First published in LEAP, Volume 1 Issue 3.
Text by Robin Peckham.
The Burden of Representation: Abstraction in Asia Today
1 May – 27 June
Osage Gallery
5/F, Kian Dai Industrial Building, 73-75 Hung To Road, Kwun Tong
+852-2793-4817
www.osagegallery.com
In his first major curatorial outing since joining Osage, Eugene Tan brings together a broad range of abstract and pseudo-representational painting from Chen Jie, Ding Yi, Gong Jian, Masato Kobayashi, Jane Lee, Lee Kit, Michael Lin, Liu Wei, Milenko Prvacki, Yang Jiechang, and Zhao Zhao.
Lee Mingwei: Liquid Forms
Opens 28 May 6:00PM
Osage Gallery
5/F, Kian Dai Industrial Building, 73-75 Hung To Road, Kwun Tong
+852-2793-4817
www.osagegallery.com
New York-based Taiwanese artist Lee Mingwei (best known outside the art world for his “male pregnancy project”) presents his first Hong Kong solo exhibition, fresh off the opening of his latest sound-based installation project in a gothic mansions on a Scottish island. Expect a poetic take on the artist’s themes of memory and cross-cultural communication.
Acconci Studio + Ai Weiwei: A Collaborative Project
8 May – 4 July
Para/Site Art Space
G/F, 4 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan
+852-2517-4620
www.para-site.org.hk
One of the most-hyped exhibitions to open in Hong Kong this year, this project has been under development by Para/Site resident curator Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya for over a year. Ostensibly, it reduces the idea of cross-cultural collaboration to the absolute basics, introducing Ai Weiwei and Vito Acconci and otherwise giving them free rein to develop a suitable project for the gallery space. Undaunted by the prospect of creating an exhibition in a space no larger than the foyer of his own studio in Beijing, Ai Weiwei no doubt welcomes the opportunity to exhibit in the more forgiving (if apathetic) climate of Hong Kong, contributing a series of pictures and models to the collaboration. Much of the exhibition design is executed by Acconci with input from Arup, including in intriguing sound installation, but the space will continue to accumulate objects and provoke new situations on a regular basis for a full two months. Evolving through an almost daily online conversation between the two art and design studios and Para/Site, the project should offer a candid view on the possibilities and practices of collaboration today. The curator likens the elements of the exhibition to an “open source computer language,” both allowing for future developmental routes and presenting itself as a workable productive system.
Butter-Frog: New Works by Wu Shanzhuan
24 May – 23 June
Hanart TZ Gallery
202 Henley Building, 5 Queen’s Road Central
+852-2526-9019
www.hanart.com
Wu Shanzhuan, an important but highly underrated member of the generation first brought to international attention via Johnson Chang’s Hanart TZ Gallery, returns to the diminutive and aging space in Central with new paintings worlds away from the messy politics of language and migration that characterizes much of his earlier work.
A Group Exhibition of Hong Kong Artists
May – June
Hanart Square
2/F, Mai On Industrial Building, 17-21 Kung Yip Street, Kwai Chung
+852-2526-9019
www.hanart.com
Rumored to be housed in a space shared between Hong Kong’s most historically significant gallery and the studio of mainland art star Fang Lijun, Hanart Square offers a new option for large-scale hangings in a city infamous for the diminutive scale of its galleries. Although the precise composition of the opening exhibition has been a closely-guarded secret (perhaps even for the artists involved), one might speculate that it will at least include major recent works from the gallery’s local stars, Chow Chun Fai and Lam Tung Pang. The latter, just finished with two major solo exhibitions in Hong Kong, has been working with dioramas and paintings that imagine a space for wild animals within human civilization; the former has been struggling to escape from his highly-acclaimed reputation as a painter of Hong Kong film scenes. Look for unconventional installations from these two, perhaps accompanied by some of the rising stars of the Hanart stable: Ho Sin Tung, who paints highly personal maps and illustrations of her Hong Kong youth, will most likely be present. Of course, Hanart was once rather promiscuous within the local art scene, and it is possible that any number of old friends could exhibit: Leung Chi Wo, Pak Sheung Chuen, Angela Su, Luke Ching–and the list goes on.
Candida Höfer: In Italy, Naples and Florence
Opens 24 May 6:00PM – 10 July
Ben Brown Fine Arts
301 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central
+852-2522-9600
www.benbrownfinearts.com
Ben Brown–with a new space but by no means a fresh face in Hong Kong–brings the renowned large-format photographer Candida Höfer, a former student of the Bechers, and her trademark images capturing the underlying social topographies of architectural space.
Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards 2009
21 May – 1 August
Hong Kong Museum of Art
10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
+852-2721-0116
www.lcsd.gov.hk/ce/Museum/Arts/english/aboutus/aboutus.html
Outside Hong Kong, it is a little-known fact that the island metropolis does indeed have its own version of a biennial; within the city, it is a rarely-discussed embarrassment–except for those artists selected that might have a hard time exhibiting elsewhere. Selected by a jury this year consisting of Fei Daiwei, Binghui Huangfu, Jane DeBevoise, Leung Mee-ping, Pi Daojian, Pan Gongkai, and a handful of other local names listed as “expert advisers of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department,” the nominated works are categorized as either “Chinese painting/ seal carving” or “Western media.” Needless to say, the composition of works thus selected is worlds away from what the art world proper might organize, and many leading Hong Kong artists are outright rejected. Nevertheless, there are always a few interesting works that make it into the final selection, invariably sandwiched between trinkets with interpretive text reading “postcolonial Mickey Mouse cartoons” and “contemporary take on classical coffin carving.” However, after the construction of the new cultural institution M+ in the West Kowloon Cultural District, the Hong Kong Museum of Art may lose even this point of pride: visit now, and enjoy the romantically dim lighting, comfortingly low ceilings, and jaw-dropping harbor views before it’s too late.
Lofty Integrity: Donation of Works by Wu Guanzhong
26 March – 29 August
Hong Kong Museum of Art
10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
+852-2721-0116
www.lcsd.gov.hk/ce/Museum/Arts/english/aboutus/aboutus.html
Wu Guanzhong has made waves in recent months by donating a massive amount of his own work, past and present, to a series of regional museums (and thereby eliminating much of his own secondary market in the process). Hong Kong’s museum displays its portion of the treasure trove for posterity.
Hope & Glory: A Conceptual Circus by Simon Birch
8 April – 30 May
ArtisTree
1/F, Cornwall House, Island East, Taikoo Shing
+852-2844-5096
www.thebirchfoundation.com
Hong Kong is divided on Simon Birch: he represents a homegrown industry probably equaling in revenue the gross domestic product of the remainder of the art scene combined, but something about his playful, pop-influenced working class hero complex just doesn’t sit right with many observers. With an educational program arranged by Valerie Doran and including contributions by anothermountainman, G.O.D.’s Douglas Young, Cang Xin, and Wang Shya, this sprawling exhibition in the city’s largest art space (previously utilized just once, for a Vivienne Westwood retrospective) offers the critics a chance to re-evaluate Birch’s work before he moves on to global domination–or at least the Hong Kong pavilion of the Venice Biennale, which he has his heart set on curating in the upcoming round, or so the rumor goes. Drawing on the imagery of recent science fiction films and television, the installation consists of a set of booths or pavilions that recall the nostalgia of old-fashioned carnivals, perhaps tempered by modernist notions of public sculpture and the design of rectilinear space. Though derided by many, Birch has always found well-placed supporters in key corners of the art world, as with his noted dealer Katie de Tilly and a coterie of collectors; now it seems that the government has also thrown in its lot with the painter turned darling of “accessible art,” contributing a two million dollar pledge from the Mega Events Fund for this exhibition.
In the Name of Pop: Warhol, Haring, Koons in the 80s
6 May – 5 June
Fabrik Contemporary Art
412 Yip Fung Building, 2-18 D’Aguilar Street, Central
+852-2525-4911
www.fabrik-gallery.com
Hong Kong continues its love affair with secondary market collecting in this new space, which promises to show only the most recognizable works by the most recognizable names. Nevertheless, public exhibitions of Koons and Warhol are hard to come by on this side of the world.
A Solo Exhibition of Gao Xingjian
7 May – 27 May
iPreciation
LG3, Jardine House, 1 Connaught Place, Central
+852-2537-8869
www.ipreciation.com
Best known for his Nobel prize-winning literary activities, Gao Xingjian is also an ink painter strongly influenced by the poetic sensibilities of rural China. This exhibition is presented as part of Le French May, reflecting the artist’s endeavors in both hemispheres.
Li Wei
Opens 28 May
10 Chancery Lane Gallery
Chai Wan Industrial City Phase 1, Warehouse 614, Chai Wan
+852-2810-0065
www.10chancerylanegallery.com
Li Wei, whose conceptual photography consists largely of his own body hanging off some architectural feature or another at an absurd angle, came to local prominence by walking across the Hong Kong harbor with a mirror around his neck.
LSR: Solo Exhibition of Li Shurui
7 May – 31 May, Closing 28 May 7:00PM
Connoisseur Contemporary
G4, Chinachem Hollywood Centre, 1 Hollywood Road, Central
+852-3521-0300
www.connoisseurcontemporary.com
The exhibition LSR more or less continues Beijing-based artist Li Shurui’s long-standing series “Lights,” based on her aesthetic interest in the LED arrays of skylines and nightclubs alike. Typically painting from photographs, these compositions end up as medium-sized canvases containing nothing but points of light, often showing a framed light pattern at a skewed angle or with other light sources seeping in at the edges. The exhibition title, consisting of the artist’s initials, is obviously a play on certain acronyms reminiscent of the technologies of vision, SLR coming chiefly to mind; in this exhibition, however, Li Shurui moves beyond the apparatus of the lens, now more interested in techniques of symmetry and mirroring. Contrary to the gallery materials, on the other hand, this exhibition does not mark a departure by any account: these works remain very much within the narrow style for which the artist is known. If some pieces create abstract patterns that set forth from their photorealist origins for the territory of psychological games and the pleasures of a touch more ambiguity, perhaps the artist is hinting at new directions for future image-making.
Definitions of Time: Painting by Au Hoi Lam
7 May – 30 June
Edge Gallery
G/F, 60C Leighton Road, Causeway Bay
+852-2887-0313
www.edge-gallery.com
This cozy space–perhaps the only gallery in the renowned shopping district of Causeway Bay–presents bold abstract paintings by Au Hoi Lam, a Hong Kong painter leading the current resurgence of delicate and colorful works on cloth.
Lu Yang: A Torturous Vision
16 April – 6 June
Input/Output Gallery
U/G, Tung Yiu Commercial Building, 31A Wyndham Street, Central
+852-3105-1127
www.inputoutput.tv
Hong Kong’s only commercial gallery dedicated to new media art pushes the envelope with this solo exhibition for Lu Yang, a young Hangzhou-based artist interested in the manipulation of biological material on video and in wall diagrams.
A Departure from Reality: Miao Xiaochun and Enoch Cheung
15 May – 6 July
Blindspot Gallery
24-26A Aberdeen Street, Central
+852-2517-6238
www.blindspotgallery.com
This brand new photography gallery has opened to much excitement, presenting as its first exhibition in a series of three a strong project of cross-regional visual urban comparison ably curated by Janet Fong.
It’s Coming: A Solo Show by Wu Yuren
25 May – 17 July
Tang Contemporary
LG/F, Hollywood Centre, 233 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan
+852-2544-9918
www.tangcontemporary.com
Working broadly across a variety of media, political observer Wu Yuren employs both shock and analysis. Many believe that this exhibition might indicate new directions for the Tang Contemporary dynasty in Hong Kong following a change in curatorial program.
A Blemish, A Beauty
29 May – 17 July
Gallery Exit
G/F, 1 Shin Hing Street, Central
+852-2541-1299
www.galleryexit.com
Containing work by Japanese artists Takahiro Hirabayashi, Kenichiro Ishiguro, and Takato Yamamoto, this exhibition is organized in collaboration with Tokyo’s Gallery Kogure, offering the kind of delicately erotic two-dimensional works for which Exit has come to be known.
Transgression: An Exhibition of Video and Media Art from Czech Republic
Opens 25 May 6:30PM – June 18
Videotage
Unit 13, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan
+852-2573-1869
www.videotage.org.hk
With work from almost fifty artists and artist groups, emerging curator Gabriela Jurkovič draws a trajectory of new media art in the Czech Republic since 1989′s Velvet Revolution, perhaps also charting possible futures for post-insurrection art in Hong Kong.
Urban Abstractions: Hong Kong
18 May – 29 May
Slowear Gallery at the Fringe Club
2 Lower Albert Road, Central
+852-2521-7251
www.hkfringe.com.hk
Photographers Dana Shek and Alvin Mak expand their “urban impressions” series to include a more abstract take on the social and architectural features of the city, documenting in almost painterly fashion the overlooked moments of the urban experience.
Containers as Evidence of Presence: Tang Kwok Hin
30 April – 30 May
Amelia Johnson Contemporary
G/F, 6-10 Shin Hing Street, Central
+852-2548-2286
www.ajc-art.com
Rising young artist and curator Tang Kwok Hin is known for his innovative take on the theory and politics of art in Hong Kong; in this exhibition, he attempts to translate that background into a viable visual practice with digitally manipulated photographs of cars, boxes, and all manner of enclosures and volumes.
Nathan Slate Joseph: Talking with the Walls
5 May – 6 June
Sundaram Tagore Gallery
57-59 Hollywood Road, Central
+852-2581-9678
www.sundaramtagore.com
Nathan Slate Joseph works at the nexus of painting and sculpture by exposing sheets of metal to the elements and further manipulating them chromatically and texturally with chemicals and pigments, evoking a continually evolving dialogue between the work and its context.
Silence and Forlorn Hope
Opens 23 May 4:00PM – 11 July
Blue Lotus Gallery
A-524, Wah Luen Industrial Building, 15-21 Wong Chuk Yeung Street, Fotan
+852-6100-1295
www.bluelotus-gallery.com
In a small solo exhibition for Cheung Yung and a group exhibition including Koon Wai Bong, Tsang Chui Mei, Hanison Lau, and Wang Yanru, the only gallery in the Fotan studio cluster asserts its interest in contemporary work with traditional aesthetics.
Charles LaBelle
Opens 28 May 6:00PM – 27 June
Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences (with MobArt)
2 Caine Lane, Mid-Levels
+852-3488-1106
www.mobartgallery.com
Charles LaBelle presents work from his ongoing “Buildings Entered” project, in which he sketches each and every building he enters within twenty-four hours of the act itself. The work takes on new meaning in the context of the medical museum, organized by pop-up gallery MobArt.
Just Another Exercise: A Photography Exhibition of John Choy
Opens 14 May 6:00PM – 20 June
The Upper Station Photo Gallery
22 Upper Station Street, Sheung Wan
+852-3486-2474
www.theupperstation.com
John Choy, one of the most interesting photographers practicing in Hong Kong today, works by locating overlooked natural landscapes within the concrete urban environment, then photographing and developing these images in a process that seems to move directly from conception to exhibition.
Guy Maestri: The Soundtracks of Our Lives
27 May – 16 June
The Cat Street Gallery
222 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan
+852-2291-0006
www.thecatstreetgallery.com
Interested in ecological issues, Guy Maestri alternates between abstract seascapes in oil and ink sketches of figures from pop culture, introducing a surprisingly subtle form of image-based politics to Hong Kong.
Supreme Ideals: Chen Brothers Exhibition
Opens 27 May 6:30PM – 3 July
Schoeni Art Gallery
21-31 Old Bailey Street, Central
+852-2869-8802
www.schoeniartgallery.com
New painting work by brothers Chen Li and Chen Yu proves the remarkable consistency of the Schoeni program, which has continued virtually unchanged from its roots in the political pop of the early 1990s, even as the landscape of Chinese art and politics vacillates around it.
Cloudy Fairy Tales: Joey Leung Ka Yin
18 May – 12 June
Grotto Fine Art
2/F, 31C-D Wyndham Street, Central
+852-2121-2270
www.grottofineart.com
Grotto Fine Art remains the only commercial gallery dedicated exclusively to art from Hong Kong, a position that seems increasingly untenable as the local scene internationalizes; here, comic illustration meets gongbi painting.
Man Fung Yi
29 May – 26 June
Galerie Ora-Ora
G/F, 7-9 Shin Hing Street, Central
+852-2851-1171
www.ora-ora.com
An academic sculptor working between abstract forms bordering on furniture and more figurative renditions of the human body and its garments, Man Fung Yi represents the old guard of Hong Kong art, increasingly marginalized in the face of trendy new galleries.
Xie Yongyu
May – June
Red Elation Gallery
G/F, 5-6 Lung On Street, Wanchai
+852-2893-7837
www.redelation.com
One of the many mainland artists largely ignored by the Chinese art establishment but nonetheless discovered by a small Hong Kong gallery, Xie Yongyu works with wooden renditions of traditional concepts of spatial and spiritual arrangement.
Compound Eye: Works by Rong Rong & Inri 2000-2010
22 May – 11 July
He Xiangning Art Museum
Overseas Chinese Town, Nanshan District, Shenzhen
+86-(0)755-2660-4540
www.hxnart.com
Enforcing the allegation that Rong Rong and Inri never introduce new work outside the context of a retrospective, Shenzhen’s leading art institution has prepared a decade-spanning survey of the Beijing-based photographer couple. Curated by an atypically active Feng Boyi and co-organized by the artists’ own Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, this particular retrospective should be unique for its lack on emphasis on Rong Rong’s role in documenting the seminal performances of Zhang Huan and company during the East Village years; instead, the timeline begins with the year he and Inri began collaborating in all aspects of life, following the narrative of their personal involvement, family life, and through the founding of their space in Caochangdi. True to his background, it is likely that Feng Boyi will bring a more formal eye to this development, calling further attention to stylistic development and the nuances of interpersonal exchange. This intervention may be all too necessary given the tendency towards the sentimentalism of the couple’s life in Beijing, but a geographic remove to the Pearl River Delta could be just what the doctor ordered.
Solo Show of Dieter Jung
15 May – 15 June
OCT Art and Design Gallery
9009 Shennan Road, Overseas Chinese Town, Shenzhen
+86-(0)755-3399-3222
www.oct-and.com
The OCT Art and Design Gallery (also known as the Hua Museum) presents a survey of works by the German master of outdated new media Dieter Jung: expect holograms and mobiles, and perhaps just a touch of the abstract experimentation with space and light so markedly absent in the exhibitions timed to coincide with the Hong Kong art fair.
The Instinctive Moment: A Mark Riboud Retrospective
Opens 28 May 6:30PM
Macau Art Museum
Av. Xian Xing Hai S/N NAPE
+853-8791-9814
www.artmuseum.gov.mo
The Macau Art Museum, indubitably the most underrated institution in the Pearl River Delta, offers a retrospective of the work of the renowned documentary photographer Mark Riboud. Although he is bets known for his work in revolutionary China, his anti-war and and daily life images should be equally appealing.