I am proud of this exhibition - to the extent that I felt I can bring my frds from abroad and say, hey, we got sth interesting in HKMOA recently, come see. Grace Cheng has done a fascinating job! I believe it's the last of the Open Dialogue series, where HKMOA brings in guest curators. I love what Valerie Doran had done with Antonio Mak; this one is just as good but in a different way (In constrast, I think Digitalogue was crap; and while New Ink was good, it does felt it's very politically driven)
Let's start with the audience. There's def a younger crowd - saw a lot of young couples. Some young parents with their kids. More than just students who "had to come" because the school asked them to. That's a pleasant surprise (closer to what I saw in Taipei), and a very nice development in the right direction - more than anything - nice architecture, expensive collection, etc - museums need (young) patronage!! Also, people are really interacting with the works - which is the objective of the exhibition. You can see how much more engaged viewers are - and I think Grace's idea there really played out very well
I like many of the work. It's less impactful than Antonio's (well Antonio is just a more mature artist, so it's unfair to compare that way I guess) - but most works are immediately pleasing. Pak Sheung Cheun's work is a delight - classic of his style. (More on this later). I like Otto Li's 3D music installation quite a bit. It's a simple concept - to create 3D, "physical" images of Beethoven #5, and then recreate it on screen digitally as a movie, then pair that up with an installation with bars sticking out from the wall, so the music goes from acoustic to physical; "music you can touch" I guess. As the first piece by the entrance, it is captivating, and worked very well
You can say Lee Kit's work is very political - there's the hallmark hand-drawn tablecloth, but 2 more photos - him and his family eating at the table, photos taken on 2003 Jun4. A "sensitive" day - with lots of meaning - but it can also mean absolutely nothing, it's just another day where you gather for a casual meal with family. I saw Kingsley Ng's sound/image work in Osage before - but I get to appreciate it more this time. Nice work. Have seen Chow Chun Fai's very early-year "round Mahjong" work on his website, but not in real til now. Reminded me of some of Ai Weiwei's useless furniture series - it throws you off, because the object is immediately recognizable, but is rendered "useless" in the way it is recreated (can't play round mahjong on a round table!). Luke Ching's "Museum Dream" was definitely funny, a "salute" to the politics of West Kowloon!! (Funny to see people really sleeping on the sofa with those big pillows of our "dreaming" politicians)
Art shouldnt be stuffy, viewers should be able to touch it, interact with it. An exhibition doesnt need to be made of multi-million dollar collections with works from multi-million dollar artists. The interaction of art and viewers, sth that everyone can come and enjoy - that's what we need! That's what West Kowloon needs! I am proud - frds from abroad - pls come see this exhibition in my humble little town
PS - Pak's work is called "1 1/2 2"...it's an "artwork for two". It requires two persons to "see" the work - so I didnt quite get to experience it, since I went by myself!!! That's probably the only few (one?) times that I felt I really really missed having a frd to go with me to an exhibition!!
No comments:
Post a Comment