All posts tagged: Tai Kwun

Phantom Plane, Cyberpunk in the Year of the Future

Published by Artomity Magazine

Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong  Oct 5, 2019 – Jan 4, 2020 Nadim Abbas, Bettina von Arnim, Chan Wai Kwong, Chen Wei, Cui Jie, Aria Dean, Ho Rui An, Tishan Hsu, Tetsuya Ishida, JODI, Lee Bul, Seiko Mikami, Takehiko Nakafuji, Shinro Ohtake, Yuri Pattison, Sondra Perry, Seth Price, Jon Rafman, Hiroki Tsukuda, Nurrachmat Widyasena, Zheng Mahler From its outset, cyberpunk depicted radical technological advances—plugged-in consciousness, androids indistinguishable from people—but also worlds divided by unequal access to wealth and resources, where multinational corporations, sovereign states, hackers, and criminal underworld enterprises all manoeuvre for control. Far from having become outdated, cyberpunk’s dystopian scenes—its protagonists, networked and yet isolated, navigating neo-noir city streets illuminated by the glare of commerce—look like an average night on the town in 2019, whether in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Jakarta or New York. Like so much that was once seen as “cyber” or virtual—as outside of us, a separate and distinct terrain to be explored or conquered—the realms of cyberpunk have begun to seem less like an otherworldly plane, and more of a funhouse mirror of our world, lives, …

Fung Lam, Teriver Cheung, Anthony Lai

Published by Artomity Magazine

Hong Kong Episodes (Re-run) / JC Cube, Tai Kwun / Hong Kong / Jan 26–28, 2019 / Ernest Wan / Hong Kong Episodes (Re-run) is a shorter, revised version of an October 2015 show that was conceived amid the social unrest in the city the previous year. The programme note describes the production as a “jazz-classical cross-over piece… accompanied by… video images”, but the visuals turn out to be just as important as the live music, if not more so. One reason is that the video depicts scenes with skyscrapers, housing estates, neon signs and people in a subway station, for instance, that are unmistakably Hong Kong — which makes it impossible not to take the title of the show seriously — whereas the music has about it nothing especially evocative of Hong Kong or, for that matter, any particular locale. Another reason is that the visuals, largely created by Anthony Lai, play with both time and space so effectively that the viewer’s attention is absorbed throughout. Among the eight “episodes”, each representing a three-hour period in a day, …

Performing Society: The Violence of Gender

Published by Artomity Magazine

By Christie Lee / Half-used paint. Paint-streaked trainers. Crinkly plastic drop cloth. Three panels in shades of pink and orangey-red. A scene of unfinished business. But there is also a palpable sense of energy to it. On the wall opposite, an oil painting depicts a row of female nudes ascending the stairs, their bodies half-translucent, their flesh cutting into each other, giving a sense that whoever was there a moment ago had hurried off, leaving behind a trace of their presence. The two pieces could have been by the same artist, but they’re not. While the trainers and panels – meant to evoke “the carnal colour of the flesh”, according to the exhibition catalogue – are part of Pamela Rosenkranz’s Sexual Power (Three Viagra Paintings), the nudes belong to Jana Euler’s Nude Climbing Up the Stairs (2014). It is a liberating but also curious opening for Performing Society: The Violence of Gender, a show that – as one discovers in the proceeding exhibits – puts the systemic violence done to our bodies on glaring display. The exhibition is …

Sara Tse

Published by Artomity Magazine

Re Visit  Tai Kwun Hong Kong Jun 8 – Jul 8 Christine Chan Chiu Touch Ceramics, in Hong Kong’s newest centre for heritage and arts, Tai Kwun, kicked off with an inaugural show of Sara Tse’s newest works. An artist long fascinated by the transience of time and the impermanence of life, Tse is known as much for her tactile abilities in modelling and manipulating clay as for the sentimental content of her pieces. The exhibition was not only a tribute to technique and craftsmanship but also a timely throwback to things past. Tse discovered her signature method by chance, when the cloth used to clean her ceramic work table had hardened along with the clay. Experimenting by heating up the cloth, she discovered that while the cloth itself had been incinerated, what remained after the process was the exact replica of the cloth, but in porcelain, creating something that will last forever. Tse applies this method faithfully to her latest works, where she has turned her attention to cartography to highlight how Hong Kong …

A hollow in a world too full—Cao Fei solo at Tai Kwun Contemporary

Published by Artomity Magazine

Cao Fei 曹斐 A hollow in a world too full 在過滿的世界挖一個洞 Tai Kwun Contemporary 大館當代美術館 10 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong 香港中環荷李活道10號 8 Sep – 9 Dec 2018 Presented by UCCA尤倫斯當代藝術中心呈獻 Curated by: Philip Tinari in association with Xue Tan 策展人 : 田霏宇 (譚雪聯同籌劃) Cao Fei is among the most internationally renowned artists of her generation. Her first major solo exhibition in Hong Kong centres around the newly commissioned work Prison Architect. Comprised of a film, installations, and sculptures, the work subtly spreads throughout the three floors of Tai Kwun Contemporary’s exhibition spaces. Inspired by the sombre historical material of Victoria Prison and shot with downtown Central as backdrop, the new work conceives of a scenario where “an architect hesitantly accepts an invitation to design a prison”. In the film, the two protagonists each entertain imaginations and personal experiences of imprisonment in two parallel realities (one of the present day and the other of an ambiguous past). This cross-temporal-spatial dialogue reflects the artist’s contemplations on our relationship with the world. Apart from this ambitious film installation, the exhibition also showcases …

Tai Kwun

Published by Artomity Magazine

By Elliat Albrecht Hong Kong has a soft spot for crime and police stories. Films about gangs, double agents and bloody conflicts have long been a mainstay of local cinema. There is an underlying psychological reason: a surge of public interest in the genre occurred in the 1980s, coinciding with the UK and China’s negotiations over the 1997 handover. Amid anxiety about the political future, the movies often depicted the goings-on of crime syndicates and their clashes with authority to explore themes of loyalty, heroism and chaos. This blue-coat fascination laid the foundation for some of the most significant pop culture of the 1980s – and continues to provide inspiration today, in the form of the city’s newest cultural institution. While Hong Kong awaits the opening of M+, its much-anticipated major museum of visual culture, the recently opened Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage & Arts is poised to tick the mid-size museum box. Built on a historical site, the 19th-century Central Police Station compound on Hollywood Road, Tai Kwun has an unusual cross-disciplinary remit. The …