All posts tagged: M+

Register for ‘Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief World Tour’ talks

Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief World Tour is the Hong Kong edition of the exhibition Songs for Disaster Relief conceived by multidisciplinary artist Samson Young for the 57th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale 2017. Featuring a series of sculptures, objects, videos, sound installations, and site-specific pieces, the exhibition offers a unique audiovisual experience that re-examines the popularity of charity singles from the 1980s. Creatively repurposing and misreading iconic songs made by popular artists for charitable causes, Young draws on seemingly unrelated past and current events to explore the social, political, and philosophical implications of charity singles in a cross-cultural context. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of talks, guided tours, and live performances. Access services can be arranged in advance. The exhibition is curated by M+ Guest Curator Ying Kwok, with M+ Deputy Director and Chief Curator Doryun Chong as Consulting Curator. Exhibition Period: 9 February to 6 May 2018 Wednesday to Sunday and public holidays 11:00am to 6:00pm M+ Pavilion, West Kowloon Cultural District westkowloon.hk Talks Where is the Voice – …

Ink Art at M+ Pavilion

Published by Artomity Magazine

By André Chan As early as the Spring and Autumn Period (about 771 to 476 BC) and the Warring States Period (about 47 5 to 221 BC), people in China began to use ink as a writing tool. For the next 2,000 years, ink became the preferred creative medium in the Chinese cultural sphere, including much of Asia. In those 2,000 years, ink – more precisely, shui mo, water and ink mixed together to produce the full spectrum of colours – has become a genre of art based on a particular medium, with its own rich history and philosophy. However, as contemporary artists try to bridge the gaps between different media, we enter a post-media era. M+’s collection policy is that art should transcend media and geographical origin. At the beginning the museum decided to make shui mo one of the categories of its collection, becoming the first contemporary museum dedicated to the study of modern and contemporary shui mo paintings. The first shui mo exhibition from the collection at the M+ Pavilion, The Weight of Lightness, was in three …

The Weight of Lightness: Ink Art at M+

Published by Artomity Magazine

M+, the highly anticipated museum of visual culture at Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, will exhibit selections from its exceptional ink art collection for the first time this fall. The Weight of Lightness: Ink Art at M+ will explore the pivotal role of ink art in global visual culture, offering fresh perspectives using cross-disciplinary and transnational approaches. The exhibition will run from October 13, 2017 to January 14, 2018 at the M+ Pavilion. While ink art generally refers to visual works with lineage to ink painting and calligraphy in the Asian tradition, M+ is taking a more expansive view. Since the mid-20th century, many artists have committed to distinguishing their work from traditional ink art by devising enlightening and imaginative approaches to reflect upon and make use of that legacy. They have developed new expressions and techniques influenced by personal experiences and incorporated artistic tendencies and materials from outside of their own cultures. These cross-disciplinary and intercultural connections have kept ink art constantly evolving and are central to M+’s strategy for collecting and exhibiting ink art. …

‘Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief’ public programme – ‘We Are One?’ Screenings & Conversations

Published by Artomity Magazine

To accompany Hong Kong’s collateral event at the Venice Biennale 2017, ‘Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief’, M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Centre are co-presenting a programme of film screenings and conversations on the theme of charity efforts. Through a local feature film, a Taiwanese music video, and two international documentaries, ‘We Are One?’ explores some of the central issues raised in the exhibition, providing both a wider context for Young’s newly commissioned work for Venice. Charity Songs That Rocked The World In The 1980s Date: 16 October 2017 (Mon) Time: 7:30 – 9:30pm Screening: Band Aid: The Song That Rocked The World (2004) Post-screening conversation with RubberBand and Wong Chi Chung Charity Initiatives Go East Date: 17 October 2017 (Tues) Time: 7:30 – 10:00pm Screening: Tomorrow Will Be Better MV (1985), The Banquet (1991) Post-screening conversation with Jass Leung Wai Sze and Poon Yuen Leung The World As One? Date: 23 October 2017 (Mon) Time: 7:30 – 10:15pm Screening: We Come As Friends (2014) Post-screening conversation with Keith B. Richburg and Simon Shen Xu-hui Venue: Hong Kong …

‘Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief’ Hong Kong Talk 2 – Please Lend Me Your Cochlea and Brain

Published by Artomity Magazine

Formally trained in classical music composition, artist and composer Samson Young’s work draws from a wide range of avant-garde compositional traditions. Recent works, such as Nocturne (2015), So You Are Old By the Time You Reach the Island (2016), Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief (2017) and One of Two Stories or Both (Field Bagatelles) (2017), express his interest in sonic experience in contemporary art through performances, site-specific sound installations, objects and drawings. In ‘Please Lend Me Your Cochlea and Brain’, the second conversation in our Hong Kong Talk Series, Young joins Taiwanese curator Jau-lan Guo, whose work centres on sound art, moving image, visual culture and the dynamic relationship between art and social reality, to explore the realisation, presentation and implications of sound art works in a visual art context. The talk is moderated by Ying Kwok, guest curator of Young’s current exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Please Lend Me Your Cochlea and Brain Date: 3 August 2017 (Thurs) Time: 7.30 – 9 pm Venue: Miller Theater, Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty, Hong Kong Speakers: Jau-lan Guo, Samson …

Talk on Hong Kong participation at the 57th Venice Biennale, Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief

Published by Artomity Magazine

To accompany Hong Kong’s collateral event at the Venice Biennale 2017, Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief, M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council are co-hosting a series of talks in Hong Kong. Taking Young’s artistic practice and diverse influences as a starting point, the series offers a deeper understanding of key concepts in contemporary art and provides a wider context for Young’s newly commissioned work in Venice. Songs for Disaster Relief is conceived of as an album unfolding in space to be experienced in person. The series includes four key pieces, each of which tells a new story referencing the cultural and political context of iconic 80s charity songs. Through a deliberate repurposing and creative misreading of such iconic songs, Young presents an exploration of the troubling ideologies and genuine affective qualities that these songs and their aspirations embody. In the first talk in our series, Guest Curator Ying Kwok shares her experience of taking Songs for Disaster Relief from concept to realisation in Venice. She is joined by Anthony Leung Po-shan, one of the contributors to the exhibition …

Ambiguously Yours: Gender in Hong Kong Popular Culture

Published by Artomity Magazine

From March 17 to May 21 M+, Hong Kong’s museum of visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, presents Ambiguously Yours: Gender in Hong Kong Popular Cultureat the M+ Pavilion, a permanent space on the West Kowloon site that will host the museum’s exhibitions until the M+ building opens in late 2019. Including more than 90 works, Ambiguously Yours offers a fresh perspective on Hong Kong popular culture from the 80s and 90s by examining it as a platform for avant-garde experimentation in the representation of gender identities. Focusing on androgyny, camp and gender ambiguity, this multi-layered exhibition presents the work of pioneers in costume design, music, film and print media, proposing a dynamic interplay between popular culture and the fields of art, design and the moving image through the M+ collection. A series of programmes includes talks, guided tours, pop-up performances and a teachers’ event. Some of them have limited capacity and require advance enrolment online, with places available on a first-come, first-served basis. Date: 17/3–21/5/2017 Opening Hours: 11am–6pm, Wednesday to Sunday and public holidays M+ Pavilion, …

There are no misinterpretations of nothing

Published by Artomity Magazine

By Winnie Lai Artist Tsang Kin Wah represented Hong Kong in last year’s Venice Biennale and has brought home a continuation of his quest for life’s ultimate meaning at the M+ Pavilion. This time the exhibition programme also includes the Misguided Tours, in which three curators who have previously worked with Tsang shared their alternative interpretations of the work. After The Infinite Nothing in Venice, nothing in Hong Kong takes the artist’s attempt to realise endlessness and perpetuity to another level. This time he wants to visualise and present nothingness: a personal visualisation of being under a nihilistic spell, and a manifestation of responses to realising the futility of life. It isn’t a straightforward or light-hearted work to digest. The Misguided Tours are an effort to counter the idea that there is an official way to understand art. Everyone has a blind spot; other people’s perspectives can dispel preconceptions and expand the understanding of a work. Tsang, a fan of Nietzsche, who famously said that ‘There are no facts, only interpretations’, would agree. nothing is the first show at the M+ Pavilion, …