Para/Site Moves Up With 2012 Art Auction

It’s Fall at the end of the year, and you know what that means… Art Auctions. Yes, we attended the Annual Para/Site Art Auction this year located at Lane Crawford’s very cool One Island South company digs and was hosted by Board of Directors, William Lim of CL3, Yana Peel, Executive Director/Curator, Cosmin Costinas, with live auctioneer, Jehan Chu of Chaiwanese. 

Cosmin and Jehan below. 

It was really interesting to attend this particular auction, especially because i’ve been going to Para/Site auctions ran by Jehan for so many years now. I still remember when the auctions were small and held at the KEE Club back in the day. And now it’s a full dinner affair with friends and supporters. Very neat to see how far Para/Site Art Space and its programs have evolved over the years.

Ignacio checks out works on display for Silent Auction.

Some of my favorite pieces include this abstracted architectural topography by Joao Vasco Paiva, titled High Tide (2012) which sold at live auction for 42K HKD. The work was graciously donated by the artist and Saamlung Gallery.

This metallic skateboard by Olafur Eliasson, Your Mercury Ocean (2009), was donated by Vitamin Creative Space, and sold for 100K HKD.

I really liked Lot 62, a selection of prints by Sunjung Kim, Anton Vidokle, and Nikolaus Hirsch.

This one I liked, a DVD by Ming Wong, called Honeymoon In The Third Space (1999).

A good seller, Heman Chong’s, muted geometric composition from Never Let Me Go (2011), caught my eye. This painting on canvas sold well at 50K, and is a donation from Vitamin Creative Space.

Are you cool on your island? I absolutely loved this work by MAP Office, titled Honeymoon Island (2011), which I hope found a great home via silent auction.

This print, Cheng Ran’s Still of an Unknown Film (2008), sold at 60+K HKD, and a donation by the artist.

And there was no way I can do a post about Hong Kong art, without a work by my favorite artist, Nadim Abbas. This piece, Chernobyl_Core.gif (2012), is a print donated by Abbas and Saamlung Gallery.

The work of emerging artist, Trevor Yeung drew plenty of fans. Here G.O.D.’s Benjamin Lau and Alan Lau admire Yeung’s work, Sleepy bed (Sao Paulo Hostel 1) (2012). Yeung photographs subjects, usually male, all around the world, and turns them into multi-layered compositions which involve the photographic image as well as an overlay of illustration.

Next to the work, Lot 30, is a piece by Antony Gormley. Body XI (2011), was the biggest seller of the night and sold at 160K HKD by an absentee bidder. The work was donated by the artist, and Vitamin Creative Space.

In attendance was artist, Adrian Wong, and Xue Tan. Adrian was actually working on the composition for his Fall 2012 Saamlung show with his rabbit. Dont Ask.

We also spotted Alex Seno and Lane Crawford’s Eliot Sandiford. Thanks Alex for the invite!

Great to finally meet Claudia Albertini of Platform China.

The room was full of super couples as well. There’s no art shindig without the following… Tangram’s Igancio and Paola who will soon be unveilinga new collection in December. Here they are channeling the work of Chow Chun Fai, aptly titled Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (2011), which sold at live auction for 75K HKD. Perfect.

Supercouple #2, FIOL Prosecco addict Pietro and Whitney of the Gagosian Hong Kong. 

Supercouple #3, Tim and Marc, here standing next to Yuk King Tan’s The Mandate of Heaven (2011). Love.

Supercouple #4, cool peeps Michelle and her husband, Varun. Great to see them here.

Twitter Supercouple Bonus, my gal, artist Yuk King in Tangram. Hello Yuk!

The tables at the canteen.

Whitney’s favorite works.

Pals on my table, Benjamin and Alan. Nice to meet you both!

Para/Site IS Hong Kong’s leading contemporary art space, the oldest, and most active. They exhibit, they publicize, they create discourse, and you wouldn’t think that based on their tiny space in Sheung Wan, that they are paving the way for many emerging artists. The point is, they’re moving spaces and adding curators, and they’re thinking big. Check out the works that were at auction here.

That said if you missed out on the Para/Site auction, but would still love to purchase work as well as contribute to a good cause, the Asia Art Archive Annual Fundraiser site is now up, and you can actually bid on your favorite work online. Yes. Contemporary Art at your fingertips. Many of whom had works that sold well at the Para/Site Auction. Good luck!

ART Para/Site

JJ.

ART HK12 (Part 3): theWanderlister+ Fair Map and Our 2012 Top 10 Galleries You Can’t Miss

In just a few days the fifth edition of the Hong Kong Art Fair, ART HK12, will be landing upon us at the Hong Kong Convention Center located in Wanchai’s picturesque and glorious Victoria Harbour. This year, as i’ve learned from my interview with Fair Director, Magnus Renfrew, there will be over 260 Galleries around the world to exhibit their best collection of new and historic works to collectors based within the Asia-Pacific.

That said, the shear number of works within the Convention Center alone will most likely take up all your four days starting Thursday, but on top of that, there are the talks, the satellite exhibitions, events, and if you’re not from around these parts, I’m sure you will also attempt to fit in the city’s sights, tastes, and of course the shops… and when I say shops… I mean The Gift Shop at Chai Wan Mei Hosted by Tangram.

This year as a Proud Media Supporter to ART HK12, we have put together the first official theWanderlister+ x ART HK12 Fair Map to break down for you our own choice Top 10 Galleries/Artists exhibiting… ie. a list of the galleries that you definitely cannot miss; a handy guide of what I would do and see if I only had about an hour to go check out the whole Fair (which of course I don’t have only an hour… I will be there for all 4 Days + the Vernissage!) Link to the Downloadable .PDF A3-Size Art Map is at the bottom of this post. I’d like to thank friends Natasha Kaye Whiffin and Xue Tan for helping me select a few of the galleries.

Please Note: This our own personal “rule-of-thumb” guide, and by no means reflect the view of Hong Kong Art Fairs / ART HK12. Please DO however see all the works and galleries on exhibit if you have the time to do so. It’s only once a year, so MAKE TIME! This article MAY NOT represent the actual final artists and works represented by each gallery at ART HK12.

+ TheWanderlister+ Asia x ART HK12 Fair Map’s Top 10 Galleries Guide

1_ ART FUTURES: SAAMLUNG (HK) Nadim Abbas + Jon Rafman . Booth AF24

Saamlung announces its inaugural participation in the Hong Kong International Art Fair. Exhibiting in Art Futures, the section of the fair focusing on young galleries and emerging art, the gallery will present a selection of related projects from artists Nadim Abbas and Jon Rafman. Both artists are concerned with the notion of machine vision and the interplay between the image and the physical object, and will exhibit a series of interrelated installations, sculptures, and prints created specifically for the frenetic and consumerist context of a global art fair in the Asian metropolis. (Text by SAAMLUNG)

2_ OSAGE (HK) Roberto Chabet + Louie Cordero . Booth 3A10

Osage Sigma Asia 1 in ART HK12 will showcase the work of 14 artists from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia, that show a particular curiosity towards the dark hidden facets in everyday contemporary life. An extension of the show, Osage Sigma Asia 2, will be exhibition concurrently at thier Kwun Tong Gallery in Kowloon. (Text by OSAGE)

3_ David Zwirner (NYC) Yan Pei Ming . Booth 3A07

Yan Pei Ming’s current paintings on exhibit at David Zwirner until June, relate to events in the recent and distant past which extend beyond the depiction of a singular subject to reference broad historical issues and, in the process, the gap that exists between the events and their visualization. Often taking a combination of mass media imagery and his own recollections of a motif as his starting point, Ming thus broadens a traditional understanding of the medium of painting: he refers to his large-scale canvases as “collages” of photographs and memories, while medium-specificity is further cast into question by the fluidity of the artist’s painterly technique, which at times resembles watercolor. While the historical significance of Ming’s chosen subjects is readily apparent, his works resist the traditional heroic connotations of history paintings. The artist’s aforementioned reliance on often blurry mass media source material and personal memory combine to present a sense of elusiveness that is underscored by exaggerated brushwork. Rather than documenting separate events, the paintings suggest an ongoing history in flux. (Text by David Zwirner)

4_ Lisson Gallery (London) Jason Martin + Ai WeiWei . Booth 1AS04

UK Based Jason Martin makes paintings about paint - its materiality, sculptural presence and transformative, alchemical nature. The energy of Martin’s process is palpable in a new series of rich, dark, monochromatic oil on aluminium works. Pushing the boundaries of painting is at the core of Martin’s creative process. These continuing investigations are evinced in a series of vividly intense, jewel-like pure pigment paintings. Taking a basic sculptor’s medium as his starting point, Martin has molded, scraped, and gouged the material to create a dense, turbulent, worked surface.

The exhibition will most likely also include ceramic work made by Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei. Ai Weiwei’s ceramics were produced in 2006 during an intensive working residency in Jingdezhen, the heartland of Chinese ceramic production. The traditional techniques passed on to Ai Weiwei by local craftsmen sparked a radical new direction for the artist and were the genesis of his Sunflowers Seeds installation at Tate Modern. The historical and cultural significance of the materials and techniques Ai Weiwei uses are an essential element of almost all his sculptures. Much of his work with ceramics has involved ready- mades: adapting, painting and destroying valuable ancient urns and vases. In contrast the exhibition at Lisson focuses on sculptures he has created by hand from scratch.

Both Artists are currently exhibiting at Lisson Gallery London and Milan respectively. (Text by LISSON GALLERY)

5_ ShangART (China) Yu Youhan . Booth 3A09

YU Youhan is one of the main artists of Political Pop who emerged in the avant-garde movement in the 1990’s, fusing Chinese iconography and Western artistic expression. His work has had a major impact on the cultural scene, and influenced and inspired a generation of younger artists. YU Youhan’s earlier work is directly influenced by his experiences during the Cultural Revolution, with prominent imagery of political propaganda and socialist realism. He earned fame with his highly acclaimed Mao portrait series. He decorates the iconic images with flowers that blend into the foreground and background. It is not only a decorative gesture, but also an attempt to humanize the late leader. (Text by ShangART)

6_ Greene Naftali Gallery (NYC) Paul Chan . Booth 3A14

Latest Works by Hong Kong born, NYC-based artist; Paul Chan. Expect some works from his 2009 show at Greene Naftali, titled Sade for SADE’s Sake. (More information at Greene Naftali Gallery.)

7_ Silverlens Gallery (Manila) Patricia Perez Eustaquio . Booth 1A01

Patricia Eustaquio works with the idea of memory and nostalgia through painting and sculpture. Eustaquio uses diverse materials such as leather, crochet, ceramic and resin, to convey broken narratives within her varied installations. She has lately been toying with crossovers in design, craft and art, appropriating Dutch classical paintings onto elaborately shaped canvasses, and using crocheted lace for large sculpture. (Text by Pulse Art / Silverlens Gallery ONLINE)

8_ ART HK Projects; 10 New Site Specific Installation Works + Cedric Maridet’s Sound Art

Watch out for 10 new site specific installations made just for the Fair by 10 artists for ART HK12 Projects, curated by ART HK themselves. List of Artists, currently not released so it will be a surprise. Each work will get 100sq.m of Exhibition Space with 10 spaces total throughout Hall 1 and Hall 3 of Fair Grounds. That’s a total of 1000 sq.m. of leasable space donated by ART HK to emergent artists/works. In return each patron gallery will donate transportation and installation of each art work themselves. This is an added bonus to fair goers who are looking for an extra element of surprise/educational component to their visit. Last year the ART HK Projects works by Liu Wei and Nadim Abbas were the most memorable elements in the whole fair.

In addition an Audio Sound Installation by sound artist, Cedric Maridet, will be provided to Fair-goers.

Cedric Maridet’s le son de l’art (or the sound of art) is the result of wanderings in places for art. It demands first an act of refusal by visitors putting on headphones that block out the sounds of the Fair in situ. But this first act is but a preparation for the next entry: into places for art, sounding out within and without the confines of art. The sound of art series reveals the interest in the process of transformation of the work of art by the usually resonant architectural context; steps, soundtracks, voices, are collected during the drifts among the artworks. The interest also lies in the particular situation of the gallery and museum as a conditioning element for the behavior of the audience, through particular ways to move, to walk, to talk. (Text by Soundpocket)

9_ Asia One: Blindspot Gallery (HK) Pengyi Jiang . Booth 1X11

Currently Blindspot Gallery is exhibiting Jiang Pengy’s Luminant Series. Luminant are images of glowing luminance of modern skyscrapers by night in major mainland cities. Against the darkened cityscape, the skyscrapers stand glowing in intense brightness created by overexposure. Such overexposure instills a feeling of departure from reality into the picture, which seems to urge the viewers to contemplate the city’s over-development and the society of spectacle dominated by consumption and mass media. This and photographs from his Unregistered Cities Series will be shown at the fair. (Text by Blindspot Gallery)

10_ Asia One: Yavuz Fine Art (Singapore) Navin Rwanchaikul . Booth 3X09

Born in 1971 in Chiang Mai, Navin Rawanchaikul is an internationally recognised Thai artist of Indian descent who has developed a unique and vast body of works that rely heavily on team spirit and collaboration. Questioning modern systems of artistic production and presentation, Rawanchaikul seeks for ways to put art in touch with the lives of everyday people. Rawanchaikul started to engage in a process of exploring the negotiation between local circumstances and trends of globalisation. The artist is best known for dynamic art practices that involve direct public interventions, social commentary, and an innovative style of integrating community or individual experiences into eccentric fictional tales featuring recurring characters. His oeuvre has grown to encompass a broad array of media including performances, billboards, films, comics, games, merchandises and cocktails, and he has even formed his own party, the Navin Party that aims to bring together fellow Navins from different parts of the world. (Text by Navin Production / Yavuz Fine Art ONLINE)

+ Download theWanderlister+ Asia x ART HK’12 Fair Map for FREE.

theWanderlister+ x ArtHK12_Fair Map Download Link

See you at the Fair!

http://www.hongkongartfair.com

JJ.

A Trifecta Show at OSAGE Kwun Tong by HK’s Contemporary Darlings; Nadim Abbas, Adrian Wong, Magdalen Wong, and Lee Kit

Between Christmas and Hong Kong’s super chilly Chinese New Year weekend in late-January, the city’s local art scene was anything BUT dormant. There are only so many hours during the week and I’m not a full time Wanderlister, but proudly, i’ve done my share of seeing what art shows I COULD quickly attend within the busy weeks that lead up to the Lunar New Year.

In a previous post i’ve listed all the important shows that were unveiled in the past month, and it was quite difficult because most of these shows opened on the same night/weekend with friends and peers participating and showing in each of them. I’ve yet to catch J.J. Ngai’s work of pencils at Voxfire, but I did manage to take a sneak peak at an interesting tri-fecta of exhibits from OSAGE Kwun Tong which all launched on the same night as J.J. Ngai’s show on the 13th of January. Which reminds me, I also need to see SAAMLUNG’s show of King of Kowloon graffiti artist, Tsang Tsou Choi. If you haven’t seen it, please go, and let me know what you think of it! And on top of the shows above, fringe exhibits from the FONTANIAN Open House as well as the M+ Bamboo Theatre which also launched within the same week, my thoughts on both in the next post. So basically overall, Art-wise, Hong Kong was BUZZING. Now let’s get on to the latest happenings at OSAGE!

+ TROGLODYTE SEE THE LIGHT (Adrian Wong and David Boyce / in collaboration with A.Wong’s Affective Portraits Series)

(Photo via OSAGE)

Troglodyte See the Light, a solo exhibition by Adrian Wong (photo, right) in collaboration with David Boyce (photo, left) and Lee Weng Choy, was conceived as a structured means of exploring the boundaries and limitations of language.

Having undergone several prolonged periods of premeditated and situational isolation (via meditation, extended stays in remote areas, and acute bouts of agoraphobia), Adrian Wong became acutely aware of the increasingly fragmented nature of his internal monologue. These breakages from conventional means of communication highlighted the rarely attended-to nature of pre-linguistic thought, the subject of the present investigation.

In classic Adrian Wong fashion, animatronics are involved (anyone remember his Ducks and Dishes at the Louis Vuitton Foundation A Passion for Creation show several years back at the HK Museum of Art?). The piece above titled, Kaspar Hausar, Ramchandara, and Natascha the Dog Girl of Chita, 2011 had three animatronic creatures (turds?) popping up from speakers having a nonsensical human-animal eternal dialogue with each other on loop in one part of the first of two rooms that was his exhibit.

In the second room below, was a bigger version of the creatures speaking the same language as the other three, but was sited moving and shaking violently in the middle of the floor.

On the walls around the creatures is a collection of Affective Portraits depicting Hong Kong’s “whose-who” within the creative/arts community. The subjects sit with expressions that are anything but “happy”, but their various placement on the walls are unsettling and resemble the kind of “portrait shrines” that tend to line homes, of figures religious or otherwise.

The subjects chosen were carefully picked, and pretty much reflect the local art scenes main movers and shakers. For example, The Berger Family above featuring M+’s Tobias Berger and his wife, artist Yuk King Tan, and the Practitioners from MAP Office Below with their children.

As well as familiar faces, Nadim Abbas (whose show is located in the adjacent room), and Kapok Design Store’s Arnault with his partner in the photograph to the most right.

Artist/writer/blogger Xue Tan in the silver frame below.

This same show was actually exhibited last year at ltd Los Angeles, with most of the same major portraits hanging around the same animatronic figures. To me it’s still unclear if there is a direct relation between the two seemingly disconnected works, but for sure both are quirky in the way Adrian Wong works usually are, but with an overall sense of unease and unsettlement as to what message he is ACTUALLY trying to push through in this particular show in juxtaposing these portraits with the creatures.

+ NO LONGER HUMAN (Nadim Abbas, Erkka Nissinen, and Magdalen Wong)

(Photo via OSAGE)

Next up Magdalen Wong (photo, left) returns to Hong Kong for a short while to collaborate with artists Nadim Abbas (photo,right) and Erkka Nissinen (photo, on computer screen) for a group exhibition of new works conceived as an open dialogue concerning the conditions of being human and the “multiplicity of known and unknowable trajectories of human development”.

In the exhibition space, viewers are confronted with Nadim Abbas’ alien landscape, It’s Afternoon in Utopia 2012, a terrain populated by familiar structures that look both formal and organic, a scale model for some b-movie sci-fi film, or an anthropological construct of communal settlement from history, who knows. It’s new. It’s fresh. And quintessentially a true Nadim Abbas piece.

Installation by Magdalene Wong gives us a false sense of escape.

Construct with video Installation, titled Polis, by Erkka Nissinen.

And me, having a toast and drink with Nissinen… via online video chat.

+ HOW TO SET UP A ROOM FOR JOHNNY (Lee Kit)

The only show actually 100% hosted by Osage Kwun Tong is How To Set Up A Room for Johnny by Osage represented artist, Lee Kit (photo, below). (The other shows are collaborative / shared space shows.)

(Photo via OSAGE)

As Lee Kit stated about the piece, “Moving house and looking for a house… always feels like a hotel once you move in, it feels temporary but intimate. Somehow you don’t know when you need to move out. But you need to settle down, and construct your life there, because a lot of things are happening outside.”

This same exhibit was presented within the Art Statements section of Art Basel in 2011. And to create this piece of a typical apartment (size accurate to the general size for a bachelor in Hong Kong), Lee Kit filled the flat with a living room, toilet, bedroom, and small pantry kitchen. Hanging throughout the flat are various hand painted props of exterior scenery, and generic bath and kitchen items, all pastel, all faded, and a barely there objects that make the whole scene seem fleeting as if the room was undergoing a process of erasure.

The placement of this “set” within the gallery’s enormously huge dark space makes the work better appreciated from a distance (ie. photo below) in its totality within the context of its overall scale. Which I think for those who were lounging around within it, on the couch, on the bed, and sitting on the kitchen table, I wouldn’t say lost the point completely, but would have just had a slightly different reading of the whole work.

In any rate, I do appreciate the objects and other knick-knacks that went into the creation of the work, but I appreciate these objects more as blots of color within a provocative pastel canvas, details that are only essential to help complete the overall composition (ie. dont spend time focusing on looking only at the dishes, hand lotion, and chairs for example.)

Spotted at the show, artist/photographer Jeremy who was showing at Fontanian this month with Kitty Wong and designer architect, Tong Hao.

Also spotted Elaine Young wearing a piece of her own collection from her brand LAB-yrinth, an interesting clothing line with a very distinct aesthetic and style which I’ll cover in future posts on this blog.

Don’t miss this show. You have until February 12th.

Osage Gallery Kwun Tong / 5F, Kian Dai Industrial Building, 73-75 Hung To Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon / Exhibition Dates: 14 Jan - 12 Feb, 2012 / (852) 2793-4817 / Mon-Sun and Public Holidays : 10:00 am - 7:00 pm / OSAGE ONLINE

JJ.

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Your Art Agenda This Week, Wanderlisted 12.01.13 // J.J. Ngai, Nadim Abbas, Adrian Wong, Lee Kit, and Tsang Tsou Choi

The first week of January 2012 was a quiet one, but now before the Chinese New Year, all galleries are back again with full force. Lets check out the best of the best this week. (SAAMLUNG for Saturday night is definitely a shoe-in… but it’s Friday that will get ya… for once I can’t decide which one to go to, so many friends exhibiting on that evening. I definitely will NOT be able to make both NOHO and Kwun Tong shows… what to do?)

+ DICTATION: Works by J.J. Ngai / Voxfire Gallery . Jan 13 

Born in colonial-era Hong Kong, local artist J.J. Ngai has been particularly interested in the recognition of identity, where his subjects are defined by curious experiences between growing up in Hong Kong to time spent studying in the UK.

The latest series of Ngai’s work, DICTATION, he uses basic Western penciling techniques to imitate traditional Chinese brush strokes, and transfers these techniques back into Chinese art. It’s Ngai’s own unique way of learning through mimicking process by other artists to create a humorous discussion in the concept of identities and stereotypes.

Work by J.J. Ngai / 2011

Work by J.J. Ngai / 2011

Work by J.J. Ngai / 2011

Opening Friday, 13 Jan 6PM - 9PM / DICTATION: Works by J.J. Ngai / VOXFIRE Gallery, 1F 52 Gage Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong / Exhibition Dates: 14 Jan - 12 Feb, 2012 / info@voxfiregallery.com / (852)28513385

+NO LONGER HUMAN (Nadim Abbas, Erkka Nissinen, Magadalen Wong), TROGLODYTE SEE THE LIGHT (Adrian Wong), HOW TO SET UP A ROOM FOR JOHNNY (Lee Kit) / OSAGE Kwun Tong . Jan 13

Osage is bringing a triple exhibition for the first month of 2012 including Adrian Wong’s traveling exhibition Troglodyte See the Light; Lee Kit’s Art Statement exhibition How to set up a room for Johnny for Art Basel 2011 and a group exhibition called No Longer Human by Nadim Abbas, Magdalen Wong, and Erkka Nissinen. Opening for all exhibits is this Friday, January 13th.

Adrian Wong / Kaspar Hauser, Ramachandra, & Natascha the Dog Girl of Chita / 2011

Adrian Wong’s solo show was conceived as a structured means of exploring the boundaries and limitations of language. Having undergone several prolonged periods of premeditated and situational isolation (via meditation, extended stays in remote areas, and acute bouts of agoraphobia), Adrian Wong became acutely aware of the increasingly fragmented nature of his internal monologue. These breakages from conventional means of communication highlighted the rarely attended-to nature of pre-linguistic thought, the subject of the present investigation.

Nadim Abbas/ It is Afternoon in Utopia / 2012

No Longer Human, a group exhibition by artists Nadim Abbas, Erkka Nissinen and Magdalen Wong, probes into the processes that reveal and hide our physical and psychological needs and desires. The show is devised and will feature new installation works by all three artists. Departing from the typical exhibition model which dictates that the relationship between the viewer and the artwork should be one of passive contemplation, No Longer Human attempts to create situations in which viewers actively complete the artist’s imaginary. 

How to set up a room for Johnny? was presented in the Art Statements section of Art Basel 2011. Lee Kit created a typical Hong Kong demonstration flat with a living room, a toilet, a bedroom, and a small kitchen. Various hand- painted cloths and cardboard paintings infiltrate this domestic prop for an imaginary character. Lee devises a situation that delves into our consciousness through seeing, feeling, acting, and simply being. Like a sudden epiphany, we are left to deal with our own emotions and memories privately. (All Images and Text via OSAGEARTBLOG)

Opening Friday, Jan 13 6PM - 8PM / Osage Gallery Kwun Tong / 5F, Kian Dai Industrial Building, 73-75 Hung To Road, Kwun Tong, Kowloon / Exhibition Dates: 14 Jan - 12 Feb, 2012 / (852) 2793-4817 / Mon-Sun and Public Holidays : 10:00 am - 7:00 pm / OSAGE ONLINE

+KING OF KOWLOON: Works by Tsang Tsou Choi / Saamlung . Jan 14

Continuing on their efforts to bridge the gap between Space, Architecture, Urbanism, and Art, Saamlung is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new work from the late Hong Kong outsider artist Tsang Tsou Choi, perhaps best known by the epithet from which this exhibition borrows its title: the King of Kowloon.

From the golden years of midcentury colonial Hong Kong almost to his death in 2007, Tsang was notorious for the distinctive writing he left across the terrain of the city: believing that his family had once been deeded the rights to the land now constituting the core of urban Kowloon, the artist engaged in a monomaniacal project of righting this ancient injustice by executing calligraphy describing his geneaological and political situation on lamp posts, electric utility boxes, fences, walls, and other publicly accessible surfaces from one end to the other of the former British territory, demanding his righteous returns.

(via SAAMLUNG Facebook)

As the first exhibition of work from Tsang Tsou Choi in the commercial gallery context, this project positions him as the historical precedent for an alternative future; that is to say, we trace back to his position a certain rupture within Hong Kong art history by which we might locate in his stance the first properly contemporary artist in a region still haunted by the ideological specters of modernism. The core of the exhibition focuses on a series of some half-dozen pieces in ink on board and cloth, large scale paintings that hold their own within even the most recent discussions of the return to analytical expressionism in non-figurative painting today. Further works on display include a number of pieces in pen on paper and several calligraphic-cum-sculptural interventions carried out on objects like umbrellas, lanterns, and utility boxes.

Opening, Saturday January 14^th, 6:00-10:00 / Saamlung, 26/F Two Chinachem Plaza, 68 Connaught Rd. C (135-137 Des Voeux Rd. C.), Central, Hong Kong / Tues.-Fri. 11:00-19:00, Sat. 12:00-18:00 / gallery@saamlung.com / www.saamlung.com 

JJ.

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Making a Stand… On Top of A Million Black Business Cards, at Para/Site

I have to confess, my recent trip to New York City was nothing short of sublime. On the one hand it was completely amazing to be awashed in the kind of culture and history that I have missed by living in Hong Kong (ie. architectures from the early 1900s and museum exhibits that ranged from a Picasso retrospective at the Neue to one by Carsten Holler at the other New), but on the other hand it was all work, and work was everywhere, which meant a commute/taxi to several places in one day, which is manageable in Hong Kong, but completely draining in the City, especially when I was staying in Brooklyn. That said, while it was sad that I wouldn’t able to have this kind of access by living in Hong Kong, not being able to grasp the totality of the city at once, also made me miss Hong Kong by the end of the trip. Manhattan is huge, and there are too many burroughs, districts, people, and places to be in general, and I AM obsessed with mind-mapping so the picture of the city can never be complete in my the way that Hong Kong can be for me.

Hong Kong is a quaint little small town that thinks it’s a big town, and after putting off events/etc for three weeks, this small town had an exhibition worth going to last Friday night when Para/Site’s newest Executive Director, Cosmin Costinas finally curates his first long-awaited show; Two Thousand Eleven. But first I had to meet up with Annie Chau of the Digital Brand Management firm, OscarRichard for drinks at Sheung Wan’s flavor-of-the-moment and Para/Site neighbor, Heirloom.

Heirloom is located in this interesting brick-cladded building that used to be an amazing house called TwoTwoSixHollywood Road by the English Interior firm, Studioilse. It was even featured on DEZEEN!

Before! A Private Residence… (via DEZEEN)

and Now… well. A restaurant/cafe. But really, the whole private residence thing was super luxurious and nice.

The bar and cafe area opens up to the street which is perfect for nice cool evenings, which Friday was. I didn’t really have any food here because we were rushing for the Para/Site show, so all we had time for was wine and cocktails. But I spotted a waiter carrying this which reminded me of the same Corn snack I had at Cafe Habana in the Bowery in New York. I wonder if it tastes the same…

I DO like the street vibe. Here Annie and her cool friend Onyue chat outside…

Onyue on Heirloom’s rocking chair. And why not?

Love the street vibe.

But fun and games aside, it was time to be serious and do a bit of Wanderlisting. So off to the Two Thousand Eleven show we go.

The show is a group exhibition of works by Olga Chernysheva, Heman Chong, Federico Herrero, and John Smith. The space is pretty wide and encompassing in the beginning, defined by the gallery’s spacious white walls, but “something-different” is notably Heman Chong’s piece, Monument to the people we’ve conveniently forgotten (I hate you) 2008 , composed of a million black business cards on the floor that everyone is playfully and comfortably standing on.

The sheer number of this glossy black cards are made more evident as the walls angle and taper to a point on the horizon expressing this perceived path of all the contacts we meet, make, then lose on a yearly basis. Heman Chong is actually an artist, curator, and writer from Singapore, and has most recently represented Singapore in the 50th Venice Biennale, and has had works on exhibit at the NUS Museum in Singapore, and galleries in Milan, Amsterdam, New York, and Berlin.

I really liked walking on all these cards.

Up on the walls were a series of black and white photographs by Moscow-based Olga Chernysheva, titled ALLEY OF COSMONAUTS 2008, 25 images that point to the recent historic collapse of the Soviet Union whose ruins are “still framing our world”, according to Olga.

A video and sound installation was a main attraction on the other wall opposite Olga’s work by British artist, John Smith called Black Tower 1985-1987, which revealed a “mental landscape from the height of Thatcherist Britain, the dawn of an era now ending.” His body of work attempts to subvert the perceived boundaries between documentary and fiction as well as representation and abstraction.

Lastly, Frederico Herrero’s work I almost missed, a site specific intervention at the entrance of the gallery which dissected “art’s vocabulary in approaching the real”.

Overall it was a fun show. People were quite happy to see Para/Site back and buzzing on the scene again in general it seems. I do feel however that Heman’s work clearly overpowered the rest of the pieces (due to sheer number, weight, and size of the piece). All the works are reflective however with a soft political edge. Walking on top of all those black cards I felt was interesting, there was a sense of sturdiness coupled with imbalance, but the base was solid, which ironically reflects Para/Site’s awkward position in a time when it’s seeking to find an independent POV in a city where its art circle is increasingly being defined by politics and market forces. So yes… making a stand is something it needs to do (again) by now, and whether it’s a good start or not, Cosmin’s show is something to stand with.

Fans of Para/Site spotted at the show; full power by the team behind M+, Executive Director Lars Nittve (in the middle) with Head Curator, and ex-Para/Site Director, Tobias Berger.

Photo taken by Nadim Abbas (with me), who will be launching new work with his peers at Osage Kwun Tong on January 13th! Watch for it!

Artist, Yuk-King (left) with architect, Shideh Shaygan (middle).

Familiar faces, Stephanie Moon, handbag designer at KOTUR, with Beatrice Spinello, art director at Tapani/Stiibu who was just ecstatic at the completion of her successful collection of collaborative men’s bags/wallets with Moustache!

Louise of VOID and GRAM Shoes on 15suarestreet and Judith!

Also spotted, Magadalene Wong (who is back to help put together her group show with Nadim Abbas at Osage Kwun Tong), and Natasha K Whiffin (who has yet to give me a tour of the latest exhibition at SAAMLUNG).

Two Thousand Eleven / Para-Site Art Space GF, 4 Po Yan Street Sheung Wan Hong Kong /17 DEC 2011 - 4 MAR 2012 / www.para-site.org.hk

Heirloom / 226 Hollywood Rd., Sheung Wan / 2547-8008 / www.heirloomhk.com

JJ.

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Robin Peckham Launches Saamlung, an Experimental Gallery and Collaborative Space in Hong Kong

Nadim Abbas, I Would Prefer Not To, 2009, Digital photograph (C-print), 42 x 64 cm

Critic and curator, Robin Peckham, announces the launch of Saamlung, a new gallery and project office located in Hong Kong’s commercial district. The gallery presents work by emerging and historically significant artists from greater China and around the world in concise solo projects, curated group exhibitions, publications, and other satellite events.

The aim of Saamlung is to fill a certain gap through intellectually rigorous collaborations with a core set of artists through research-driven and focused works reflecting an ever shifting global visual culture to tell the story of a cosmopolitan present. Artists to be featured with Saamlung, include Qiu Xiaofei, Nadim Abbas, Matt Hope, Adrian Wong, and Yang Xinguang, and an extensive roster of artists from across Asia and the international contemporary art map via solo and group shows.

RELATED ARTICLE: Nadim Abbas, Versed in the Subverse

João Vasco Paiva, Not Yet Titled, 2011

Although the full opening of the gallery is in February of 2012, there will be two pre-openings from artists João Vasco Paiva and Charles LaBelle respectively. João Vasco Paiva’s Palimpseptic will run from 18 November- 5 December 2011. Charles LaBelle’s Guilty will run from 9 December - 7 January 2011.

For more information on the works and the gallery, please visit www.saamlung.com / Located at 26/F, Two Chinachem Plaza, 68 Connaught Rd. C., Central, Hong Kong / Tues-Fri 11-7 Sat 12-6

JJ.

All comments moderated. To get more info on comment moderation for this personal blog project, please visit http://www.wanderlister.com/DISCLAIMER

ArtHK11 (Part 7): Nadim Abbas, Versed in the Subverse

One of the best things this year about ArtHK11, is the the pure joy of being able to root for friends, especially artist friends who A) Create art I actually like, and B) whose career i’ve pretty much followed for a few years before the glitzy shows and the crazy openings.  And before Nadim Abbas was a featured artist in this year’s ArtHK11, with no less than three opening in the city, he was a guy who I knew, who I kept seeing at different events, get togethers and things, who made great funny sculptural pieces with a kind of twisted sense of humor that was right up my alley.  And the best thing about him now, compared to him back then, is that he’s pretty much stayed the same guy (ie. non of the big fat ego i’ve seen that usually comes with the big fat paycheck… you know who you are), but whose hopeless self-depricating energy has been refocused to make more works that are as outrageous as they always were, in scales big and small. xJJ

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W+: I still remembered one of your first big shows, a group show in ParaSITE Art Space in 2008, I think it was called DIS PLAY where you formulate pipes in a very familiar shape which allowed the user to roll Chinese blue ceramic balls through it where it would obviously smash on the ground to break into little ceramic pieces. It made a big mess, but the kids loved it because they could break things.  Then there was the Louis Vuitton show where you had those little Gundam Figures. There’s obviously a narrative but each piece is completely different from the last. Where do these ideas come from, where do you come up with the story?  Are the works really that different? What connects them?

Ornament & Crime / Mixed media (PVC tubing, ceramic “lucky balls”, laser-jet on transparency and tracing paper) / Dimensions variable / 2008 / DIS PLAY Group Exhibition

NA: Looking back, I would say that a lot of the projects that I end up pursuing can be connected to certain very trivial moments in my day to day life.  For instance, I once (many years ago) wondered if it was possible to be like a vampire and not see oneself in a mirror.  From this emerged a whole string of works that used the notion of mirroring to describe the elusive nature of the image and perhaps even memory itself.  

With the work for the DisPlay show, the starting point was the moment I came across those kitschy ceramic balls that were being sold in a porcelain shop primarily for tourist/expat consumption.  Since they are supposedly viewed as auspicious symbols of good luck (the spheres represent “completeness”) I decided to reverse (but not refute) this logic by using them like sacrificial offerings that tumbled out of the PVC pipe structure; which was made to resemble a cross between an altar and an execution device.  Facing this “shrine” to the destruction of completeness were images of different forms of execution, from the gas chamber to the guillotine…  The kids of course, never noticed the images on the wall, since they were only interested in smashing the balls!

I Would Prefer Not To / (Rorschach) / Aluminium window frames & grates fitted w/ black mirrored glass / 45x80cm each / Louis Vuitton at HK Art Museum

(MCMI-III Scales) / Vitrine, action figures / 95x95x8cm / 2009 / Louis Vuitton at HK Art Museum

The work with the Gundam figures coincided with an interest in the language of clinical psychology, where I projected the certain psychological characteristics onto certain figures.  All of this all started with the blacked out windows that were shown in the same installation, and the day that I noticed how the symmetrically patterned aluminium window grates that we see all around the city resemble the patterns of the Rorschach test.  The use of toy figures in the other work is really a kind of variation on this idea.

Although outwardly, each project appears very different from the other, I think there are a number of things that I keep coming back to, almost pathologically it seems… one of these is the question of the mirror image, and another might be this persistent spector of death that hovers over everything.  It is certainly a cliche to be discussing big themes like death via art, yet it is also the one thing that the living have in common!  In some sense I am also fascinated by the pithy truths of these cliches.

W+: You’re trained as a sculptor, but you definitely do not work 3D in a classical sense, you seem to set things up, like a scenario? Do you like to play games with the Audience and the Visitor?  Is there a joke?

SSFU / Mixed media  / Dimensions variable / 2011 / Love the Future Show by Art Citizens, Art East Island (see article on this show here)

NA: That is very true - although I have been trained to think spatially, it is always more in the sense of preparing a space like a set designer prepares a movie set.  Objects then are usually of interest for me in so far as they trigger some sort of imaginary or hallucinatory identification from the viewer, in the form of a memory, or “deja vu” for instance.  In order to acheive this effect, it is necessary to play games with audience expectations, to make them look and then look again; like the way Hitchcock uses suspense in his movies.  There are of course a totally different set of rules to deal with when one is working with live physical space as opposed to cinematic space-time.

W+: You also split your time doing other things, can you talk about your music your band, A Roller Control and how you like to split your time generally between art and music?

NA: (I have a) role as vocalist and occasional keyboard player in A Roller Control.  We have been recording an album over the past few months, which will be released this fall.  Since we all have other projects on the boil, we decided not to play any gigs until the album is completed.  Recording is a very different and exacting process (compared to the regular chaos of playing gigs), which has allowed us to fine tune many aspects of our sound - I’m very excited to hear the final outcome.

A Roller Control, circa April 2010 at Grappa’s Cellar /  http://www.myspace.com/arollercontrol

W+: Is Hong Kong really the city for you? If so what is it about Hong Kong that makes you stay here, do you sometimes wonder about living/working somewhere else?

NA: Quite simply, Hong Kong is my hometown - I was born here and I speak Cantonese.  Certainly there are many other places that I would like to live and work, but I have only realistically thought about these so far in terms of short term visits and residencies.  In one way or another, unless it gets wiped out by a nuclear explosion, it seems that HK will always be a kind of base for me, both practically and emotionally.

W+: You exhibited in multiple places/venues during ArtHK11, one was the very site specific Marine Lover and the other one in Chai Wan Art East Island… can you please tell me briefly about each work. And where did you get the idea for each piece. Obviously one is a singular show and one is a group show did this help skew your strategy?

NA: The two works arose out of very different circumstances - the planning for Marine Lover started months in advance, whereas the photographs for the Chai Wan Art East Island show took only a couple of weeks to work out and produce.  To start with the former: Marine Lover began as a proposal for the special projects section of the art fair.  Gallery EXIT assisted me with the application and the project was most generously sponsored by Archtisans, a subsidiary of AEDAS (the architectural firm).  Initially, my idea was to construct a free standing corridor that diverted the flow of people walking around the fair.  The fair organizers came back to us proposing that we use a narrow 60 feet corridor sandwiched between two booths beneath a fire curtain, which would normally be left empty.  Although this changed my original premise for the work, I became interested in the notion of producing an installation that was fairly large in scale, yet somewhat hidden amidst the hustle and bustle.  As we know, this corridor was populated with a colony of custom made resin coral, which is related to my recent interest in creating artificial landscapes out of the generic images that circulate of the natural wonders of the world.

What’s in there?

Oh I see.

Close Up.

Marine Lover / Mixed media  (polyresin coral casts, fluorescent black lights, plywood, door frames, mirror) / 300(h) x 100(w) x 1900(d) cm / 2011 / ArtHK11 Commission

While Marine Lover was in full production mode, I got a call from the artist Kacey Wong about a show called “Love The Future” that took place in Chai Wan.  In terms of what I contributed, my strategy was very different, not so much because it was a group show, but because of different political context with which it was being presented.  The work consisted of close up photographs of letters taken from the entrance signage to China’s Office of the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong.  Here, I think the statement/gesture is much more transparent: it is a playful subversion of a particular kind of official language.  With Marine Lover, the gesture is purposefully more ambiguous and open ended, and left for the viewer to take elsewhere; an attempt to engineer an encounter rather than a statement.

W+: Ive noticed that a few Local Artists are quite different now than they were maybe 2 or 4 years ago.  Obviously the eye is on China and Hong Kong, and local artists like yourself were able to catch the wave of interest in our art scene, ie. youve become successful in your own right as have others.  What ive noticed is that a few artists have changed because of their success. How Have you changed if any… at all?

NA: That would depend on how one gauges one’s success - so far I have certainly been very lucky to have had the opportunities to show my work in numerous different capacities, from group shows to a solo and then the recent large scale work at the fair.  But all in all, I still feel that I am only chipping away at the tip of the iceberg, and that there is so much more that can be done.  Commercial success and and rave reviews are all very nice, but what I really get a kick out of is being able to channel my deepest darkest perversions into a socially accepted situation - hopefully that will never change.  Who knows, if I didn’t become an artist I could’ve been a serial killer, or a taxidermist…

Artist Nadim Abbas is currently exhibiting in a group show at C&G Artpartment in Prince Edward, titled “6,000 Conceptual Art Proposal Exhibition” in response to the Government’s $6,000 Handouts.  Additionally expect a three-person show by the end of the year with Nadim, Magdalen Wong (Who just had a solo show at the Goethe), and Finnish Video Artist, Erkka Nissinen.  

http://www.galleryexit.com

xJJ

ArtHK11 (Part 6): Hello, Art East Island!

This year’s ArtHK11 event came with plenty of events and after-parties, with tons of networking and socializing opportunities for buyers, galleries, and artists alike. The biggest party event however, and the most interesting one.. may have to be from the collective in Chai Wan known as Art East Island.

For those in the know, Hong Kong pretty much has three main art districts.  The first one of course is the most visible and commercial scene in and around the SOHO/Sheung Wan Areas.  Due to rent prices ricing, this scene has even spread westward to Sai Ying Pun.  The second scene is the group of artists studios located in the FOTAN Art Village, of which once or twice a year, they stage a big open house party/gathering for the general public.  The third scene, Art East Island, is quite random and a bit harder to find.  Art East Island is composed of a group of galleries and studios that have popped in an a non-descript industrial building in Chai Wan (end of the blue line).

Once you go up a series of industrial elevators (ie. New York MEPA District style.), then you step out into an area where you have a collection of really cool facades, demarcating the location of each gallery.  This one below had a cool timber finish with down-lights. 

Our destination was to see the work of some friends; Nadim Abbas, Kacey Wong, Suitman Kim Young, and Lo Chi Kit to name a few.  The gallery was called Art Citizens, and the show was titled, Love the Future, themed around a not-so-imagined world of a familiar kind of “state”.

Gallery At the End of the Hall.

Suitman Kim Young Performance Piece

Complete of Girls Who Rule (the World.)

Pledging Allegiance…

And signs of the times…

And pretty pictures…

At the end of the show, Suitman Kim Young proceeded to toss fake money to the audience…

The Fake Money.

Other galleries were staging performances as well. This one from the RED Exhibition from 10 Chancery Lane, still on exhibit.

This one was just plane old graffiti. Tsk Tisk.

Other galleries were also artist’s studios. Very cool interiors. Like this artist who worked with paper and the paper’s aging process.

Other shots of her gallery.  I like the mezzanine spaces.

The entrance to her gallery.

Spotted at the party. Mike Mystery and DJ Jane Blondel. (Everyone was wearing red…hmmm)

DJ Jane’s Cambridge Satchel. Aged to Perfection. She’s had this for two years already, and obviously loves it and uses it. She said back then the Satchels were half the price that they are now.

And another HK Based-VOID Watch spotted on Mike Mystery’s wrist (that you can now purchase on Shop des Createurs online.)

VOID Watch’s Louise and Sebastian from KplusK

Indie Music Production Queen, Eureka

Jau, with fierce Beige Shoes

Chloe (right) and Friend

And Kitty

Love the Future is now over, but RED Exhibition is still available for weekend viewing at 10 Chancery Lane.

That’s all folks!

Participating Artists/Galleries at Art East Island; 10 Chancery Lane, Carol Lee Mei Keun, Art Citizens, MAP Office, Ooi Botos, and Pure Art Foundation

ART EAST ISLAND / http://www.arteastisland.net / More Photos from LOVE THE FUTURE Exhibit on Facebook / 852 2810 0065  / Every Saturday + Sunday; 12-5 pm ; Until 28th August 2011 

xJJ