Contemporary art in Hong Kong is changing
About the vitalist impulse of artists who embrace the present, particularly those in Hong Kong who respond to political upheaval with artistic processes that value transformation.
Works of art for sale by Hong Kong artists have never been so concrete. Made from seeds, fossilised books, stones, ball-bearings, recycled waste... it's as if contemporary art is looking for a foothold by exploring the properties and fields of expression of mutant and hybrid materials. As if it were unconsciously illustrating a period of uneasy political transition. "To what extent does art respond to the political upheavals that, between protest and censorship, are affecting Hong Kong and threatening its autonomy?" Caroline Ha Thuc, an art critic, curator and researcher living in Hong Kong, tries to provide some answers for Artpress, the contemporary art magazine, while Hong Kong's autonomous status "continues to crumble as the anticipated process of its integration into mainland China accelerates".
One example is the work of Wing Po So, an artist from a long line of Chinese doctors and herbalists, now represented by the Blindspot art gallery. "A multitude of plants, seaweed, shells and diaphanous seeds float in a series of jars lined up in a refrigerator," explains Caroline Ha Thuc. "Wing So Po collected these specimens on a small island in Hong Kong before immersing them in a chemical solution used for organ transplants, one of the properties of which is to cause the immersed cells to lose their colour: denatured, these living species are thus returned to a state of limbo, suspended in expectation. Under the pale light of Invisible Island (2021), each element appears as a miniature world with its escarpments, reliefs and undulations, whose contours slowly dissolve. Some of the seeds resemble constellations, and the pale hues evoke the frost on the fruit. This tenuous fragility refers to current contextual uncertainties, but may also suggest a form of liberation from contingencies: the precariousness and reduction of specimens to matrices are the conditions for a possible renewal.
The metamorphoses of Annie Wan Lai-Kuen, a contemporary artist represented by the Karin Weber art gallery, are more radical. "For the last ten years or so, the ceramist has been transforming books into fossilised sculptures," explains Caroline Ha Thuc. "Page after page, she covers the books in clay before firing them at high temperature in a pottery kiln. The paper burns, along with its contents, but the imprint of the leaves remains, forming a dark, crumbly structure. For The Road We Traveled (2015), the artist metamorphosed an imposing book on the history of Hong Kong, of which only the envelope remains, petrified and as if curled up on itself. All the pages form a wave, spread out to one side, while a sheet, perhaps the title page, falls away. It's heartbreaking. But not necessarily desperate. "In the video that accompanies the work, we follow the movement of the clay-laden brush as it gradually and systematically engulfs text and images. The process is irreversible. It brings to mind the ruins of Pompeii and the lava flows. But as history disappears, another form of memory emerges. More elusive, certainly, but nonetheless tangible: despite its apparent fragility, ceramic resists time and successive burials. Its volume is exposed as a challenge".
Yet another alchemy is at work in the most recent contemporary art installations by Jaffa Lam, a Chinese visual artist known for her mixed media sculptures and site-specific works that investigate the culture and history of Hong Kong. Lam makes extensive use of recycled materials such as found fabrics and wood from construction sites. Often exploring issues related to history, society and current affairs, she notably participated in Lyon's Fête des Lumières in 2018 with Tisseur de vœux. Were you there? Then you certainly remember "Make a wish, speak to the sky, wait and listen, the message is all around you!" Jaffa Lam drew inspiration from this Chinese saying for her artistic installation, made up of three large white metal arches standing in front of the Palais du Commerce. Pieces of lace and crochet made in participatory workshops were attached to the three adjoining arches. At the centre of the structure, a screen showed the wishes of the people of Lyon collected during the workshops. Three wind instrument horns, like celestial megaphones, invited the public to send their wishes to the heavens. It was a poetic and highly symbolic installation.
In her article for Artpress, Caroline Ha Thuc chose more recent works of art by Jaffa Lam to illustrate her point, developing the idea that "between tensions and a desire for fluidity, Hong Kong's contemporary artworks are at once questioning, resisting and accompanying mutations, recomposing the existing in order to find within themselves their own powers of change". Take, for example, the work of art entitled Taishang Lao Jun's Furnace (2022), a collection of 500 stones cast in bronze, cement or aluminium, lined up on the ground after the artist has replaced each original stone in the place where she collected it along the coast of Hong Kong. "The title of the work refers to the famous Lao oven in which the Taoist philosopher made his elixir of immortality," explains the art critic. "Here, the artist transposes the Hong Kong landscape into a symbolic installation. The landscape she proposes has nothing authentic about it, but isn't that always the case when we reclaim a territory?
Although Lam's works of art are works of refuge, as Caroline Ha Thuc notes, "artists generally seek to imagine the modus operandi of deterritorialisation", it is "a seductive but nonetheless abstract concept that does not take into account feelings of attachment and the rootedness of individuals in a culture. Lam Tung Pang, on the other hand, depicts Hong Kong as an island in a pot, capable of sailing on the sea". Represented by the international art gallery Eli Klein, the artist, who co-founded the Fotanian art movement in Hong Kong with his contemporaries Chow Chun-fai and Wilson Shieh, has produced Potted City No. 1 (2021), a painting on recycled wooden planks depicting a group of skyscrapers packed tightly together, planted on a sort of mound of earth like a bonsai tree. Except that the continent rises up in the distance in wave-like mountains. This time, the artist well known for creating monumental images that reflect the societies in which we live - for example, the image of a polar bear as a metaphor for beings trapped by outside influences, mainly the consequences of human action... this artist has taken to the sea.
Illustration : Weaver of wishes - Jaffa Lam