All posts tagged: Samson Young

Noteworthy Shows in Hong Kong Autumn / Winter ’23 Edition

Published by Aaina Bhargava

“Hong Kong is back!” seems to be the city’s official PR motto since quarantine for incoming travellers to the city was essentially abolished in October, and restrictions were dropped. If the succession of gala fundraisers and exhibition openings and the general year-end frenzy is anything to go by, the slogan applies to the city’s art scene, which seems to be overcompensating for its dearth of activity over the past two years. There were numerous shows and events last autumn, from Asia Art Archive and Para Site auction fundraisers to blockbuster exhibitions like Yayoi Kusama: 1945 to Now at M+ to smaller exhibitions such as John Batten’s showcase at Ping Pong to online initiatives such as the launch of David Clarke’s digital archive. Here are eight noteworthy exhibitions. Behind Your Eyelid, Pipilotti Rist at Tai Kwun ContemporaryTai Kwun Contemporary’s blockbuster exhibition surpassed expectations, providing an experience that cultural institutions should aspire to. Serving as a mini survey of Rist’s practice, the show featured a number of highlights from the artist’s career, including I’m not the Girl who …

Samson Young at Kiang Malingue Hong Kong

Published by Artomity Magazine

Samson YoungMusic for selective hearing, or assisted livingSep 24 – Nov 5, 2022 Kiang Malingue13/F Blue Box Factory Building25 Hing Wo StreetAberdeen, Hong Kong+852 2810 0317By appointment kiangmalingue.comWeChat Kiang Malingue is pleased to present Samson Young’s first solo exhibition at the gallery’s Hong Kong space. Titled Music for selective hearing, or assisted living, this exhibition will feature five sets of artworks created by the artist in the last two years. Known for exploring the fabric of the socio-political by examining the history and contemporary conditions of sound and music, Young considers in the exhibition the complicated nature of ‘sound conditioning’ – the active control of ambient sounds, as exemplified by such devices as white-noise sleep aids – as self-care and recuperation, but also as self-imposed isolation, control, and wilful disengagement. Included in the exhibition is Samson Young’s collaboration with his long-time friend, violist William Lane. The installation Often easy, sometimes impossible (2021 – 2022) consists of a two-channel video, in which Lane performs Young’s original composition that was scored for a triangle, a viola, and a synthesised glass harmonica …

Sigg Prize 2019 exhibition

Published by Artomity Magazine

Dec 7, 2019 – Apr 13, 2020 M+ PavilionWest Kowloon Cultural DistrictTsim Sha TsuiHong Kong Web M+, Hong Kong’s museum of 20th- and 21st-century visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, is pleased to present the inaugural Sigg Prize exhibition. The exhibition brings together work by the six artists shortlisted for the prize: Hu Xiaoyuan (born 1977, lives and works in Beijing), Liang Shuo (born 1976, lives and works in Beijing), Lin Yilin (born 1964, lives and works in New York), Shen Xin (born 1990, lives and works in Minneapolis and Amsterdam), Tao Hui (born 1987, lives and works in Beijing), and Samson Young (born 1979, lives and works in Hong Kong). In recent years, each has articulated a distinguished artistic language to address topics that defy easy categorisation. Concentrating on work produced in the last two years, the combination of six practices in this exhibition reveals multiple connections with our current time. Some of the shortlisted artists react to and reflect on social and political realities, while others pursue the refinement and expression of personal languages and inner worlds. Together, these artists show the diversity …

Samson Young

Published by Artomity Magazine

It’s Heaven Over There / Centre A / Vancouver / Feb 23 – Jun 4 / Justin Ramsey / When the Sun Wah Centre was constructed in the 1980s, it was envisioned as a neighbourhood mall for Vancouver’s Chinatown, the kind one might find all over Hong Kong: a fountain on the main floor, central escalators wending their way up through glitzy tiers of fashion and food. This never materialised. The building’s few vendors nestle in a near constant state of pink-walled disrepair. The setting is apt for Samson Young’s exhibition It’s Heaven Over There, curated by Tyler Russell at Centre A, which has recently moved into the Sun Wah Centre, alongside other arts organisations that are transforming this under-realised mall into a cultural hub. The first display in Young’s exhibition resembles a shopfront: blaring pop music, a glass case full of trinkets. It is an appropriate beginning to an exhibition focused on the mall itself. It’s Heaven Over There is the second in a trilogy of site-responsive exhibitions by Young that critique utopian projects and their fraught, often unexpected …

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

Published by Artomity Magazine

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 – …

‘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 …

Art in the Bar, 14 September, 6 pm

Published by Artomity Magazine

Locations Cobo House I Duddell’s I Halcyon I Ping Pong I Potato Head I Runway I Salon 10 I Shore I Tartine I The Pawn Artists Adrian Wong (Hong Kong) I Melati Suryodarmo (Indonesia) I Chen Tianzhuo (China) I Morgan Wong (Hong Kong) I Chim↑Pom (Japan) I Rabbya Naseer and Hurmat Ul Ain (Pakistan) I Come Inside (Hong Kong) I Samson Young (Hong Kong) I Deng Dafei (China) I Tao Hui (China) I Erkka Nissinen (Hong Kong based) I The Utopia Group (China) I Hu Weiyi (China) I Tromarama (Indonesia) I Korakrit Arunanondchai (Thailand) I Wong Ping (Hong Kong) I Li Ming (China) I Xu Qu (China) About Asian video art will take over Hong Kong’s hottest bars for one night only this September when CoBo Social, Asia’s first online and offline art community platform, presents Art in the Bar. On 14 September (Thursday) from 6pm onwards, Art in the Bar will take place across 11 of the city’s hottest bars, who will team up with CoBo Social to offer special promotions, performances and screenings of cutting-edge video art. Art in the Bar aims to introduce the best of Asian video art to diverse audiences by bringing art directly to the community. The …

William Lim

Published by Artomity Magazine

Architect William Lim discusses four of his favourite works from his collection. William Lim had known Samson Young as a musician, but first saw his art at the 2013 Para Site exhibition A Journal of the Plague Year. Fear, ghosts, rebels. SARS, Leslie and the Hong Kong story. Young had intended the piece on show, Liquid Borders 1, to be a series of four works. Lim was intrigued by the idea that Young wanted to record the sound along the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Young was working with AM Space gallery at the time, and Lim ended up collecting Liquid Borders 1, 2 and 3. These works are constantly lent out to exhibitions, with Lim happy to share works from his collection to promote Hong Kong artists. This year Young will represent Hong Kong at the Venice Biennale. He works with three galleries internationally, and Lim continues to buy his works from all of them. Lim aims to collect the works of artists he likes at key turning points in their careers, but …

‘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 …

Samson Young

Published by Artomity Magazine

Songs for Disaster Relief Venice Biennale 2017 May 13 – Nov 26, 2017 Diana d’Arenberg Parmanand With over a decade of practice, artist Samson Young has made audiences question and examine their relationship to sound and music, and their relationship to history, politics and identity through sound. Young is a product of a certain time and place. Born in 1979 in Hong Kong, he grew up under British colonial rule in the city, and moved with his family to Sydney after the handover to China in 1997, fearing the worst of Chinese rule in Hong Kong less than a decade after the Tiananmen Square massacre. In the 20 years since the handover, the people of Hong Kong have constantly reassessed what it means to be a Hongkonger, and are undergoing the self-scrutiny of a nation whose identity is in flux. Trained in classical music composition, and generally described as a sound artist, Young has explored the relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong by recording sounds in the border area separating the two, arranging them into sonic compositions and then transcribing them in graphic …