PUSHING TAIWANESE SCULPTURE INTO THE INTERNATIONAL SPOTLIGHT

A recent article published in Taiwan News profiles three highly influential Taiwanese sculptors, old generation artists Yang Ying-feng and Ju Ming, and contemporary craftsman Pu Hao-ming.

These sculptors have contributed much to art in Taiwan and helped to advance it from “carvings of religious figures and decorative pieces for temples” that once dominated the cultural output of Taiwan prior to the 1920s.

Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming coloring a piece in his Living World Series

Yang Ying-feng

This internationally renowned sculptor was born in Yilan, Taiwan, in 1926 and decided to become an artist early in his life. In 1943, he studied architecture in Japan at the Tokyo Fine Arts School.

While in Japan, he was also granted the opportunity to study under Asakura Fumio, a master of Japanese modern sculpture. It was in Japan that he began to discover his distinct style of lifescape sculpture “which emphasises the harmony of humanity, environment and art.”

He won his first award in 1953 for his piece Sudden Rain. A Buddhist sculpture entitled Higher When You Look Up was exhibited at the 1956 Sao Paulo Art Biennial and collected by the Taiwanese National Museum of History. It was around this time he began to use stainless steel in his work.

He studied modern sculpture in Italy and in 1970 exhibited at the Expo’70 in Japan.

Yang Ying-feng died in Taiwan in 1997.

Little Flying Phoenix, Yang Ying-feng

Ju Ming

Living artist Ju Ming was born in Miaoli County, Taiwan, in 1938. Inspired by Yang Ying-feng, he “is considered a legend of the history of modern Taiwan art.”

He learned the art of woodcarving at 15, studying under Lee Chin-chuan, a master craftsman renovating a temple near his home.

Ju’s artistic ambitions began to solidify when he approached sculptor Yang Yu-yu with two pieces of his early sculptural work, Portrait of My Mother and A Girl Playing in the Sand. Yang took him on as his student. It was by studying under Yang that Ju “developed his own idea that art is cultivation through practice.”

Ju Ming’s first solo exhibition was held in 1977 at the National Museum of History in Taiwan. After this came his two major works: Taichi Series, which he showed at his first overseas exhibition at the Tokyo Central Art Museum in 1977, and Living World Series, which was developed in the 1980s during travel to America.

Ju Ming achieved international success during the eighties and nineties: “his creations have successfully transformed him from a traditional craftsman and artist into a master sculptor at home and abroad.” Most recently, he received an honory doctorate of art from Fu-jen Catholic University.

There is a sculpture museum, Juming Museum, located in Taipei, Taiwan, that is dedicated to the showing of Ju Ming’s work.

Single Whip, Taichi Series, Ju Ming

Pu Hao-ming

Born in Chiayi City, Taiwan, in 1944, Pu Hao-ming is the son of Pu Tien-sheng, “one of the most influential scupltors in the history of Taiwan art.” His father privately tutored him until he entered the Chinese Cultural University in 1963.

Pu travelled and studied in Europe from 1980 to 1983 where his works (as well as his father’s) were selected for numerous Salon Exhibitions in Paris.

He returned to Taiwan and his most celebrated works from 1983 to 1995, including Female Rider, Fu Hsi Shih and Flower of Life, were collected by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.

Fu Hsi Shih, 1980, Pu Hao-ming

This is a summary of Pioneers of a new age in Taiwan art (Yali Chen, Taiwan News)

KN/KCE

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HONG KONG ART STUDIOS

Fo Tan is a place that you might not be able to name straight away when speaking of Hong Kong’s local art. However, this fading industrial district is home to more than 50 art studios and 180 artists. Each year in January many of Fo Tan’s artists invite outsiders into their studios to show their work as well as to exchange ideas and dialogue.

Fotanian Open Studio Programme 2010  which showcases artwork of a multitude of media, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics, mixed media, printmaking, installations, photographic and video works, is the eighth incarnation of the event.

This year CNNGo takes a peek inside some of the studios and interviews the artists about their experience of Fotan.

Chow Chun Fai at Studio 1023: “Fotanian follows no rules. It’s a natural process. People come and go. It renews itself.”

Homan Ho at G16: “Fotanian is coming together to be able to dream together, even if we still need that day job.”

Sculpture and furniture designer Homan Ho is sitting in front of the bookshelf he made for G16, the unofficial café of this year’s Fotanian event.

SHANGHAI ART FAIR INTERVIEW

Colin Chinnery was in a precarious position as the new direction of ShContemporary, the Shanghai art fair, in 2009. The young art fair, having its 3rd incarnation in 2010, faced an uncertain future last year while the financial world dealt with the possibility of economic collapse. However, the anxiety leading up to the event was unfounded, as ShContemporary attracted over 30,000 visitors and decent sales. Colin Chinnery talks with Artron.net about the challenges of leading an art fair within such adverse economic circumstances, his plans for ShContemporary 2010, and Chinese art collectors.

Colin Chinnery, director of ShContemporary

The initial panic regarding the contemporary art market that followed the economic crisis of 2008 seems to have subsided. As you begin working on ShContemporary for 2010, do you feel an increased optimism?

The panic was understandable when the economy seemed to be in free fall, especially when there was a clear analogy (and connection) between the phantom wealth conjured by Wall Street and easy money bloating the art market. Everyone knew that something like this was around the corner, and when we finally hit that corner we had no choice but to do the necessary work in order to readjust. With ShContemporary, we have perhaps turned another corner. The 2009 edition saw a lot of optimism return to the market, and that makes life easier for 2010. The playing field is different because the number of players in the art market increased exponentially during the boom years, and now there are more mouths to feed, so to speak. As an art fair whose job is to fulfill these increased expectations, we have to prove ourselves every year, not just for one year. I don’t think the pressure will relent for many years to come, and that is a good thing. It keeps people at the top of their game.

The contemporary Chinese art market has experienced a significant downturn. How does this lack of confidence in contemporary Chinese art impact the fair?

ShContemporary includes art from all over Asia and beyond, so the slowdown in demand for certain Chinese artists’ works didn’t affect us at all. Certain galleries are very sensitive to the current demand, and bring the right works. Sales were good among Chinese galleries this year at ShContemporary. Those who visited the fair will have noticed that there were very few works by top-priced Chinese artists; the prices and the kind of work on offer represented a change in attitude. Now that the market is shifting [its] attitude, I think it’s an opportunity for different voices to be heard, which was very evident at the fair.

Given ShContemporary’s location and history, how much of next year’s edition do you expect will be focused on Asia, as opposed to having a more global perspective?

The fair as a whole does have a regional focus on Asia, and that is reflected in the participating galleries and the kinds of work being shown and sold; in 2010 it will have an Asia Pacific perspective whilst presenting work from Europe, the U.S., and other regions. The market should always help to mix up the regional DNA as much as possible. How much that is possible will increase each year.

How would you position ShContemporary in relation to the other fairs in China, including Art Hong Kong (ART HK)? What makes ShContemporary unique for dealers and collectors?

We want to create a fair that is thinking about the future in all kinds of ways, from artistic values to the structure of the market. I feel that can be reflected by the two new initiatives that were launched this year. On the artistic side there is the Discoveries section, a thematic exhibition and lecture series dealing with the topic, “What is contemporary art?” Instead of being a special section a side attraction peripheral to the fair, it became a central feature. It also deliberately included challenging work not necessarily suitable for the market, but necessary for the exhibition to make sense thematically. The exhibition dealt with issues relating to the term “contemporary” from different perspectives, ranging from pioneers such as Joseph Kosuth, Martha Rosler, and Marina Abramovic to social-historical perspectives such as Anri Sala, Liu Wei, and Shi Qing, and emerging Chinese and Japanese artists. As the first thing that visitors saw at the fair, it left a deep impression on collectors, curators, artists, and other guests, and seemed to define the fair’s identity…

See Artron.net for the full interview with Colin Chinnery on the Future of ShContemporary.

The 3rd edition of ShContemporary, the Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair, is Sept 9-12, 2010.

Related Posts

• Shanghai art fair goes ahead despite advice to cancel- March 09
• Contemporary art market in Asia now bigger than US for first time says Artprice- Nov 09
• Three recession strategies for selling art in Shanghai – Shanghai Daily- April 09
• Art fair Shanghai breaks new ground with Best of Discovery emerging artists – Financial Times, Artkrush- Sept 08

PAKISTANI ART IN UNITED STATES

The Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan exhibition presented by the Asia Society Museum has recently wrapped up in New York City, but you can still get a taste for the show in this video, featuring the Asia Society Museum Director, Dr. Melissa Chiu.

The groundbreaking show, curated by the renowned Salma Hashmi, is the “first ever show of contemporary art  from Pakistan in the United States” and features 15 artists from all over Pakistan.

The show ran from Sept 10, 2009-Jan 3, 2010, but a full-color, 160 page catalogue of the exhibition by Yale University Press is available for purchase.

Related Posts

• Asia Society brings historic show of Pakistani art to US Sep 2009- Aug 09
• Rarely exhibited art and more firsts at Asian Contemporary Art Week New York 2009-April 09
• Pakistani contemporary miniature art – overview on video- June 09
• Three Pakistani female artists in New York – review New York Times, Art Knowlege News- Jan 09

Writer for Art Radar Asia reflects on the exhibition

Kate Nicholson, a Taiwan-based contributor to Art Radar Asia, writes about her favourite picks from Viewpoints and Viewing Points , the 2009 Asian Art Biennale exhibition, currently on show at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

Viewpoints and Viewing Points, 2009 Asian Art Biennale exhibition, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

“It was just wonderful to start my day knowing that I would soon be surrounded by artwork spanning three galleries, created by 56 of Asia’s best artists. And what a show it was. Every sense was stimulated as there was every kind of art form on display, from painting and sculpture to film and photography and everything in between.

My favourite pieces, in no particular order, included: Takehito Koganezawa’s Propagation of Electric Current, all the works by Mia Wen-Hsuan Liu, a Taiwanese artist, and Bloated City and Skinny Language by Hung Keung.

The latter struck me with its beauty when I first entered the space and looked across to see what I assume to be stylised Chinese characters floating across the wall via projection equipment.

However, it became a whole new experience when a man and his very small daughter realised that if you stand at a certain point in the room the characters gently swarm around you and move with you as you move. It was beautiful to watch them interacting with the piece…”

Read the complete article at Kate Nicholson’s blog, jar of buttons.

Related Posts

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Taipei Arts Awards celebrates works of talented up-and-comer

Four winners have been selected from 380 submitted works in the Taipei Arts Awards 2009. Ni Xiang, Chang Li-ren, Chang Huei-ming and Tao Mei-yu won with large-scale mixed-media installation pieces.

The judging panel was comprised of renowned Taiwanese art professionals Wang Jun-Jieh, Wu Ma-li, Manray Hsu, Kao Chung-li, Rita Chang, Lu Hsien-ming and Wu Chao-ying.

The four winners

Ni Xiang’s Compensation Soon uses handmade cardboard to form the shape of the body of a car and this has been placed over an old style red motorcycle. Both the paper car and the graffiti on the walls show the effort to restore missing parts by drawing in a way often seen on TV screens.

Compensation Soon, Ni Xiang

image courtesy of TFAM

Chang Li-ren’s Model Community is a hand made white-walled apartment community. When the crosshairs of the sniper’s scope fall on residents and the sound of a gun being fired is heard, bullet holes appear in the white walls and the people inside the apartment are destroyed, a scene that is projected onto five screens and can be viewed live from different angles.

Model Community, Chang Li-ren

image courtesy of TFAM

Chang Huei-ming’s Watching Dust In the Sunlight 14:05 portrays afternoon sunlight shining onto a corner of life in which an everyday spilled cup vibrates quickly, the ripples making the inverted reflection of the multicolored curtains in the center of the spilled water hazy.

Watching Dust In the Sunlight, Chang Huei-ming

image courtesy of TFAM

In Tao Mei-yu’s Language, ten LCD screens have been hung in a cylindrical space and people from different countries mimic the call of the same animal, using a picture of a single animal to contrast the linguistic modes of different countries. The artist has attempted to use anthropological observational and measuring methods to investigate the differences in the process of communication in different language systems.

Language, Tao Mei-yu

image courtesy of TFAM

The Taipei Art Awards

Established in 2001 and organised by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Taipei Arts Awards aim to reward works that have unique artistic style and reflect contemporary culture, providing a stage on which new artists can show their talent. Uniquely, the competition does not divide works by medium nor does it limit size.

“The winning works in previous years have been displayed to widespread acclaim, showing that the holding of this competition injects a burst of vitality into contemporary art in Taiwan,” said Hsiao-yun Hsieh, Director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

KN/KCE

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• Art Fair Shanghai breaks new ground with Best of Discovery emerging artists – Financial Times, Artkrush – September 2008

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URBAN ART DEFINITIONS

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in an ephemeral and viral form of art that is marking urban settings around the world, and has developed a flourishing sub-culture all its own. Now though, street art is going mainstream. Auctioneers, collectors and museum directors are scrabbling to learn urban art vocabulary and develop positions on the big street art issues. In this primer post Art Radar gives you a heads up on what you need to know.

What is Street Art?

There is as yet no simple definition of street art. It is an amorphous beast encompassing art which is found in or inspired by the urban environment. With anti-capitalist and rebellious undertones, it is a democratic form of popular public art probably best understood by seeing it in situ. It is not limited to the gallery nor easily collected or possessed by those who may turn art into a trophy. 

Considered by some a nuisance, for others street art is a tool for communicating views of dissent, asking difficult questions and expressing political concerns. 

Its definition and uses are changing: originally a tool to mark territorial boundaries of urban youth today it is even seen in some cases as a means of  urban beautification and regeneration.

Whether it is regarded as vandalism or public art, street art has caught the interest of the art world and its lovers of beauty.

Is street art vandalism?

In an interview with the Queens Tribune, New York City’s Queens Museum of Art Executive Director Tom Finkelpearl said public art “is the best way for people to express themselves in this city.” Finkelpearl, who helps organize socially conscious art exhibitions, added, “Art gets dialogue going. That’s very good.” However, he doesn’t find  graffiti to be art, and says, “I can’t condone vandalism… It’s really upsetting to me that people would need to write their name over and over again in public space. It’s this culture of fame. I really think it’s regrettable that they think that’s the only way to become famous.”

Is street art illegal?

The legal distinction between permanent graffiti and art is permission, but the topic becomes even more complex regarding impermanent, nondestructive forms of graffiti (yarn bombing, video projection, and street installation.)

With permission, traditional painted graffiti is technically considered public art. Without permission, painters of public and private property are committing vandalism and are, by definition, criminals. However, it still stands that most street art is unsanctioned, and many artists who have painted without permission, (Banksy, Shepard Fairey)  have been glorified as legitimate and socially conscious artists.

Although it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to clearly define what unsanctioned imagery is art and what is not, the effects of such images can be observed and conclusions can be reached regarding images’ function within a public environment.

Banksy, North London

Broken Window Theory: Vandalism vs. Street Art

Vandalism is inexcusable destruction of property, and has been shown to have negative repercussions on its setting. It has also been observed by criminologists to have a ‘snowball effect’ of generating more negativity within its vicinity. Dr. James Q. Wilson and Dr. George Kelling studied the effects of disorder (in this case, a broken window) in an urban setting, and found that one instance of neglect increases the likelihood of more broken windows and graffiti will appear. Then, there is an observable increase in actual violent crime. The researchers concluded there is a direct link between vandalism, street violence, and the general decline of a society.

Their theory, named the Broken Window Theory and first published in 1982, argues that crime is the inevitable result of disorder, and that if neglect is present in a place, whether it is disrepair or thoughtless graffiti, people walking by will think no one cares about that place, and the unfavorable damage is therefore acceptable.

Street Art and Gentrification

Thoughtful and attractive street art, however, has been suggested to have regenerative effects on a neighborhood. In fact, the popular street artist Banksy, who has catapulted his guerilla street art pastime into a profitable career as an auctionable contemporary artist, has come under criticism for his art contributing to the gentrification of neighborhoods. Appropriate Media claims that:

“Banksy… sells his lazy polemics to Hollywood movie stars for big bucks… Graffiti artists are the performing spray-can monkeys for gentrification. In collusion with property developers, they paint deprived areas bright colours to indicate the latest funky inner city area ripe for regeneration. Pushing out low income families in their wake, to be replaced by middle class metrosexuals with their urban art collections.” [Times Online]

Banksy himself has received requests from residents in the neighborhoods he paints, which ask that he stop painting so they can continue to afford homes in the neighborhoods where they grew up.  A letter received by Banksy reads:

“My brother and me were born here and have lived here all our lives, but these days so many yuppies and students are moving here that neither of us can afford to buy a house where we grew up anymore. Your graffities are undoubtably part of what makes these [people] think our area is cool. You’re obviously not from around here, and after you’ve driven up the house prices you’ll just move on. Do us a favor and go do your stuff somewhere else like Brixton.”

Forms of Street Art

Traditional- Painting on the surfaces of public or private property that is visible to the public, commonly with a can of spray paint or roll-on paint. It may be comprised of just simple words (commonly the writer’s name) or be more artful and elaborate, covering a surface with a mural image.

Stencil- Painting with the use of a homemade stencil, usually a paper or cardboard cutout, to create an image that can be easily reproduced. The desired design is cut out of a selected medium, and the image is transferred to a surface through the use of spray paint or roll-on paint.

Sticker- (aka sticker bombing, slap tagging, and sticker tagging) Propagates an image or message in public spaces using homemade stickers. These stickers commonly promote a political agenda, comment on a policy or issue, or comprise an avantgarde art campaign. Sticker art is considered a subcategory of postmodern art.

Mosaic- Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of smaller parts or pieces, to resemble a single giant piece of art.

Video Projection- Digitally projecting a computer-manipulated image onto a surface via a light and projection system.

Street installation- Street installations are a growing trend within the ’street art’ movement. Whereas conventional street art and graffiti is done on surfaces or walls, ’street installations’ use 3-D objects and space to interfere with the urban environment. Like graffiti, it is non-permission based and once the object or sculpture is installed it is left there by the artist.

Wood blocking- Artwork painted on a small portion of plywood or similar inexpensive material and attached to street signs with bolts. Often the bolts are bent at the back to prevent removal. It has become a form of graffiti used to cover a sign, poster, or any piece of advertisement that stands or hangs.

Flash mobbing- A large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social networking, and viral emails. The term is generally not applied to events organized by public relations firms or as publicity stunts. This can also be considered mass public performance art.

Yarn bombing- Yarn Bombing is a type of street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted cloth rather than paint or chalk. The practice is believed to have originated in the U.S. with Texas knitters trying to find a creative way to use their leftover and unfinished knitting projects, but has since spread worldwide. While other forms of graffiti may be expressive, decorative, territorial, socio-political commentary, advertising or vandalism, yarn bombing is almost exclusively about beautification and creativity.

Related Posts

• Street artist Zevs detained in Hong Kong for defacing Chanel logo- interview- July 2009
• Why is Thailand difficult for street artists? Graffiti artist Bundit Puangthong explains- July 2009
• Picasso of China or voice of dissent: Who is Ai Wei Wei? Profile- Sept 2009
• Chinese urban art exhibition in London shows new art medium of laser tagging- Oct 2008

EW/KCE

Taiwan’s top painters represented in Touring Taiwan: Highlights from the Taipei Fine Arts Museum Collection

As part of a cultural exchange between Taiwan and Korea, the Busan Museum of Art is currently showing Touring Taiwan: Highlights from the Taipei Fine Arts Museum Collection, an exhibition that will run until 15 February 2010.

Taipei Fine Arts Museum has selected 50 artworks by 40 of Taiwan’s most celebrated artists, including works by Yang San-lang (1907-1995) and Yen Shui-long (1903-1997), two of the most important painters in the history of Taiwan art.

image courtesy of TFAM

Taiwan’s Eight Scenic Spots, which have been selected on an irregular basis by a public ballot system set up by the Japanese government in 1927, are represented in oil paintings, watercolor paintings, Chinese brush paintings and gouache paintings.

image courtesy of TFAM

Highlighted destinations include Kenting, Yushan, Alishan and Sun Moon Lake. The paintings will be grouped according to which of the Eight Scenic Spots they represent, allowing viewers to see how the creative perspectives with which artists depict the scenery vary over time.

image courtesy of TFAM

“This exhibition is titled Touring Taiwan but the natural and humanistic scenes presented in the original vision of the artists will open a window on Taiwan for the extensive Busan audience,” said Hsiao-Yun Hsieh, Director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

The Taipei Fine Arts Museum will honour the exchange with an exhibition of selected works from the Busan Museum of Art collection from 6 March to 25 April 2010.

KN/KCE

Related Posts

• First of its kind in Asia – Taiwan’s Digital Art Centre officially opens – July 2009
• Taiwanese photographers, video artists and an architect at 53rd Venice Biennale – May 2009
• Troubles for Korean art at home, better reception abroad  - Korean Herald, New York Magazine – January 2009

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TOP BLOGS, BOOKS, NEWSPAPER SOURCES FOR CHINESE ART

What do you read? What information are you looking for? Where do you find it? These are the questions on our lips every day when we talk with art world movers. We have learnt that, despite exploding levels of activity in the art scenes across Asia, reporting remains sparse and uneven and that people have a surprisingly diverse range of sources depending on their base country and background.

In this post we ask Ashley Lee, one of our new intake of interns who  studies Asian art in the US and London, to give us her perspective. 

As a young full-time scholar based in the west, what Ashley are your favourite sources of information about Chinese contemporary art?

As an art history major specializing in contemporary Asian art, here are the list of sources that I utilize regularly in my studies to keep up with the fast-paced scene. These are my absolute favorite sources—everything that I read and recommend frequently.

e-flux - http://www.e-flux.com – A basic yet comprehensive list of new exhibitions and announcements in the art world. Its journal, which has been published online since November 2008, raises questions about contemporary art issues.

Art AsiaPacific - http://www.aapmag.com - One of my favorite periodicals: it covers the Middle East and Central Asia as well as East Asia.  AAP also has articles that describe the major successes and progressions of major Asian artists and movements, which makes it especially helpful for research—for example, in the last issue, Zhang Huan and Roberto Chabet were mentioned.

ArtRadarAsia - http://artradarasia.wordpress.com – As a student, I appreciate ArtRadarAsia for its broad range of topics covering all of the Asian art world. It’s an excellent resource for finding a paper topic or finding an overview of a movement or a specific area of Asia.

New York Times exhibition reviews – http://www.nytimes.com – The New York Times art critics often review Asian art shows in the New York area. I would especially recommend reading reviews by Holland Cotter because they contain valuable specialist information on Asian art.

Asia Art Archive – http://www.aaa.org.hk – A library of contemporary Asian art resources in Hong Kong which contains reference materials, exhibition catalogues, periodicals, pamphlets, exhibition invitations, newspaper articles, among other things. It’s comprehensive (it has over 25,000 catalogued materials), especially for East and Southeast Asia, and its catalogue is viewable online. It also has a listing of special events related to contemporary Asian art.

Wu Hung, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China: This is my favorite book about the development of contemporary Chinese art. Wu Hung, one of the foremost scholars of Chinese contemporary art, wrote this book as a catalog for Cancelled: Exhibiting Experimental Art in China, a 2000 show at Chicago’s Smart Museum. It explains the reconstruction of Song Dong’s installation Father and Son in the Ancestral Temple, which had originally been shown in the 1998 exhibition It’s Me, which was shut down by the Chinese government. It also lists all the exhibitions that were shut down or censored in the 1990s.

AL/KCE

Related posts:
Top 5 Sites for Japanese Contemporary Art News by Matthew Larking – June 2009
Top 14 Books on Southeast Asian Art by Adeline Ooi – April 2009
Top 5 Books on Chinese art by Chinese art specialist, Pippa Dennis – October 2008

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HONG KONG ARTIST INTERVIEW

A viewing station of Leung Chi Wo's video work exhibition at the Asia Art Archive, entitled {Inter}Viewing Possession

The remarkable Hong Kong artist Leung Chi Wo explores the idea of possession and value in his fascinating installation exhibiton entitled {Inter}Viewing Possession, curated by Carl Cheng Chi-Ming and Livia Garcia.

Leung Chi Wo is a highly active artist in the Hong Kong community,  a co-founder of the internationally significant Para-Site Art Space, who graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with an MFA in 1997.

He represented Hong Kong in the Venice Biennale in 2001, and has worked in the arts abroad in both New York and Italy.

Despite this, he says, “When I was young I never thought about becoming an artist, and even after studying art, I didn’t think I would become one.” He describes his art as a “contradiction of ideas,” and that he “likes to explore things that are not meant to be.”

Watch a video interview of Leung Chi Wo here on ChoochooTV Media Entertainment, which posts arts related video programs on [art]attack, Hong Kong web television.

His installation exhibit at the Asia Art Archive is comprised of 8 viewing stations, each similar in outward appearance to a telescope.

Regarding his process and intentions for {Inter}Viewing Possession, he says:

I want to express the idea of viewing, and possession is an association to the location we are at. We are situated on Possession Street, and close to here is Possession Point where the first Colonials arrived. Possession is also something we can all associate with. We interviewed people around this area regarding their possessions, objects that they treasure. During the interview, you are actually exercising your thinking about what you learn from the interview. I transcribed the interviews into a monologue. Then I interviewed the interviewers about their point of view when conducting the interviews, turning it into the second set of monologues, and combined it into the audio for this set of works. During the process, I want to explore what ‘value’ is and how to describe it. In my artwork, I want to put more thought into the context, when the artwork is exhibited, it should be very closely related to the environment. I hope the presentation of the installation can work with the situation it is in. The environment should also involve the audience, what you are showing the audience. What I meant by the environment doesn’t necessarily mean physical space, we must also consider the historical or cultural space and also the habitation of the people in that area.

The video works from this exhibition are also available for viewing on Youtube, and can be accessed through the links below.

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 1 (Cantonese)

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 2 (English)

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 3 (English)

{Inter}Viewing Possession- Video Channel 4 (Cantonese)

Related Posts

• Embedding the Bed in Public Space – interview Hong Kong artist and ParaSite director Tim Li- Aug 09
• The distinctive style of young Hong Kong Fine Line artists: what is it and who are they?- Feb 09
• Shahzia Sikander questions authority with new video art medium at Para/Site in Hong Kong- Sept 09
• Sound art, trickery and time – interview Hong Kong new media artist Chilai Howard Cheng- Nov 09