Art Tour - 170409 (other attractive sidelights)

On the way to Kowloon Park, I also visited to the Former Marine Police HQ. Can't imagine how this historical building will be revitalised into a hotel x museum. Anyway, it's good that another colonial building can be saved by later generations.

The other highlight of the day, or I should say highlight of the night, was the visit to a nearby temporary structure for Chinese Opera performance for celebrating Tin Hau Festival.

glamorous lights + resounding music + friendly hawkers = a remarkable encounter with truly traditional local culture

Art Tour - 170409 (last stop - Sculptural Symposium 09)

It was the first time I went to the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade and it was quite unforgettable. Not to mention the remote site, the exhibits were extremely disappointing, probably due to the overexpectation I got from the promotion materials.

The symposium was all about promoting public art, yet I didn't find any correlation between most works and the site/public. It seems that I can place those sculptures basically anywhere in Hong Kong and they will just be as much unnoticeable. Certainly the scale of the sculptures were another displeasure. Most of them were quite small and they were displayed so close too the ground that I actually had to bow and literally look down upon them at times.

In contrast, the view of the other side of the promenade was much more impressive, especially the new Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter. Walking along the waterfront made me feel like I had entered some local movie settings. The scenes were just too familair yet forgotten to local Hongkongers.

Art Tour - 170409 (2nd stop - Remaking Hong Kong)

Knowing that Kacey Wong's Wandering Home, which is a part of my studies in the final essay, was exhibited in Venice in the biennale, I decided to go and have a close look at it in person. however, instead of the tricycle, only his previous work, Tin Man No.11 was displayed. Not really disappointed since there were many other inspiring architectural ideas. Much fragments of my sweet and sour memory of my studying in the architectural school was recalled during the visit as well.

The exhibit/invention I admire most is Control Tower (by Jason Carlow + Jonathan D Solomon + John Lin with Stefan Krakhofer + Ricci Wong + Eric Chiu) which is a functional assembly structure.

Love its simplicity.

Love its practicality.

Love its lightness and cyber feel.

Some works were very conceptual, and some were like site studies more than design, maybe that was what the theme - Fabrica Cultura, demanded. Anyway, culture is itself ambiguous and perpetual, I guess.

Art Tour - 170409 (1st stop - Charming Experience)

I had my own art tour last Friday.

I first went to The Hong Kong Museum of Art for Charming Experience, the last exhibition of "Hong Kong Art: Open Catalogue" series; followed by "Remaking Hong Kong: Architecture as Culture" Response Exhibtion of the 11th International Architecture Exhibition of Venice Biennale Hong Kong Exhibition -- Fabrica Culture at Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre; and the last stop was Hong Kong International Sculpture Symposium 2009 along West Kowloon Promenade.

For Charming Experience, I should say that quite a couple of exhibits had actually been displayed in some other exhibitions before, so there was not much surprise. The most interesting thing that I noticed was in addition to visual stimuli, music and sounds also played an iimportant role in the exhibition. Wherever I walked to, there was always some sound from different artworks acompanying my way.

The artwork I like most is, beside Kingsley Ng's Record: light from +22°16'14"+114°08'48" which first impressed me at Osage Kowun Tung, was Ho Siu Kee's Visible Sound. I have always been interested in Buddhism, and I was just greatly absorbed into the ripples of reverberation and the contemplative serenity created by the whole set of mixed media and video installation. I just wonder why the artist projected the ripples onto the wall in red. Won't it be better if it's a black-and-white image?

King's Calligraphy at Sotheby's (2) -- Is it overpriced?

I do believe that auctioneers are professional, but how come even they could have underestimated the value of the calligraphy work for that much? Or was it simply overpriced?

Dating back to 2004 when his wooden street art was first put up for auction, the estimated price was HK$2440-3900 and it ended up sold for more than a double, that is about HK$8,600. A lot of people were amazed at that time but it was just completely incomparable with the latest auction held this Monday. The estimated price was HK$20,000-30,000 but it turned out to be sold for nearly six times more than its estimated price, that is HK$170,000.

Tsang's work has been gaining international recognition since his appearance at the prestigious 50th annual Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition in 2003, and the continuous production of fashion and all means of design inspired by the calligraphy has certainly boosted his fame. However, this boom is not only a result of the last success but also due to his death, which consequently makes his work become "limited edition".

Artwork, especially graffiti, composing of Chinese characters is really rare, and I guess a lot of collectors are seeing good fortune in Tsang's work.

King's Calligraphy at Sotheby's (1) -- Is it art?

A piece of calligraphy written by The King of Kowloon, Tsang Tsou Choi, has been sold at Sotheby's Contemporary Asian Art spring sale at HK$170,000, being the top seller among all work by contemporary Hong Kong artists.

Whether Tsang's calligraphy is ART has long been a controversy. It reminds me of the discussion about aesthetic significance and aesthetic value. Does it have its significance as claimed that "a work of art always has aesthetic significance"?

To me, the calligraphy itself is more like an artefact which exhibits his undying pursuit of his "lost royal identity" or as a reminiscence of the city undergoing British colonial period and the handover to China, it shows great originality and enthusiasm but I would only appreciate it if it is exhibited in the first-hand context, such as on the lamp posts, electrical boxes etc. I just can't imagine the work being posted on the wall of someone's living room. The whole thing is simply out-of-context.

I'd rather appreciate his past vandalism as a kind of behavorial art.

Momentum - 140309

This is the annual exhibition showcasing the artworks performed by the graduates of the Bachelor of Arts in Applied and Media Arts programme offered by SPEED and the Hong Kong Arts School. The word "performed" is used because those are really interactive moving arts, which involve living goldfish and many other works of evolving forms. The presentation I like most is the one showing in the video clip (though it is disoriented). It is an interactive device which consists of three weight-sensitive beakers and several seedlings. When the seedling is placed in the beaker, the Chinese characters 「木」(which means wood or trees) around the containers will rotate or assemble correspondingly. The slender form of the plants and the ethereal dancing movement of the words is just a perfect match. Generally speaking, their design concepts are usually hot social topics, such as environmental issues, consumer-driven journalism etc. One of the work, Taste the food: Taste our family actually reminds me of the project studied by another group in our Visual Culture Theory Course about new concept of "home". I really look forward to presenting our research findings with some new media applications in the next course.