All posts filed under: Reviews

Chan Hau Chun 陳巧真

Silent Sojourns /WMA Space / Hong Kong /Apr 19 – Jun 30, 2024 /John Batten / Hong Kong documentary filmmaker and artist Chan Hau Chun’s Silent Sojourns is the second project commissioned under WMA’s 2023/24 theme of “Home”. Chan has reconstructed-as-installation a Hong Kong residential unit divided into separate, black-panelled rooms inside WMA Space, its gallery in a nondescript office building. In these small-roomed exhibition spaces, Chan attempts to recreate the interior atmosphere of what she describes as an “ordinary-looking (residential) building” housing many subdivided flats in an undisclosed location in Hong Kong, possibly Sham Shui Po, where many such flats are located. Chan initially visited “a homeless acquaintance” in this building in late 2018. Over the following five years, she visited regularly and lived in the building, meeting residents from different floors. She began filming, including talking to residents, in 2019. In an excellent, zine-like booklet, containing photography, drawings, one- or two-line aphorisms, a formal explanatory essay and four pieces of poetry, Chan outlines her own observations, emotions and the reflections of residents. This …

Jakkai Siributr 賈凱·斯里布特

Published by Christie Lee

Everybody Wanna Be Happy /CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile) /Hong Kong /Nov 11, 2023 – Feb 13, 2024 / The title of Thai artist Jakkai Siributr’s recent show at CHAT sounds slightly forced. While the “wanna” conveys playfulness, “Everyone wanna be happy” – a definitive statement, not a question – borders on aggression. That uneasy dichotomy sets the tone for exhibition itself, where vibrantly hued textile pieces belie bleaker histories – of dispossessed individuals and stripped-away identities. On a weekend afternoon, there was a stark contrast between grim, violent narratives in Siributr’s art and the lighthearted atmosphere of The Mills. Siributr’s first retrospective outside Thailand, Everyone Wanna be Happy provides a good overview of the artist’s ouerve, ranging from textile art to installations to wearable art, but some of the exhibits could perhaps use more explanatory notes, including the socio-historical events that inspired them. The artist, born in Bangkok in 1969, is known for textile art that questions official narratives. Exposed to the artform from an early age, Siributr comes from a family …

Kongkee 江康泉（江記）

Published by Brady Ng

Warring States Cyberpunk /Tai Kwun Contemporary /Hong Kong /Dec 9, 2023 – Mar 3, 2024 / Futuristic DIY attitudes, military-style uniforms, grimy tech gear and the “high tech, low life” motif—the aesthetics of cyberpunk saturate our visual media so much that its countercultural origins are drowned out in its neon glow. Maybe this is because fiction is spilling into real life, and our survival instincts are kicking in as the consumer technology presented to us becomes increasingly enmeshed with our daily activities, algorithms and capitalistic overdrive shaping new habits without us realising. Invoking cyberpunk in East Asian metropolises such as Hong Kong and Tokyo is a dicey proposition. It’s too easy to let the look of things overshadow the big ideas. But that didn’t stop animation director and visual artist Kongkee (aka Kong Khong-chang) from using the genre as one of his starting points in the show Warring States Cyberpunk, in which he layered imagined undertakings and musings of Qu Yuan, a poet whose suicide by drowning inspired the annual Dragon Boat Festival, over the …

Neo Rauch 尼奧·勞赫

Published by Christie Lee

Field Signs / David Zwirner / Hong Kong / Nov 16, 2023 – Feb 24, 2024 / Throughout history, human beings have always sought signs: from zodiac signs that give meaning to what they believe in or do to literal signs that provide instructions during an election or protest. The pursuit of signs often reaches a climax at the end or beginning of the year, when we want to peer into a crystal ball and figure out what the new year has in store. Field Signs, Neo Rauch’s latest exhibition at David Zwirner Hong Kong, also features plenty of signs. While anyone hoping to find easy meaning in Rauch’s art will be sorely disappointed, the exhibition feels as contemporary and relevant as the artist’s work always does. The exhibition title has a double meaning, referring not only to signs farmers use to mark a crop variety but also to signs used by warring states or parties in the past. The exhibition trots out Rauch’s usual bevy of people at work or play, following socialist realist …

Sin Wai Kin 單慧乾

Published by Artomity Magazine

The Story Changing / Matrix 284 Gallery, Berkeley Art Museum / Berkeley, California / Dec 13, 2023 – Mar 10, 2024 / DeWitt Cheng / The Story Changing, the first US museum show by Sin Wai Kin, the Canadian-born, London-based performance artist turned filmmaker, consists of two videos in a small exhibit in the Matrix 284 Gallery and the adjoining hallway at California’s Berkeley Art Museum. The title evokes the postmodernist artist’s concerns with narrative and language in the formation of identity, which they consider to be fluid and culturally determined rather than innate; it is also self-determined and performative, in line with the queer-scene drag shows that fascinated Sin—a recent nominee for the Turner Prize—as a young art student in London in 2009. “I think drag is like a magnifying glass,” they say. “To make something more extreme is to look at it more closely.” The curator, Victoria Sung, interviewing Sin, adds, “Language is such a powerful tool in terms of how it constructs our worlds, but also how it can constrict our worlds.” …

Kings’ Inscriptions · Contemporary Interpretations

Published by Artomity Magazine

Kwok Mang Ho, Lee Wing Ki, Prof. Lee Yun Woon, Prof. Leong Lampo, Dr Leung Kwan Kiu, Tso Cheuk Yim, Yeung Yuk Kan / University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG), The University of Hong Kong / Sep 23 – Dec 30, 2023 / Ilaria Maria Sala As ink has become more popular, and more gallery and museum space is being dedicated to the medium, there can be a slight confusion as to what it exactly is – and isn’t. A small but very diverse show at the University Museum Art Gallery at Hong Kong University, Kings’ Inscriptions · Contemporary Interpretations, provides a suitably wide panorama of what ink can be – starting from one of its first uses: ink rubbings of engraved steles. As the show’s title suggests, the inscriptions, especially the most ancient ones, often retell the stories of kings, expanding on their moral qualities. Travelling literati would stop and copy the engravings by covering them with ink and pasting rice paper sheets on the stones, which would then be “rubbed” by tapping a …

Zhang Wenzhi

Published by Caroline Ha Thuc

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 (2023), a large work in ink and colour pigments on paper, welcomes viewers …

Lawrence Carroll

Published by Diana d'Arenberg Parmanand

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. Throughout much of his painting career – putting aside his album cover artwork for American …

Lin Guocheng 林國成

Published by Christine Chan Chiu

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 …

Mrinalini Mukherjee

Published by Brady Ng

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 …