Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards 2009
21 May – 1 August
Hong Kong Museum of Art
10 Salisbury Rd., Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Biennial, a name many in the local are scene are loathe to voice, fortuitously changed its name recently to the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Awards, announcing its set of “winning” works from a pool of over two thousand works selected with much red tape and gnashing of teeth by a committee appointed by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department. The jurors for this year consisted of several notable mainland Chinese critics, specializing mostly in traditional painting, alongside cultural experts of the government department also responsible for public pool maintenance. Tellingly, few of the award winners are recognized or widely known members of the local art community, and, as it turns out, the new title appears to be a misnomer after all: traditional ink painting is actually the dominant aesthetic. Contemporary ink wash has been something of a hot topic in recent years, but none of that stylistic hodgepodge here: young painter Koon Wai-bong, for example, even titles his carbon copy compositions “Reworking the Classics” (2008) Others, like Alexis Ip Ka-wai, are recognized for straightforward documentary photography that records, unsurprisingly, disappearing street scenes across multiple images. Most egregious of all, video artist Hung Keung panders to the obvious predilection towards insular spiritual concepts with the multi-channel installation “Dao Gives Birth to One” (2009), which appears as a swirling mass of black ink that nods towards a range of concepts but ultimately demonstrates little more than proficiency in flocking animation.

Fortunately, a handful of passable projects offer relief. Kingsley Ng’s “Record: Light From +22 16’14″+114 08’48″” (2008) is indeed one of the strongest multi-media installations to be showcased in recent years, translating the visual patterns of camera flashes from Victoria Peak into the concrete music of a spinning metal disc–although one might suspect this was selected at least in part for its tourist-friendly vision of the Hong Kong skyline. Equally compelling is the photographic series “Into Light” (2008) contributed by Ho Siu-nam, depicting pedestrian underpasses as abstracted and elongated tunnels of pure light, bringing a touch of that otherwise insipid bureaucratic spirituality into composition rather than presenting it overly conceptually. Tang Kwok Hin, as has become typical, presents a theoretically-sophisticated project that certainly arouses interest but nevertheless fails to follow through visually, creating a collaged world out of Google image searches in his “Photo Book of Mu Mu Dao” (2009).

Text by Robin Peckham.

Download the original attachment
Kingsley Ng, “Record: Light,” 2008, 3’06″

“Record: Light” presents a seemingly tranquil view of Central district in Hong Kong at night, including several of the landmark architectural features that characterize the area. Both street level and the highest points of the tallest buildings are elided from the frame. A meditative soundtrack reminiscent of those applied to public television documentary features pushes calmly forward with the real-time, black-and-white video image. At Victoria Peak, the flashes of tourist photography briefly mimic the sustained lights of the buildings below. Though it may be the central content of the video, this phenomenon is barely notable to the casual viewer. Kingsley Ng here betrays an interest in an aesthetics of abstracted light and sound coupled with a compositional instinct; though the visual framing of the skyline might recall Andy Warhol’s infamous “Empire” (1964), “Record: Light” is in fact much more closely related to its urban content than to any idea of meta-level play with viewing conventions (except, perhaps, the ways of seeing inherent to the amateur photographers whose activity is captured in the piece). The moment captured here is a beautiful one, and its aesthetic value is further enhanced by a soundtrack that we might imagine as the romantic background music enjoyed by those viewing this same scene from the Peak–or even as their own creation. This strategy was further abstracted by the artist in an accompanying piece in which the camera flashes were mapped onto a metal disc that can then be played as a primitive sound system.

Hung Keung, “Upstairs/ Downstairs: A Dialogue with Hong Kong,” 2004, 8′

“Upstairs/ Downstairs: A Dialogue with Hong Kong” appears as a progression of still images interspersed with a number of video clips, perhaps adhering to a narrative logic or, equally likely, eschewing a single structural progression for a more geographic exploration of its subject. Occasionally, two frames will appear simultaneously, stacked vertically one above the other, most often creating a visual tension between a moving image and a still frame. The settings range from a high-end mall in Mongkok to a traditional market in Yaumatei, but most of these backgrounds all contain a similar focal point: a solitary young woman, sometimes talking on the phone, often standing in front of a wall or window. In many segments, she or they wear two halves of distinct clothing styles, beginning with a dress on one side and a pantsuit on the other and cycling through several iterations. The video is silent in its entirety. Notable images include: fish tanks, the fastening of a white shirt, a supermarket, and pieces of clothing discarded in settings like daipaidong and cha chaan teng restaurants. Notable editing techniques include the rapid manipulation of color filters, a total fade, and partial framing of major images like faces and buildings. This fast-changing series of images deals with notions of local identity and the density of lived experience, reflecting the historical and architectural backdrops of its filming sites.

Silas Fong, “When the Door Opens,” 2008, 7’49″

At the opening of “When the Door Opens,” a young man stands in front of the glass doors in an MTR station, waiting for the train to arrive. Passersby cross in front of the seemingly stationary camera, while others are visible as reflections in the glass: a young woman talks on her mobile phone, while the young man hurriedly removes something from his pocket. Then a train arrives. As soon as the doors begin to part, the visual image plays in extreme slow-motion, causing the soundtrack also to transition from documentary recording to echoes recalling science fiction. Passengers disembark in slow motion, and those crowding around the doors on the platform do the same, all accompanied by an odd creaking sound. Then, as soon as the doors finally close again, the video returns to normal real-time speed. Silas Fong has been continually interested in these interstitial spaces and moments of urban life: elevators, escalators, the public stairwell, the foyer. His works suggest that our experience of these vectors of passage is modulated by subjective interpretations of time and uses of architectural space. Here, for example, the time of the journey of a public transit commuter is subjected to an analytical division into multiple compartmentalized experiences: first the interminable wait for the arrival of a train, then the negligible rush of boarding, and finally the anxiety of the ride. Fong intervenes in these perceptual states as much as he avidly documents their existence.

Leung Chi Wo, “Suck/ Blow,” 2003, 4’10″

The visual component of “Suck/ Blow” consists solely of a series of still photographs of the negative space between buildings as viewed from the busy intersections below, a medium that has more or less come to be known as the trademark visual style of Leung Chi Wo. These negative spaces are abstracted, forming geometries theoretically independent from the architectural facades that allow their existence. This video sets these images on a black background, causing them to zoom towards and then away from the position of the viewer to the accompaniment of the sound of vigorous inhaling and exhaling, respectively. Eventually, a second photographic layer is added, such that the voice of the “narrator” calls up a second urban geometry within the first by breathing even more deeply. This pair of images seems to alternate, creating a certain relationship between the different but, on some level, interchangeable urban spaces included: some images are discernibly Hong Kong, while others resemble New York. The unavoidable sexualization of the title enforces the intimacy of these public spaces, which represent not only fractured and peripheral alternative spaces, but are, in fact, almost entirely imagined territories divorced from the typical vehicular experience of the city. Ultimately, Leung is interested in the transposition of space and its effects.

Adrian Wong, “Haak Sei Wuih Tuhng Mau Jai (Triads with Kitten),” 2007, 3’02″

“Haak Sei Wuih Tuhng Mau Jai” is, at the most basic level, a recording of contemporary choreography. Set in a dirty basement room marked with stained concrete and chipped tiles, the video begins with a very frightened looking cat meowing on the floor, huddled in a tense position. Four young to middle-aged male actors appear, all bare-chested and rather heavily tattooed. The four men then proceed to perform a very obviously choreographed but forceful dance, moving the kitten around with vigor and eventually coming to blows. Although motives and goals are never clear, it is evident that the performance intends to enact a number of human relationship events through the vernacular of local gang interactions. The result is humorous above all else, although the viewer cannot help but sense the enormous energies of production that contribute to the design and execution of such a project. Adrian Wong takes on the role of an outside-insider in Hong Kong society, researching his environment with the zeal of an anthropologist and then distilling his copious observations into psychologically-effective forms of art that quote the developmental histories of both minimalism and pop art. In this case, the meaning of the dance lingers somewhere just off screen, while the sheen of artistic direction and the absurdity of the project create an intense sensation of visual pleasure.

Leung Mee Ping, “Wan Chai Vagabond,” 2007, 8’05″

“Wan Chai Vagabond” follows a single elderly man as he makes his way down a busy Wanchai street. He may be somewhat unkempt, but in reality the title of the world is the only reliable clue to his identity. Over the course of the video he walks first along one sidewalk, then across the street at a crosswalk, and finally continues along the other side. The camera stops when he stops and moves when he moves, always keeping a more or less equal distance away and occasionally allowing other pedestrians to walk between stalker and target. In several instances the man stops and starts, apparently confused or momentarily without direction. His gait is unusually slow, suggesting something of the trauma of aging, but he is nevertheless absorbed by the crowd, which splits and reforms around him. Strangely enough, no one on the street seems to pay him any mind; perhaps he is a local fixture, or perhaps the crowd simply has no energy to spare on this busy day. In a sort of conceptual symmetry, the man never faces the camera or, for that matter, turns around at all–his head remains largely bowed, only on occasion looking up to check the crossing signal. Nor do other passersby look at the camera. As a result, the piece evokes the boundaries between normal and abnormal, and in the way these multiple elements function in concert throughout the urban fabric. Indeed, it was initially part of a larger project entitled “Out of Place,” in which Leung Mee Ping followed a number of individuals wandering aimlessly through the streets of varying locales, attempting to discover new psychogeographical routes through the mapping of the purposeless.

Chilai Howard Cheng, “Doors,” 2008, 6′

“Doors” opens with an unchanging cross-section of a public housing estate building, the kind in which the doors to each unit all open in the same direction onto a large outdoor hall that also serves as a public balcony. The frame is fully occupied by seven floors, leaving a total of 42 doors (and apartment facades with a set number of windows) visible. At the outset, the scene is largely silent, with a lone figure washing a window. Slowly, other figures enter from the left or right sides, opening doors and entering apartments. All the while, the sounds of jangling keys, sliding Bostwick gates, and slamming doors are exaggerated with foley effects. Strangely, several figures enter from one side and exit directly from the other edge of the frame, not returning home at all. Beginning at this point, the viewer recognizes that this is a carefully choreographed and edited scene: doors start to open and reopen in rapid succession for sonic effect, occasionally opening in different directions and with different clicking sounds. As multiple doors begin to open and close in unison and in striking visual patterns, the audio balance drifts between left and right. The orchestra of doors then begins to vary in speed, adding in additional rhythmic elements. Then the light changes, and some figures walk across in slow motion; voices emerge, and more figures walk the screen in fast forward. The video ends with nightfall, as apartment lights also join the fray. Chilai Howard Cheng has digitally reconstructed an accidentally utopian view of communal life, a vision in which creative force triumphs over crowded living conditions.

Linda Lai, “Non-place Other Space,” 2009, 13’47″

“Non-place Other Space” collects footage of Hong Kong and Macau shot over the course of almost two decades between 1991 and 2009. Ostensibly, this non-narrative assortment of moving images attempts to define the urban characteristics of these areas: the events, feelings, and changing spatial settings are here distilled into several arcs of repeated and thematically coherent visual patterns. The video opens with a pot of boiling water on a stove, which then gives way to something like abstract patterns under a microscope, later echoed by abstract painting and blurred night-time photography. Water plays a key role in this image of two island metropolises, with a brightly colored boat, industrial maritime cranes, and a floating suckling pig carcass all figuring prominently. Other important icons include a dress hung in a tree, a human body of some kind dangled over a railing, a figure in a red dress, a vast assortment of storefronts and signs, a market, dentures, a jewelry store, a church, an airplane, glass windows, fire, and the Hong Kong skyline–concluding with a sizzling pot on the stove, as in the beginning. Throughout this rapid succession of places and emotions, the soundtrack drifts between the experimental and the operatic; the moving images are interspersed with still photographs and sentimental or poetic journal entries reproduced in text over the images, all of which becomes subject to changing color filters and varying rhythms of editing. Concluding with a note on redevelopment, this is clearly a complex rendering of an indistinct cultural territory.

Kacey Wong, “Shadow Building: City of Tomorrow,” 2007, 1’07″
Kacey Wong, “Shadow Building: World Wonder,” 2007, 1’12″

Executed with stop motion animation, these videos present themselves in sepia tone with the lines of a draftsman’s palette. In “City of Tomorrow,” a few buildings sketched on a hillside drift and and out of focus as a drum sounds slowly but repeatedly in the background. Just before ending, an unseen hand draws another stack of buildings in marker into a blurred blank space above the hillside. In “World Wonder,” a building topped with a construction crane is continuously extended by the same unseen marker, growing increasingly precarious until it seems to curl back around itself. Here, the soundtrack consists of a string instrument being struck. The overall effect of this pair of videos is nostalgic, recalling not only bygone eras through use of color and line but also willfully drawing parallels between the comfort of childhood construction projects and the idea of constructing a home–or office. Perhaps most significant is the pacing, presenting a naturalized view of a certain urban space only to quickly add on further architectural structures within the span of time it takes to beat a drum: such is the speed of development today. But the results are instable, to say the least, and end up as little more than unthinking scribbles on a preformed landscape, a situation with which the artist must maintain a certain satirical distance.

Chow Chun Fai, “Repainting: 10th Anniversary,” 2007, 1’19″

“Repainting” attempts to mimic or even improve upon the “Theme Song of the 10th Anniversary of the Establishment of the HKSAR” (or, as it is more colloquially and perhaps menacingly known, the “handover” to mainland China), something of a “patriotic” song featuring a range of local pop stars that aired on television incessantly throughout the year 2007. Chow Chun Fai has painted a still scene corresponding to each line of subtitles from the original video clip, flipping through each painting by hand in time with the music. Salient images from the song, entitled “Just Because You Are Here,” include: children in school uniforms, the Victoria Harbor skyline, the Golden Bauhinia sculpture, the Tsing Ma Bridge, an airplane, a flower, a horse race, ping pong, kung fu, the Hong Kong and mainland flags, a symphony, an opera, a fashion show, the Legislative Council, an office, a construction site, a market, and two pandas–in short, all of the robustly optimistic features of Hong Kong life presented both internally and externally as tourist marketing or propaganda. Chow Chun Fai’s rendering of the video in painterly strokes serves to deconstruct this initially unbroken narrative, allowing the viewer to focus on these individual images and their relationships to the larger political situation they have been asked to serve.

Ip Yuk-Yiu, “The Moon is Larger in Peking (Short Version),” 2004, 8′

“The Moon is Larger in Peking” begins with a conversation about the Mid-Autumn Festival and the size of the moon. The speakers are unknown, as the entire dialogue plays out in the form of white text against a black background, and it is difficult to parse the banter without any visual context. Evidently taking place in the 1930s, this conversation turns towards travel, education, and destiny. The viewer may begin to experience an odd feeling of familiarity; then, suddenly, there is an abrupt beep coinciding with a still image of a woman in old-fashioned costume that flashes across the frame before disappearing. The conversation then resumes, discussing marriage and loneliness, but, because there is no visual component, it is difficult to discern the genders of and relationships between the two speakers. As they go on to mention feelings, words, poetry, race, superstition, religion, and reincarnation, different sketches of the same woman appear and disappear several more times. The viewer is reminded at the very end that this conversation in subtitles [clarify this at the beginning? Would prefer to follow the narrative structure of the video, but your call.] is actually borrowed from the 1955 American romance film Love is a Many-Splendored Thing set in Hong Kong; the movie came under fire by some scholars for its odd racial dynamics and use of “yellowface,” making it an intriguing candidate for this anti-visual treatment.

MAP Office, “No-Stop Island,” 2009, 6’59″

The entirety of “No-Stop Island” consists of documentation of a local construction site of some kind, most notably focusing on a set of machinery that appears to be driving piles or pounding holes into the ground. The video modulates between drastically altered slow-motion footage and the feeling of a real-time documentary, at one point splitting into two frames stacked one on top of the other as if the pile driving machine were compressing itself into a new space. The shots are uniformly closeup and medium range, never allowing the viewer an overall examination of the site; instead, the progress of this single machine stands in for the industrial or architectural project as a whole. Towards the end of the video this subject splits into four screens, then multiplies even further, suggesting the proliferation of these processes. Here, however, there is none of the cold aesthetic appreciation evident in the work of Bernd and Hiller Becher, nor is there anything of the horror of scale conveyed by Edward Burtynsky. Instead, MAP Office is primarily interested in the sheer banality and repetition of such self-reproducing architectural features, analyzing the ways in which they become a part of and alter our understandings of the half-industrial, half-natural environment that produces them. The title sardonically refers to “No-Stop City,” an Archizoom project that critiqued the modernist project of utopian urbanism as one of quantity alone; here, the mechanisms of this continuous expansion are pushed to their illogical extreme.

Ban Zhang, “Sun or Star, Which One do You Like It?,” 2004, 5′

“Sun or Star, Which One do You Like It?” draws on the iconography of various Chinese national flags to question the work of media ideologies. The video opens with a zoom and pan across a digital rendering of a city, then abruptly switches to an old-fashioned film reel countdown. At zero, a mushroom cloud rises from an explosion in archival footage. After this montage, the flags of the People’s Republic of China (one large and three small stars on a red field) and the Republic of China (a white sun on a blue and red field) take center stage, alternating on a graphic of an old television as strings of binary code and the words “sun” and “star” drift across the background. An rough rendering of a male human face somewhat reminiscent of early 1990s science fiction television nods eerily, sometimes positioned between and sometimes beside those two iconic celestial bodies as it sings a rendition of the nursery rhyme “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” Finally, the floating head poses the question “yes or no” as a self-fulfilling statement. Ban Zhang leverages his identity as an artist living between Hong Kong and Taiwan, pushing the aesthetic boundaries of the political and refusing to allow the work of the image to play the role of a slave to power, attempting to reduce these loaded national symbols to their proper position.

Woo Ling Ling, “A Portrait of Self-hypnosis,” 2003, 8’59″

“A Portrait of Self-Hypnosis” opens with a textual introduction to parallel relationships with urbanism and the mother, then transfers to a more or less still city scene. At an elevation of several floors, the image fades in and out, zooming in slightly closer on a particular set of windows in one certain building with each fade. Partially translucent, almost spectral figures walk back and forth within several apartment units, appearing at some times as reflections in the glass and as other times as more solid human beings behind the windows. They move purposefully but indistinctly, occasionally passing through or past each other as lights are turned on and off. Then more text appears, this time waxing poetic on the subject of youth; when the video footage resumes, several articles of clothing begin moving of their own volition in slow motion as if they were dressing an invisible being in a school uniform. The abrasive soundtrack returns as the image of the windows from the first sequence pans across the frame; it is interrupted by the folding of the uniform shirt. A third instance of text appears, now discussing the phenomenon alienation. The camera, positioned within one of the apartments previously viewed from the outside, slowly zooms silently and steadily, moving directly forward, recalling Michael Snow’s “Wavelength.” The sounds of the street begin to dominate as the target of the zoom, a young girl in a school uniform in an apartment across the street, becomes obvious.

S.T. Choi Sai Ho, “2012,” 2008, 8’02″

“2012″ begins with a daytime image of a Hong Kong street. On the left side cars, trucks, and buses progress as usual, while the right side has been taken over by a mass pedestrian protest. The frame contains a single image, but the top and bottom sections are both out of focus, and the defined middle section displaces itself slightly into the other visual bands. The soundtrack seems slightly harsh, perhaps an amalgamation of altered voices. The video track occasionally pulses into complete clarity, then blurs again. The camera appears to pan and zoom across its field of vision, further displacing the images captured; after this scene is established, the video proceeds to flash through a cycle of still images of individual and grouped protesters, evincing a suggestion of violence through the rapid shifting of frames. A local politician and activist, Leung Kwok-hung, makes a speech that is edited according to the shifting and framing conventions already established by the video. At the same time, all manner of filters and various visual tempos are applied to images of the march itself, including a time lapse of the protesters. The audible slogans and visible banners in this later section demonstrate that the piece is derived from the annual suffrage demonstrations held 1 July in Hong Kong. Inspired by the rhetoric of the music video and electronic audio cultures, S.T. Choi Sai Ho has in this piece delivered a media anthem for a generation of politically active creative individuals.

Exhibition runs through 29 November 2009
Osage Gallery (5/F Kian Dai Building, 73-75 Hung To Rd., Kwun Tong, Hong Kong)

Osage Gallery claims an interesting set of ties to the largely industrial neighborhood of Kwun Tong, where it maintains its flagship space and the offices of its parent company, a garment manufacturer. The area currently faces an uncertain future as industrial buildings are repurposed, the old harborfront is redeveloped with luxury housing, and public housing estates become rife with social issues. Coinciding with “Now or Never,” the latest iteration of annual contemporary art festival October Contemporary, Osage has invited two local emerging artists to engage in a hypothetical “(Last) Intervention” in the unique street culture of the environment surrounding the gallery.

Both Kingsley Ng and Samson Young keep their interventions both politically benign and aesthetically subtle, a far cry from most of the overbearing political art that emerges from Hong Kong. The concept of intervention is interpreted here as an activity that need not actively effect change; instead, the work in this exhibition positions itself somewhere between the archival and the memorial, bearing witness to the parallel processes of disappearance and remembering.

Samson Young, a classically-trained composer equally at home in sound and new media art practice, has positioned his important work “RPG Triptych” (2009) in the first room of the gallery. The project consists of three expertly scored projections tied to the discourse of art gaming: one is a looping video that recalls the affect and aesthetic of third and fourth generation game consoles, while the remaining two are short, playable games complete with controllers and sofas. Although all three capitalize on a certain nostalgic response that accompanies elements appropriated from the top-down role playing games popularized by Nintendo and Sega, the intricately designed games are actually much richer than the experience that typically accompanies art games.

The artist has clearly learned much from the legacy of serious games, a theoretical trajectory that encompasses formalized definitions of gaming as an activity in which subjects attempt to reach objectives within a particular limited context. This genre includes a range of projects ranging from educational to military simulation, but “RPG Triptych” is clearly an art game. It moves beyond the boundaries of serious gaming proper, celebrating the styles and behavioral logics popularized by Japanese role playing games while simultaneously bringing in two additional elements: the arbitrary and the abstract. Choice and control are replaced by the uncertainty of symbolic logic and suggestion.

In the next room sits Kingsley Ng’s installation “Distilling Kwun Tong” (2009). Primarily a sound artist with a penchant for the tactile, he here offers an installation that outdoes the majority of his past work. Capitalizing on Kwun Tong’s long history as an imperial salt field, the artist arranges a number of black columns of varying height in a loose circle. Each column is capped with a lighted glass box filled with an inverted pyramid and liquid, and each box is connected to that on the neighboring column by a set of wires and tubing. Standing in the center, the viewer is subject to an unnameable field of recorded and live sound.

Both works are impressively conceived and moving. Although their relationship to the politics of a changing Kwun Tong may be subtle to the point of intangibility, it is precisely this property of legible multiplicity that allows for such a unique possibility of immersion. The shared environment developed by both artists is habitable but disquieting, creating slow trajectories through time that can be experienced or observed but never appropriated for use beyond the space of the gallery. This is art in its most prosaic form–games and sounds–that can only be experienced as art.