SWaitse Blog: April 2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Re-making Hong Kong

Response Exhibition of the 11th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale Hong Kong Exhibition - Fabrica Cultura

Date: 28 February - 29 April 2009
Venue: Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre

As introduced by Desmond Hui and Leo Ou-Fan Lee, the curators, “Fabrica Cultura literally means a cultural ‘workshop’ /‘factory’ or atelier that serves our creative imagination. The title Fabrica Cultura refers to the manifestation of architecture in a much broader spectrum of cultural aspects and practices." The exhibition venue is divided into six zones with different themes such as object, building, landscape, city, media, and text. Twelve teams of creative professionals, including architects, desingers, photographers, performers, and writer / critics, "urges people to re-examine the meaning of the city in terms of both its hard- and soft-ware in the challenges of creating and re-creating itself as a great metropolis."

While the exhibition of "Art and History" features drawings of the Old Hong Kong - our past, this exhibition represents a possibility of remaking Hong Kong - our future. People show their anxiety about the disapperance of the city in different ways. What can the governemnt help in the present then?

Object:

1 & 2. Wandering Home & Tin Man No. 11, Kacey Wong

3 & 4. Control Tower, Jason Carlow + Jonathan D Solomon + John Lin with Stefan Krakhofer + Ricci Wong + Eric Chiu

Building:

5. Tracing / Sichuan Intermediate Relief Housing, Gravity Partnership Ltd.: Frank Yu

6. Urban Courtyardism: Re-fabricating City, Wang Weijen Architecture: Wang Weijen + Anthony Fong + Huang Lifei + Xie Jing + Wang Yuhui

Landscape:

7 & 8. Accidental Urbanism, RAD limited - Aaron Tan + Paolo Dalla Tor + Alberto Cipriani + Ewelina Tereszczenko + Catty Chan + Kenneth Wong

City:

9. A Pandora's Box of Density, Edward Ng

10. Utopia Now: Opening the Closed Area, Joshua Bolchover + Peter Hasdell + Esther Lorenz + Pokit Poon

Media:

11. City Recognition, Juan Du + Nicola Borg Pisani

12. Hong Kong Odyssey, Mathias Woo

Text:

13 & 14. Textualizing Hong Kong, Leo Lee + Charmaine Hui

15 & 16. Contextualizing Remaking of Hong Kong, Desmond Hui + Hong Kong Cultural Imaging Workshop

Art and History

Exhibition: 8 - 17 April 2009

Venue: The Commerical Press,

Tsim Sha Tsui Commercial Press,

Tsim Sha Tsui Book Centre

In this exhibition, two famous artists, Mr. Au Yeung Nai Chim and Mr. Kong Kai Ming guide the viewers touring Hong Kong old places through an art perspective.

Scholar Ackbar Abbas mentions that Hong Kong is a disappearing city. If so, it is ironic that people can only seek the city's identities and its past through drawings or other media.

Au Yeung Nai Chim's drawings:

Kong Kai Ming's drawings:

Monday, April 6, 2009

Sotheby's Hong Kong Spring Sales 2009

Contemporary Asian Art, 2:00pm, 6 April 2009
Hall 3 (New Wing),

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

This is the first time I attend an auction.

Besides people are welcome to attend the auction, Sotheby allows written and telephone bids. During the process, the auctioneer opens the bidding on the lot and further bid on behalf of the seller up to the amount of the reserve. For the artwork(s) of the renowned artists, the bidding is rather exciting. Some of them are even sold much more than the ask price. In most cases, the lots will be passed when the bids are below their reserve price, but some can still be sold at a low price, to my surprise.

It is understandable that those works from prominent artists or departed artists are always set at a high price. How do people define a value and a price for an artwork? Is it about art on demand? People’s preferences on artworks are various. There may be some artworks that you do not like, but the bidders are willing to pay a lot for them.

"Numbers" fill up this commercial art event as well as the art world, when art, never as simple as an expression / a communication medium that I believe, is transformed into a commodity.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Interaction

This is an exhibition celebrating the 10th anniversary of the partnership between the Hong Kong Art School and the School of Art, RMIT University

4 – 26 April 2009
Pao Galleries, 4 – 5/F,
Hong Kong Arts Centre, Wanchai

According to Wikipedia, interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction (accessed: 4 April 2009)

The theme of the exhibition is about the different roles and relationships between “the self” and “the other.”
1. Teachers and students: Apart from teaching and learning, teachers and students inspire each other from diverse backgrounds and different generations.
2. The art from Australia and Hong Kong: Through experience sharing and cultural exchange, artists broaden their vision internationally. The viewers are enlightened by the exhibition as well.
3. Different forms and media of art: Artists talk through their artworks in various ways. With distinguishing characteristic, the selected material also talks for the artist in a way how it is formed and presented.

Exhibition calls forth interaction between artists and viewers. It also encourages interaction among viewers. Interaction will continue until one meets the other, an insulator. Artists convert messages into their artworks, and viewers decode them and give various interpretations of individual artworks. Through communication among viewers, messages are further elaborated and possibly, transformed into new meanings.

Then, another exhibition may come along.

Memoir: P1940, AD 1996 (2006)
Stoneware
80cm x 80cm x 4cm each

Wong Lai Ching, Fiona

Missing Links (fragment) (2008)
3 cardboard pieces, approx. 33cm x 18cm each,
Opened A4 book 42.5cm x 30cm

Fleur Summers

Raised from the Dead II (2008)
Pond clay, sand, limestone, Stone and paper
72cm x 38cm x 16cm each
Ray Chan

View from my Window (2009)
Mixed media
Tse Ming Chong

Not Agoraphobia – in the Netherlands (2007-2008)
Photo series
580cm x 88cm each a set of 2

Not Agoraphobia – in Hong Kong (2007-2008)
Photo series
580cm x 88cm each a set of 2
Cheung Hong Sang, Enoch

Living in the cloud (2009)
Sculpture re-installment
Dimension variable
Lam Laam, Jaffa

The Green Particles in the Green Environment (2009)
Mixed media on canvas
30.5cm x 33cm, 61cm x 63.5cm,
91.8cm x 94cm, 122cm x 124.5cm,
A set of 4
Tang Ying Chi, Stella