’s government?
Torsion #1 by Mark Chung, Polyurethane, dimensions variable, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Rossi & Rossi.
Dead End, exhibited in September 2022 in ACO’s Foo Tak Building, was set up in a small, 400-square-foot room, repurposed as a gallery but retaining the ambience of its origins as a residential flat. The tightness of space was emphasised by Mark creating an even tighter and intensely uncomfortable physical environment. Taking inspiration from Bruce Nauman’s similarly uncomfortable narrow corridors (for example Changing Light Corridor with Rooms, 1971), his creation of a narrow entrance, now almost a leitmotif, is experienced by visitors to each of his solo exhibitions. In this iteration, Mark forces the audience to enter by squeezing past a long section of galvanised wire-mesh fencing, the type unrolled around the perimeter of construction sites. Titled Scoliosis – again employing medical terminology, this time for the unfortunate condition where a person’s spine has a sideways curve – this fence has been attacked with a metal bar: pulled, contorted sideways, kicked with heavy boots, the tight mesh formation now batted and destroyed, holed, hurt and abused as if it’s the aftermath of an innocent bystander having been caught in the fishing net of a riot.
Just past Scoliosis are the austere back panels of a large LED screen; after turning right, visitors encounter the display view of Dead End. Projected on the screen’s front panels, this video tracks down the sunny exterior of a mirrored office building’s curtain-wall, giving the impression that the building is continually ascending. Dominating the video loop are the moments when the sun’s intense light is caught angled on and reflecting back from the wall, its brightness in synergy with the hot temperatures of the room – or mimicking hot 2019 summer nights – with the heat generated from the source of the image: the LED screen itself. In this room’s unrelenting bright ferocity, the scene is a film-within-a-film of the artist’s drone video camera tracking the exterior wall, the scene reflected back and spotted in the dazzling equivalent of security or police torchlight.
Installation view of Dead End by Marc Chung at ACO. Courtesy the artsist and ACO.
The preparation for Splinter at Rossi & Rossi was briefer than previous exhibitions. Mark’s studies in Amsterdam and other commitments shortened the time he had to become familiar with the space before installing the exhibition. One advantage of this curtailed knowledge is he has not overthought what he could do: the exhibition’s spareness gives the newly constructed interior architecture great presence. His initial impression was that the gallery had too many edges, with two boxes (the staff/reception office and the director’s office) within a larger gallery box. However, visitors will see the gallery’s original interior had curved panels partially covering external windows. He has unconsciously echoed these curves with a makeover that radically subverts the gallery, adding a tight, curled entrance corridor and new interior viewing areas camouflaging the original boxed interior with added curves. He explains that these additions are like splinters, foreign bodies inside the gallery. Like all splinters, they agitate and are painful, until absorbed or expelled by the body.
For years, Mark and his brother made regular visits to their grandmother in the alpine Vorarlberg region of Austria. These visits ensured they remained intimate with their mother’s family after her death; their family is close and on these visits Mark also acquired woodworking and other practical skills working alongside his uncles. His video Rupture, which he describes as “more poetic and intimate” than the previous fireworks videos that he has filmed and exhibited, is a tribute to his grandmother, who recently died. During countless previous Christmas and New Year celebrations, he would always be at home with her while neighbours let off celebratory fireworks; however, this past New Year was the first time his grandmother was not at home, and Mark filmed the celebrations from high ground.
The letting off of fireworks is integral to Chinese cultural celebrations. However, its close (real, aural and visual) associations with gunpowder, homemade bombs and tear gas have long seen fireworks banned in Hong Kong. Mark believes official attitudes towards fireworks, mapped out in the city’s policies and laws, are a bellwether of Hong Kong’s social and political rhythms. Following the lead of British colonial administrators (for example, after the Cultural Revolution-inspired 1967 riots in the city), the Hong Kong SAR government, more than ever after the 2019 protests, remains wary of even officially organised public firework displays.
Phantom Pain by Mark Chung, Single-channel video 13 min 29 sec, 2019–22. Courtesy the artist and Rossi & Rossi.
Previously titled Erasing Hong Kong, the renamed video Phantom Pain takes centre stage in the exhibition – with the exhibition’s design culminating in the room showing this video. It features footage of cleaners cleaning the granite surface of the prominent old Bank of China building after protesters had again spray-painted graffiti on its facade in 2019. Graffiti is being cleaned off, but the video concentrates exclusively on the physical removal of the word “Hong Kong”. It is a powerful action, knowing now the full aftermath of events since the enactment of the National Security Law; and, for many Hong Kong residents, it’s painful, like rubbing salt into a wound. Since 2019, that pain has lingered and, as Mark suggests in the video’s title, is similar to an amputee who has the common experiences of still feeling pain in the limb that has been removed.
Loanword by Mark Chung, Silk screen print on dry wall, dimensions variable, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Rossi & Rossi.
After viewing Phantom Pain, the large panel of stencilled images of clouds, Loanword (dimensions variable), can be seen again as visitors exit the exhibition. Possibly considered innocuous on first sighting, the work now takes on a more powerful presence. Clouds, fluffy and vigorous like these, indicate possibilities for a future: we must go on. If, simply put, Wheezing focused on destruction and the moment’s nihilism, and Dead End depicted discomfort and a world upended by heat and near destruction, then Splinter has an atmosphere of dogged determination.
This catalogue essay was published by Rossi and Rossi for Mark Chung’s Splinter exhibition at Rossi and Rossi, Hong Kong, July 29 to September 16, 2023.
Featured image: Installation view (detail) of Befuddled by Mark Chung, Video projection on laminated tempered glass, dimension variable, Ed. 1+1 AP, 2020. Courtesy the artist and DE SARTHE.
更名為《撕裂》（《Phantom Pain》）的《Erasing Hong Kong》為展覽的主要作品——投射此影像的房間也被設計成展覽的重點。片段拍攝於2019年，舊中銀大樓又再次被示威者畫上塗鴉，而清潔工則在洗刷花崗岩外牆。影像集中於「香港」二字實體被刪去的過程，而在國安法施行一段時日的現在，抹去「香港」的行為更像是一種強硬的手段。對許多香港居民來說，這無疑是在傷口上灑鹽。這種痛楚自2019年就揮之不去，有如鍾正在作品名稱中所借喻的肢幻覺痛：「幻肢痛來自已截除的肢體部分。肢體不再存在，但疼痛是真實的。」
mould the wing to match the photograph / Asia Art Archive / Sep 20, 2023 – Feb 29, 2024 /
Humans use knots to keep records, create decor, bind one another and fasten objects. Tying knots is an inherently violent process that strains the rope, bending and crushing its fibres until one day in the future, it snaps under the tension of uneven forces. Our knotting introduces weakness to a cord, slowly draining its strength to serve our goals.
The late artist Mrinalini Mukherjee (1949–2015) formed her art practice around knotted, woven hemp fibre. Her sculptures are monumental, meant to evoke “the feeling of awe when you walk into the small sanctum of a temple and look up to be held by an iconic presence”, as the artist said. To present her work in Hong Kong, Asia Art Archive’s team installed one sculpture by Mukherjee, Pari (1986), at the entrance of its library. The rest of the showcase highlighted the modernist sculptor’s career and an archive created by indexing nearly 2,400 pieces of media, including drawings, photographs, written correspondence, documents and more.
The exhibition was called mould the wing to match the photograph, a phrase drawn from the handwritten instructions meticulously drafted by Mukherjee’s husband, Ranjit Singh, recording each sculpture’s dimensions, directions for handling and requirements for display. Every fibre sculpture created by Mukherjee, including Pari, came with its own set of directions, complete with photographic documentation.
Installation view of “mould the wing to match the photograph,” showing a reproduction of installation instructions for Vriksh Nata (1991–92), Asia Art Archive, 2023. Photo: South Ho.
Mukherjee’s various interests intersect in her sculptures. Pari’s title means “nymph” and points to her obsession with India’s myths, while the artwork’s physical form links up with the artist’s fascination with the world of plants, as well as the visual grammar of ancient temples and performative disciplines that channel age-old stories.
As a viewer of mould the wing, it was easy to drift into the academic considerations surrounding Mukherjee’s work—the exhibition’s framing actively steers visitors in that direction. But it’s just as engaging to consider that the presentation of Pari is exactly as the artist intended, mounted the same way no matter when and where the sculpture is shown. There’s a strong sense of legacy, of shaping culture for posterity, even though the artwork’s main material will eventually disintegrate.
mould the wing was a deceptively tough presentation to fully take in. Along Pari, the curators—Noopur Desai, Pallavi Arora and Samira Bose from Asia Art Archive in India—presented a range of images and information drawn from Mukherjee’s archive. Lightbox vitrines housed hundreds of 35mm slides showing other fibre sculptures made by the artist. Singh’s handwritten installation instructions, blown up to span from floor to ceiling, made it easy to see the degree of detail demanded by Mukherjee when she sent artworks abroad for exhibitions. Photos snapped during the artist’s travels—for instance, to Angkor Wat—were hat tips to her many visual and thematic references. A few books from Mukherjee’s shelves highlighted her varied interests, from “village technology” in the Andes to the life of flora.
Detail of reproductions of 35mm slides from Mukherjee’s personal archive, “mould the wing to match the photograph,” Asia Art Archive, 2023. Photo: South Ho.
The faded red hue of synthetic dye tingeing the cords that form Pari marked the passage of time, a visual rhyme with some of the film slides in Mukherjee’s collection that were losing vibrancy with age.
Even though Pari was the exhibition’s centrepiece, it was the Mrinalini Mukherjee Archive, painstakingly digitised by the team at Asia Art Archive, that was the real main character of mould the wing. The collection of images and documents contextualised the artist’s life and work, plugging visitors into the academic bent of the show. There were spiritual overtones, too—if the sculpture was mounted to be a source of awe, then the Asia Art Archive’s library was, temporarily, the temple housing it.
This is perhaps Mukherjee’s legacy. Her artworks don’t just “[need] space all around”, as her instructions say. They transform the air around them with a sense of patience and mythic monumentality, carrying forward the meticulous care that went into knotting her art.
Featured image: Mrinalini Mukherjee, Pari (Nymph), 1986, dyed hemp, 220 x 83 x 42 cm. Courtesy of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. Photo: South Ho.
Kiang Malingue is pleased to present For Caution, an exhibition of new work by Phillip Lai. This is the London-based artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery.
Over the past three decades, Phillip Lai has developed a sculptural language which explores approaches to the ubiquitous materials and experiences that derive from a techno-industrial culture – such as that of mass production, functionality, the mechanistic, automation, ergonomics, infrastructure. Its basis refers to our psychological interactions in this culture, as well as an intermingling with it. Transfers or retentions of energy are envisioned, through materials and objects that often suggest the support of basic daily functions, needs and the sustaining of human life.
For his exhibition at Kiang Malingue, Lai’s work occupies various floors of the gallery. The new works made for this show cross-reference each other in their formal vocabularies as well as in their resonances and discords, building upon each other’s offerings. Cages and enclosures appear in this exhibition, making reference to municipal tipper refuse vans, hazardous storage or emergency vehicles that control waste and risk in our everyday life. The work probes a peripheral attention and subliminal alertness to these commonplace features of the urban.
For example, the notional perimeter of safety and danger is explored sculpturally through the work Four Cautions. The inverted caution signs on the red metal enclosure deflects the subject of protection, and the design of the structure blurs its compliance. An aspect of management and control is also re-imagined in other work. Inside a galvanised metal cage, two beacons reside on the tip of bent pipes, creating a roving new order through strobing and acoustics. In a further series of work, functionality and the operations of signalling are rendered defunct. Instead, the shells and fixtures of light-bars from emergency vehicles are refabricated, exchanging function for a material closeness, and share the contained cavities of the objects with various materials of sustenance.
Across all of Lai’s work, he excavates for something deeper and beyond the apparent inertia of objects. This excavation, as though to glimpse more clearly the underlying interaction of things, seems to reach for the quietest, most remote trace of figuration that may belie their abstraction.
About Phillip Lai
Phillip Lai was born in 1969 in Kuala Lumpur, and he lives and works in London. His works have been shown in solo exhibitions in institutions including Camden Art Centre, London (2014); Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2009); and The Showroom, London (1997). His work has been shown in group exhibitions in such institutions as The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK (2018); John Hansard Gallery, Southampton University, Southampton (2015); Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham (2014); City Gallery Prague, Prague, Czech Republic (2012); Tate Modern, Turbine Hall, London (2010); Cubitt, London (2008); Overgaden Institute for Samtidskunst, Copenhagen, Denmark (2007); Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, USA (2007); CCA, Glasgow, Scotland (2005); Hayward Gallery, London (1999); MoMA, New York, USA (1998); and ICA, London (1995). In 2018 the artist was shortlisted for the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture. His work is held in collections including: Arts Council Collection, London; Nomas Foundation, Rome, Italy; Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China; Tate, London.
Featured image: (Work detail) Image courtesy of the artist, Modern Art and Kiang Malingue.
Offerings for Escalante / Para Site / Hong Kong / Oct 21, 2023 – Feb 8, 2024 /
Negros is a large island located in the Visayas, in the central part of the Philippines, with a population of about 4.7 million. Since the mid 19th century, it has relied on the production of sugarcane, a crop that quickly became one of the Philippines’ most important export goods. During the first Marcos government (1965-86), sugar was very lucrative, yet its profits were mainly kept by political cronies and landlords, and did not benefit local workers. From the early 1980s, a drop in raw sugar prices resulted in dramatic famines, child malnutrition, unemployment and a significant rise in poverty on the island. On 20 September 1985, not only sugarcane farmers but also fishermen, students and all types of unaffiliated workers joined a nationwide protest asking for wage increases, better living conditions, human rights and a demilitarisation of the territory. The local militia replied with guns and violence. Twenty people were killed.
Known as the “Escalante massacre”, this event is the nodal point of the exhibition Offerings for Escalante by Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien, currently at Para Site. Born respectively in the Philippines and Taiwan, the artist duo have been developing community-based projects in Negros since 2017, investigating local history and recent social struggles. As its title suggests, the current exhibition takes the form of a collective homage to the 1985 events, from artists who emphasise the significance and necessity of mourning to acknowledge the past.
Installation view of Offerings for Escalante, Para Site, Hong Kong, 2023. Photo: Studio Lights On.
The exhibition is organised around an hour-long documentary, Langit Lupa (2023). Static shots of landscape and interviews with a few survivors are interwoven with abstract images featuring plants that have either been burned or slowly dissolved, the latter known as phytograms. These enigmatic visual interludes provide a poetic space for the fragmented pieces of memory to find resonance with the audience. The artists deliberately opted not to incorporate archival material, choosing instead to examine the topic from a contemporary and metaphorical standpoint. They successfully experiment with a renewed form of documentary, finding a balance between content and affect. Through this lens, they trace the remnants of the event, shedding light on the passage of time, which inevitably blurs memories and our grasp on reality. The overall tone is not overtly dramatic, although the content itself is deeply poignant. We follow children running through sugarcane plantations, rituals of commemoration and the long, arduous labour of farmers manually harvesting mature cane.
In contrast to the emotionally charged film, the other artworks create a lighter, more uplifting atmosphere. Aptly positioned at the intersection of all the galleries, the light installation Compostlight (2023) casts moving shadows all around and provides a space for contemplation. Made with organic matter, notably onions skin, its warm brown hues evoke a soothing sunset. Many of the artworks on display were crafted during art-making workshops, using locally sourced, organic materials collected by the artists during their stay. For instance, the composition Social Volcano (2023) incorporates sugarcane fibre, vegetable pulp, banana stalk, charcoal ash, water spinach and papaya seeds, among others. It depicts the landscape of Negros, characterised by mountainous terrain bordered by the sea. In an artwork, one volcano erupts, and the smoke takes the form of a peculiar bird soaring through a vast, dark sky. The bird’s oversized head and round eye gaze directly at the viewer. These iconographic elements draw upon local symbolic folklore and symbolise the cycle of birth, death and regeneration. All the featured artworks appear to form a cohesive series that scrutinises the natural processes of decay and healing, and the symbiotic relationships that connect every layer of the ecosystem, from leaves to soil, and from rain to human labour. As such, the regional flora, transformed into diverse artistic expressions, becomes a powerful vehicle for embodying the event and its aftermath.
Installation view of Offerings for Escalante, Para Site, Hong Kong, 2023. Photo: Studio Lights On.
In her statement, curator Celia Ho directly poses the question of the role and impact of art in addressing sociopolitical issues, a complex, delicate matter given the elusive nature of cultural influence. In Hong Kong, where about 200,000 Filipinos are employed, the massacre and its contextual significance remain largely unknown. This exhibition serves as a good opportunity for viewers to gain a deeper understanding of some of the driving forces behind Filipino immigration to foreign lands, including poverty, human rights abuses, inequality and violence. Additionally, for the Filipino community residing in Hong Kong, the exhibition provides a platform to discuss the event. Decades of authoritarian regimes have eroded public trust in the media, leaving many Filipinos sceptical about historical facts and questioning everything. Moreover, due to the intricacies of today’s sociopolitical climate, the massacre continues to be a taboo subject. While charges of genocide have been brought against the previous Marcos government and some perpetrators of the massacre have faced legal action, most have evaded punishment. Overall, the socioeconomic situation on Negros has not improved significantly.
Installation view of Offerings for Escalante, Para Site, Hong Kong, 2023. Photo: Studio Lights On.
Through this project, Ho aims to foster synergy between Hong Kong and the Philippines by addressing migrant worker issues, social struggles and “a wider colonial history of dispossession and loss”. In the gallery, she has replaced partition walls with bamboo scaffolding to hang the artworks, with a view to creating a symbolic link between the diverse communities. This original display not only evokes the form of sugarcane but also alludes to the precarious conditions faced by workers. However, in Hong Kong, most Filipino migrants are not employed on construction sites, and this might be confusing. Besides, each wave of migration has its own history, and the general topic of colonial dispossession encompasses a vast range of cases. Although it may bring about a constructive and important feeling of solidarity, it is crucial to consider the distinct contexts and agendas at play beyond the shared fight for social justice, as merging different contexts might pose challenges. While the events on Negros serve as a powerful representation of injustice, human rights abuses and wealth inequality, the massacre itself unfolded within a very specific context. It encompasses the complex legacy of colonialism, the far-reaching impact of a lengthy dictatorship based on violence, and the influence of an unfair global capitalist system. Oversimplification risks obscuring the depth and complexities of the real problems, which necessitate comprehensive, nuanced approaches to be effectively resolved.
It remains vital for Hong Kong residents to gain a greater understanding of the Filipino context. More exhibitions about the country and its struggles but also its rich, syncretic culture would be welcome.
Featured image: Installation view of Offerings for Escalante, Para Site, Hong Kong, 2023. Photo: Studio Lights On.
