Finding Poetry in Wan Chai: 4 Women Artists in Hong Kong

Jaffa Lam, an installation in the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Awards at the Hong Kong Art Museum

On the way from Sydney to Beijing I had 4 days in Hong Kong in which to criss-cross the city (Star Ferry, MTR, red minibuses, trams and taxis, as well as a LOT of walking) visiting artists' studios in Fo Tan, Kennedy Town and on university campuses; and galleries in Central, Chai Wan and other locations. I have been interested for a long time in the way in which contemporary art in Hong Kong differs from that on the Mainland, and the much more limited opportunities that artists there are afforded. In the past some have told me bitterly that they feel they are regarded as insufficiently Chinese to interest collectors. I wondered whether that is changing, after the big Saatchi 'Hong Kong Eye' show and all the hoo-ha about the development of West Kowloon into a massive cultural centre, incuding M+ which will house Uli Sigg's very significant collection of contemporary Chinese art.

On past trips to Hong Kong I have met and interviewed Lam Tung-pang, Hanison Hok-shing Lau, Wong Chung-yu and Carol Lee Mei-kuen - all fascinating artists and all passionate about Hong Kong and its history. 

Carol Lee Mei-kuen, 'Little Lace Frock', 2011, sun on paper, image courtesy the artist

I specifically wanted to meet female artists on this visit as that is the focus of my current project in China. I intended to ask them about their practice, their views on the Hong Kong art scene, and also that thorny question which Chinese artists on the Mainland often find so hard to respond to - "is it harder for women to sustain a successful art career, and if so, why?" Responses I have had in the past to this question vary from a very terse "Of course it's harder, China is still a patriarchal society!" and "There is no feminism in China - it's a western construct" (both responses from very famous artists in their 50s who shall remain nameless for now) to "No, it's easier for me because I don't have to support a family" and "No, it's easier because there is more pressure on men to be successful" (both responses from young - and currently childless - artists in their late 20s and early 30s) to a blank "I don't understand this question." The other day a translator told me in the midst of my interview with an artist that she could not translate the word "feminism" into Chinese. This surprised me a little since both my dictionaries and even Google Translate seem to have no problem with it. I had to say, "But I think you can, actually!", and then give her a rather long-winded explanation.

Hong Kong is a very different place however, and I was fascinated to discover the highly sophisticated and aware understandings of contemporary critical theory and art practice in the work of 4 very different artists. Here is the start of my article about those recent encounters, published today on theculturetrip.com I have added a few additional images to this post.

When people talk about contemporary Chinese art they are invariably referring to art from Mainland China. Despite recent international exhibitions, even in Hong Kong itself few people seem to be aware of the interesting contemporary art being produced there. Initially it can seem less dramatic, less extraordinary, than the work produced by artists trained in the powerhouse PRC art schools such as Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts. However, on closer inspection the fascinating subtleties of a liminal place with a complex postcolonial identity emerge. Hong Kong has been something of a transit zone since the days of the Treaty Ports and the British seizure of its harbour at the end of the first Opium War in 1842. Its unique history results in contemporary art quite unlike the current shape of art from China’s mainland.

Some facts about contemporary art in Hong Kong:

- More than 60,000 people attended the inaugural Art Basel Hong Kong Art Fair in May this year. And more than half of the participating galleries came from the Asia Pacific region.

- 7,000 people visited Song Dong’s exhibition in 3 weeks during January this year.

- Major international galleries such as Gagosian and White Cube now have a Hong Kong presence, as do Edouard Malingue, Pékin Fine Arts and Pearl Lam.

- The West Kowloon Cultural District when complete will comprise 17 arts and cultural venues.

- Hong Kong is now the world’s third largest art market by auction sales.

Clearly, there is a hunger to see contemporary art. But what does it mean for Hong Kong artists? There is a sense that artists who live and work there are the 'poor relations' of the art stars from Beijing. Despite recent exhibitions such as Saatchi Gallery’s Hong Kong Eyewhich featured the work of 18 artists never before shown outside Hong Kong, it is still difficult for local artists to find gallery representation, partly due to prohibitively huge gallery rents.Liminal, at K11 Art Mall by young artists Kenny Wong and Marco de Mutiis conveys the anxieties so evident in Hong Kong - lack of space, the pressure of sky-rocketing rents, anxieties about cultural identity, and 'big brother' watching from just across the border – through the metaphor of computer operated ‘drones’ equipped with video cameras observing and recording unaware passers-by outside the gallery. The Hong Kong Contemporary Art Awards also reveal a rich diversity of practice. The fact that so many artists in Hong Kong see their work as a form of social activism is often unacknowledged: they are engaged with their city and its myriad concerns in a way which distinguishes their work from other artistic centres. Artist Annie Lai-Kuen Wan says, 'For me the social issues are overwhelming.' Ivy Kin-chu Ma’s work ‘Cambodia / Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum / Numbers Standing Still’ exemplifies this seriousness of purpose. A series of ghostly sepia numbered tags suggestive of labels attached to a person’s clothing are arranged according to the Fibonacci sequence, bearing marks of erasure and over-drawing on the archival prints.

Ivy Kin-chu Ma, Cambodia / Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum / Numbers Standing Still, 2012, Pastel Graphite and Ink on Archival Print, set of 11, each 79 x 60 cm, image courtesy the artist and Hong Kong Art Museum.

To find out more, I spoke with four very different artists in Hong Kong. They all happen to be female. In an art world which is still somewhat testosterone-fuelled this is just one more factor to add to the difficulties experienced by local artists in a place which tends to look beyond, rather than within, its own borders.

Sculptor and installation artist Phoebe Man works with materials some would see as not only unorthodox but confronting. Most notoriously these have included sanitary napkins and fingernail clippings. She engages her audience in participatory works, blurring the boundaries between artist and viewer. Man has made works which could be viewed as overtly feminist, dealing with sexual assault and violence against women; and is planning a piece in Taiwanin which she will work with the remaining WWII ‘comfort women’. She sees these now very elderly survivors as extraordinarily brave for bringing what was once a shameful secret into the light of day.

Phoebe Man, TIme Regained, papercutting, image courtesy the artist

Annie Lai-Kuen Wan, ‘Looking for Poetry in Wan Chai’, relief sculpture comprising ceramic moulds. Image courtesy of the artist.

Annie Lai-Kuen Wan works in highly unconventional ways to reflect on the changing nature of her city. Often using moulds, as a way of 'mapping reality', she examines our relationship to the material world and its meanings. Her work ‘Looking for Poetry in Wan Chai’ recorded the fabulous tapestry of text in the oldest parts of Hong Kong, a visual landscape of signage that is under threat from development. Currently showing in the Hong Kong Art Museum, ‘Crafting a Reverse Scenario for a Lost Sheep’ is an investigation of time’s actions on organic substances. Ceramic sheep figurines are sealed in glass containers, together with wet clay and bean sprouts, creating enclosed micro eco-systems, surreal landscapes of growth and decay in miniature.

Monti Wai-Yi Lai works with materials found in the natural environment, in particular with pigments she creates from ground leaves, once again reflecting on Hong Kong’s very particular social and environmental issues. Lai uses the traditional tile patterns found on post-war Hong Kong apartment blocks as an organising principle and key design element in her ephemeral, often participatory, site-specific works. She wants to make works in which her own memory of growing up in a semi-rural area of Hong Kong, now rapidly submerged in the urban megalopolis, connects with significant issues both local and global. She thinks that an authentically Hong Kong voice is increasingly being heard. 'Artists and audiences are looking for that!' she says.

Annie Wan, Time Regained, Installation View, image courtesy the artist

Celia Ko, a painter trained in the conventions of academic realism, adapts Baroque and Renaissance conventions and iconography to create highly theatrical staged images. She reflects on the relationships between her protagonists and their contemporary lives, as well as on her own history and cultural identity. Some works focus on her grandparents and the significance of family in traditional Chinese culture; others on the complex hybrid identities and relationships which emerge in the contemporary city.

With Celia Ko in her studio, September 2013

To read on, and find out more about each artist and her practice, click HERE

Cartography of the Artworld: the 18th Biennale of Sydney and other exhibitions

Nipan Oranniwesna  'City of Ghost', 2012,
 baby powder, wood, fabric, bulbs and stencil maps, dimensions variableInstallation view of the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012) at Art Gallery of New South Wales
Courtesy the artist
Photograph: Ben Symons

First post for some time - like most people I know, I am finding that work is eating my life, leaving too little time for the things I love to do, such as writing about art - Chinese contemporary art in particular. I know, I know, 'FWP - first world problem', but the fact remains that the work/life balance thing gets harder to manage as time goes on, not easier. However, in the last few weeks I have been able to lift my head, take a deep breath, and look around. Here is some of what I have seen:

Gao Ping, ‘Still Life – Fans’, 2011,
 Chinese ink on rice paper, 45 x 36 cm,
image reproduced courtesy of the artist, Stella Downer Fine Art and China Art Projects.

The wonderful Gao Ping has been shown in a curated exhibition, 'The Drawing Room' at Stella Downer Fine Art. I met with her over coffee at Danks Street to talk about her practice - luckily her English is much better than my Chinese - and wrote about our meeting, and about the exhibition, for The Art Life. Her work is also showing at the Maitland Regional Gallery, together with works on paper by William Kentridge, Trevor Weekes and Gary Shead, among others. Her work is so delicate yet so strong; so sad yet also so quirky and humorous. I love the way she places tiny objects into vast empty spaces, influenced by the traditions of Chinese ink painting masters of the Song and Ming Dynasties. She told me that she admires the work of Marlene Dumas and Antony Gormley, as well as the historical conventions of ink painting. She was not trained in that tradition at all - she is a graduate of the Department of Oil Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing - yet sees it as an essential element of working as an artist in China. She was intrigued to discover the work of Joy Hester, and had also been taken to see Ann Thomson's work at Tim Olsen, coincidentally one of my own favourite painters. Gao Ping described Thompson as 'serious' and 'strong' - a definite accolade. She spoke about dealing with sadness and loss as an inevitable aspect of carving out a life in Beijing. This sadness, as well as a still quietness, is very evident in her works.

Gao Ping, 'Still Life - Chairs',  2011,
 Chinese ink on rice paper, 45 x 36 cm, 
image reproduced courtesy of the artist, Stella Downer Fine Art and China Art Projects. 

I have been completely blown away by what I have seen of the Sydney Biennale thus far. The works of previously unfamilar artists (to me at least) from Thailand (Nipan Oranniwesna and Pinaree Sanpitak), Vietnam (Binh Danh) and the Middle East (Hassan Sharif) have been a revelation. It was also wonderful to see once again the beautiful work of Yuken Teruya, especially his shopping bags, discarded from both high and low emporia, from the sublime (Chanel, the Venice Biennale) to the ridiculous (Starbucks, McDonalds) with tiny, intricately cut trees apparently growing inside them. Shopping bag as vitrine. And the lovely irony of using products of the wastefulness of consumer desire to point to the fragility and beauty of the natural world!

                         Yuken Teruya, 'Notice - Forest (Fendi)' 2010 (detail)

                         paper shopping bag, glue, 16.8 x 43.6 x 41.8cm 

Courtesy the artist and Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica

 Photograph: Yuken Teruya

As usual though, it was the works of a number of Chinese artists which made the most impression on me. Liu Zhuoquan, of course, whom I met at his studio in Beijing last year - his impressive installation of bottles painted in the 'neihua' or 'inside' technique with sinuously coiled black snakes look both seductive and dangerous in the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia.

Liu Zhuoquan, Two Headed Snake, 2011, 

glass bottles, mineral pigments, dimensions variable

 image reproduced courtesy of the artist and China Art Projects 

Gao Rong's fabric and embroidery replica of the entrance door of her Beijing apartment was my absolute favourite work last year at the White Rabbit Gallery. For the Biennale she has created a full size replica of her grandparents' house in Inner Mongolia in which every single thing - the furniture, the ancestor portraits, the enamel mugs and basins, even the walls and doorways - are embroidered. It is so interesting to see this contemporary reinvention of a traditional handcraft practised by women. I am curious as to whether she is familiar with the work of feminist artists of the 70s such as Miriam Schapiro or Judy Chicago who were intentionally and deliberately bringing female 'craft' into the high art territory of the gallery space. Gao Rong's work speaks of family history and the domesticity of ordinary lives, of memory and filial duty. As a simulacrum it reminded me of Do Ho Suh's replicas of his Seoul, New York and LA houses. I was completely charmed by his gauzy transparent New York apartment where everything down to the radiators and light switches is sewn from transparent silk - in fact I was severely spoken to by guards in the MCA years ago because I unconsciously reached out to touch the fabric lightswitch as I passed it. 

   Gao Rong, The Static Eternity, 2012, cloth, wire, sponge, cotton, steel support and board, 500 x 400 x 300 cm

Installation view of the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012) at Art Gallery of New South Wales

Courtesy the artist

This project was made possible through the generous support of the Neilson Foundation

White Rabbit Gallery supported this project through its residency program

Photograph: Ben Symons

Her work made me think about other artists who work in a similar vein, from Song Dong with 'Waste Not', an installation containing every single item from his mother's hutong house in Beijing laid out on the floor of the gallery; to Chen Qiulin's  Xinsheng Town no. 275–277, a reconstructed traditional house that was demolished for urban development, drowned in the creation of the Three Gorges Dam. Back in 2009 I saw an exhibition at Osage Kwun Tong in Hong Kong, 'Dwelling', which dealt with all of these themes - the personal and the political elements of the spaces in which we live and move. The show included Hanison (Hok Shing) Lau, although at that point I had no idea that I would come to meet this artist on my study tour of China two years later. His work focuses very strongly on notions of space and place, including his very charming yet politically charged 'Century Old Shop' (below) in which he constructed a replica of a traditional tiny Hong Kong shop front from cardboard and discarded materials, just big enough for him to enter. He pulled it around the streets of Hong Kong, engaging passers-by in ‘trade’, by exchanging items from inside the shop (e.g. old newspapers which old people can sell for a little money, and cheap items of stationery such as pencils, stickers and erasers) for whatever people chose to give him in return. He recorded conversations with this ‘audience’ about their memories of fast disappearing aspects of traditional Hong Kong life such as these old shops. Other artists in Hong Kong such as Jaffa Lam also explore ideas about urban/domestic, private/public spaces. It is probably not in the least surprising that Chinese artists both in Hong Kong and on the mainland are interested in this political geography - overcrowding and expensive rents in Hong Kong make life increasingly difficult, whilst in cities like Beijing the constant transformation and modernisation of every facet of the city cause stress and anxiety to many.

Hanison (Hok Shing) Lau, A Century Old Shop, 

sculpture, and documented performance 2010

Image reproduced with the permission of the artist

And of course there are our own Claire Healey and Sean Cordeiro whose collaborative works from as far back as 2003, with 'The Cordial Home Project' through to Deceased Estate and Flatpack (an entire flattened caravan) deal with the same territory - a practice which interrogates both institutional and domestic architecture.

Another extraordinarily beautiful work from the Biennale - Nipan Oranniwesna's 'City of Ghost', created with baby powder dusted through a stencil made of the street maps of ten different cities - evocative and ethereal.  The artist's choice of material is both unexpected and utterly right. The cartography of contemporary art - so many possible permutations, and a number of them right here at the Biennale.

Nipan Oranniwesna, 'City of Ghost' 2012, 

                              baby powder, wood, fabric, bulbs and stencil maps, dimensions variable

                 Installation view of the 18th Biennale of Sydney (2012) at Art Gallery of New South Wales

                                                    Courtesy the artist, Photograph: Ben Symons

Last day!

It is hard to believe that this is the last morning that I will wake up and look out at the water traffic on the harbour - a constantly fascinating overlapping frieze of tug boats, ferries, wooden fishing vessels, cruise ships, barges and other industrial vessels whose function is a mystery to me. The mundane realities of life await!

Kowloon Shop Front

My final few days in Hong Kong included a meeting with artist and social activist Jaffa Lam, visits to more galleries in Central and Wan Chai showing interesting work from the mainland (including the significant Schoeni Gallery, one of the first Hong Kong galleries to realise the significance of the new art from China) and a visit to a beautiful school, Hong Kong International School.

 View of courtyard at HKIS

It will take time once I am at home to sift through all my notes and impressions from my school visits and to be able to make sense of what I have learned. I have spoken with so many teachers and students, observed students ranging from Year 2 to Year 12 (and tertiary art students) at work, and taken note of many aspects of the culture and practices of the different schools and systems. I have been interested in the ways that technology is being used in art classes, the ways that teachers design programs of study for the cultural and specific learning needs of their students, and also the ways that teachers and students engage with their mainland Chinese or Hong Kong environments. The level of teacher and student engagement with traditional and/or contemporary Chinese art has been a significant variable. It has been fascinating to note  the differences and similarities between the approaches at different schools. I have been so interested as well in the kind of art practice that results from different curriculum paradigms, as I have seen the final year works of students from the British, IB, NSW HSC, Hong Kong Education Board, Ontario Certificate of Education and American AP syllabuses while I have been away, as well as the work done by students in the local Chinese school in Shanghai. All these different approaches have their inherent strengths and weaknesses, but all encourage students to be thoughtful and reflective, and most emphasise the conceptual intention of the artworks as the significant driving factor in production.

At the Hong Kong International School there has been some discussion about the introduction of the IB, however the students are currently studying the American curriculum, which offers (in the High School, Grades 9 - 12) 2D and 3D Studio Art at three different levels, as well as the more rigorous and demanding AP course, in which students must complete 24 works, five of which are sent away to be externally assessed. Students upload their works to their 'student profile' page on the AP web site, together with comments about their practice and their intention. They must show breadth, but also select 12 works for a 'concentration' series, which should be connected through subject, concept or technique. The online student profile is interesting, as students edit and refine it through the course of their studies, before that final decisive moment of clicking 'submit'. There is also a significant component of school based assessment, and I enjoyed observing a 'critique' session where the students had their works in progress up on display and critiqued each other, with the teacher's guidance and advice. Their comments were constructive and often perceptive. This method of encouraging reflection on art practice, together with the student podcasts I observed at the Shanghai American School, the students constructing their own web sites to showcase their art practice at the Canadian School, and the blog learning journals at Beijing City International School, are definitely aspects I would like to follow up and consider implementing.

Student drawing goldfish pond in the garden at HKIS

In the late afternoon I caught a train out to Kowloon Tong in the New Territories to meet Jaffa Lam when she had finished teaching at the university, and we spoke over coffee in the huge shopping mall above the station. The mall was completely filled with excited chattering school students in a variety of uniforms, as Kowloon Tong is zoned for educational institutions, and has many, many different schools and university campuses. It was here that I came on my first days in Hong Kong, five weeks ago, to visit the Hong Kong Australian International School and the Maryknoll Convent School. So much has happened since then, it feels like such a very long time ago.

Jaffa's practice differs from that of many of the other artists I have interviewed, as she defines herself as an activist as well as an artist. Influenced by Joseph Beuys, she has worked with performance, documentation, and other ephemeral forms, as well as with sculptural installations. She prefers to use non-art, 'found' and recycled materials in her practice, and is focused on issues both local and global. We discussed some of the questions I have raised about the place of women in the Chinese art world (and in China more generally) and I was interested to hear about her recent work with local women in Hong Kong, which is focused on the way the city is being redeveloped at such a rapid pace, and in the process people, traditions and cultural practices are lost.

The exhibition at Schoeni Gallery, by a mainland artist, also focused on this issue, inspired by a newspaper photograph of a woman who refused to leave her home during a forced demolition and redevelopment, and was photographed crouching amidst the rubble surrounded by police. The artist has painted images on bricks and broken traditional rooftiles as well as on canvas - quite an apocalyptic vision, especially the painting of the pack or wild dogs amidst the rubble. But I have seen these images with my own eyes, on the outskirts of Beijing.

Two final snippets: an articlewith the headline 'Farewell My Concubine'  in yesterday's South China Post about a new education program in Chinese schools intended to discourage girls from seeing becoming a mistress of a wealthy man as the key to success and happiness. And someone has mysteriously stencilled 'Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?' onto footpaths around Wan Chai and Central, and the Hong Kong Police are investigating.