Cao Fei opening results+

Cao Fei's opening at Para/site was a hit.

**update added pictures

from the outside




video "hip hop" - featuring different people - chef, constuction worker, old lady, business men - in everyday environment expressing themselves through hip hop




performances by Notorious MSG (Guangzhou)

pop culture, chinese hip hop thug lyfe - neon green pool mattresses, video, spastic costumes/COSplayers, hanging mannequins, neon lights, hanging shoes, video cameras.. in China's mass development often the youth are forgotten. COSplayers is an example that the youth have a desire to express. China still need to work on developing the arts and supporting the arts in school. how the Chinese youth will develop their own unique expression and subculture will be interesting. Cao Fei's work is an example of contempoary and distinctly chinese art.

Cao Fei Artist Talk the next day: Cao Fei and curator Tobias Berger


my work as sound person on the traslation device

for now off to Beijing.. at the airport now.

"Art and Play" forum Shanghai Street Artspace

Shanghai Street Artspace - 404 Shanghai Street (Yaumatei, Kowloon)
forum "Art and Play" Saturday March 4th 2006, 3pm

Performance by experimental drone duo(!!!)straight outta HK, New Fairfield Parks and Recreation (releasing soon on www.digitalisindustries.com - US)

Noise/experimental music often involves a lot of improvisation, which is an element of play. It allows for discovery, spontaneity, feeding off each others ideas, and exploration of boundaries (in this case of sound).

Exhibition: "Absolute Low Tech" March 2nd-23rd

Talk with:

Chu Kai Man from The John F. Kennedy Centre school for disabled children about the work that he is doing with the children, which will be exhibited in the gallery. His teaching methods and his experience with the children encourages open-ended play, which is much freer and less regimented than the teaching of the arts in Hong Kong in other schools. Play encourages free flow creativity rather than technical ability.

Art collective Green Pillow will also be present to discuss their previous exhibit in the space, a interactive installation called "Go Go Oral Ranger" that invited audience members to play and experience their art work.


Host: Ashley Wong

PS27

PS is a quarterly publication put out by Para/site addressing various issues revolving around contemporary art, curating, the gallery, and the HK art community. Unfortunately PS27 is going to be its last issue for various reasons.

This issue covered in the first half various readings and essays on sound art. From sound walks, deep listening, sound in urban society, to a fairly extensive review of sound art must reads.. this issue was right up my alley.

The last section of the issue addresses curating, and the changing role of curators in contemporary art. It looks at the still awkwardly forming structure of the HK art community - which is based around collectives and councils of artists and intellectuals rather than having a single curator (which is how the international art world functions).

One part of this issue that was of particular interest to me was the emergence of Chinese contemporary art in the International scene (which is primarily western-dominated). Chinese artists lately have been trying to define the modern Chinese identity – trying to move away from being marginalized in the global contemporary art world as being heavily weighted in history and tradition e.g. Mao, calligraphy, landscapes. It will be interesting the in the coming years to see what the modern Chinese identity will become and what art will come from it.

updates on events past

Checked out the East Kowloon industrial artist building where they organized various exhibits with artists in the building.

Despite the fact that it was a bit out of the way, it was still a high traffic and commerical area. I guess in Asia everywhere is incredibly dense and high traffic.

I tend to admire interesting urban industrial spaces. What is sometime even more interesting is how the space is used. Amongst piles of rubble, rusty cement and drupping ceilings, there were clean tiled/marble/glass doorways to peoples strangly located but pristine apartments and/or office.

The exhibits covered a number of mediums, and ideas. from the standard painting, sculpture to video, interactive art - ideas of play and 'liveness'- it was a diverse show of work from students to more established artists.



HK Art School students' studio space


in such a great building as this, one can't help but explore.
did a soundwalk/survey of the rooftop.



Para/site - chinese noooise.

O-man, HK

oh man..
was the show loud.
havn't been that deaf since hearing Francisco Lopez at Sala.



Dickson Dee (Noise Asia), Zbigniew Karkowski and O-MAN

China tour 2006: Zbigniew Karkowski and LI Chin-sung (Dickson Dee)
tour plan

no time for elaboration. a more comprehensive look on everything later...

COSplayers

Para/site - 4 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan

opening: Feb25/06 - 6pm



<< Para/Site Art Space is excited to present the solo exhibition of Guangzhou artist Cao Fei, one of China’s most acclaimed young artists, whose work has been widely exhibited in various Biennials, solo and group exhibitions around the globe. In the recent ARTFORUM, Hans Ulrich Obrist calls her work “both critical and spectacular, using pop culture as a bridge rather than as a simple reference in the ubiquitous orgy of appropriation and revival” .

Her conceptual, earnest and humorously imaginative oeuvre spans from videos, photography, sound pieces to theatre productions. Cao’s art bridges into visual arts with the use of popular culture and shifts through different subcultures and phenomenon to create the surreal landscapes that she is most known for – actors incased in Burberry behaving like dogs reenact a hysteric day in the office, ordinary people dancing to hip-hop on the street, people dressed in Chinese shopping bags and a stage production incorporating Guangzhou’s street youths are just a few examples of using the city’s everyday life to analyze and render the current social situation where traditions and new influences are constantly in conflict.

Her exhibition in the Para/Site Art Space will feature her most successful work to date - COSplayers, a film and installation project.

Cosplayers (Costume players) are fans of Japanese Manga-comix who dress up and act as their favorite characters. The group of Cosplayers featured in her video work is emblematical of the generation of youngsters growing up during the last two decades amidst China’s rapid development. Cao Fei presents a real subculture suffused in illusions through her work and reflects the dilemma of youth existence and ennui emerging in the face of Chinese urban and economic transformations. These players navigate in-between worlds of fantasy sword fights and mundane reality and by juxtaposing them against the domestic and urban backdrops, the parallel realities in play in COSplayers reveal the life attitudes of China’s modern-day youth as alienated urban superheroes trying to deal with the urgent reality and the unease of populations left out of economic miracles. >>

documentaries of Chinese performance art

I was lucky to have caught the last day of an exhibition at the Macau Museum of Art. It was a last minute, spur-of-the-moment venture. Macau is a one hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong and was formerly colonized by Portuguese, so all the street names and its second official language is Portuguese. It has separate administation from Hong Kong as well as China, so bring your passport. One of the first things I noticed was all the motorbikes. Parked along every alley, it is a major mode of transportation on the island. Macau known as a place of tourism and casinos - every major city has its 'Atlantic City'.

The exhibition at the Macua Museum of Art was called 'Inward Gazes'. Ranging from documentations of body art, site specific installations, public interventionist art.. the exhibit was a epic show of the work by Chinese artists and performance groups all around Asia and the world. It is interesting to see how in 'less developed' countries/areas, contemporary art seems to thrive and is somehow way more interesting than art coming out of bigger cities. Taiwan is apparently brimming with interesting work.

The exhibit was a bit of a marathon since the pieces were all either a few photographs, or video with a brief description one-after-another like paintings on a wall. With performance art there is always the issue of documentation and preservation (how one wants their work to be remembered). Often times work is produced for the product of the documentation, other times; it's simply about the performance, in which case, documentation is often a series of snapshots, home video, and descriptions. It was none-the-less a good and rare opportunity to see what people are doing.



link

prawjekts

I've added some links to the links section.

I maybe working on something with the Shanghai Street Artspace (details coming soon...)

http://www.ssa06.org/



and I will be assisting Para/site (contempoary artspace in HK) with their next opening Sat Feb 25th.

http://www.para-site.org.hk/ 4 Po Yan Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

There is an event there this Saturday Feb 18 featuring Zbigniew Karkowski + Li Chin Sung (noise), 8pm 80$HK

Li Chin Sung aka DickensonDee: http://www.noiseasia.com/dick/



On the 18th as well there is an opening in East Kowloon in the industrial areas in Kwun Tong. The exhibition runs Feb 17-19th.

<< The art and cultural exhibition "LEAP - Local East-Kowloon Art in Progress" features a group of proactive artists from six studio workshops in a factory building located in Kwun Tong industrial area. They will open their workshops as part of the exhibition and some of their artworks will jump from the studios to the public area of the building. The audience will share experience with the artists in their daily lives, for example, living, studying, playing and experimenting. The event and the process of making this exhibition will build up a communication platform for the community and the artists in this building. There is no boundary between art and daily lives. >>

link




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added belated post: it had been sitting as a draft (scroll down a few or click) - huh?

playing ketchup

I mean catch-up...

(as my engrish degenerates everytime I learn a new language)



China is the world capital of bootleg!
Every possible colour variation, pattern, style of nike, converse (hi/low even made up styles), adidas, le coq sportif, keds etc etc imaginable is here. requests can be made at: size/colour/style or brand in the comments.

Shopping areas are often segregated in to areas of sporting goods, shoes, ladies clothing, flowers, pet supplies.. entire streets are dedicated to a single shopping item. I happened to stumble across a fake firearms area the other day that had an assortment of military gear, guns, and model cars... it was a total 'boy' zone.


en vogue!
actually, i took the picture cause i liked the sweater.. or thought it was funny/great...

like this one. triptych!

bid now!

not all of HK is a new and clean as Central district. most of the markets are in ghettos. some markets like the most popular one in Mongkok (Kowloon) can be expensive.





ps. bird flu post has been briefly updated. more pictures to come... post on transportation/muti-level society/international trade/mainland china to come...

facts learned:

- homosexuality was decriminalized in 1991
- China is seen as unfriendly, full of crime and dangerous (giant unknown mass - too many people not enough enforcement)
- a large number of Secondary schools are closing down in HK because people are too busy working and not marrying and having kids and living mostly in common law (maybe a global generational attitude).

Aliens...the tables have turned.

Though it seems my environment has entirely naturalized itself to me… I don’t feel I need to comment on my surroundings anymore. Thoughts I previously had (though still entirely relevant) don’t perk me to say them, but I will anyway...

Before coming here I had a discussion with a friend interested in my reaction to being in HK as an alien "satellite kid" (and as someone who is somewhat culturally dislocated). I look like everyone, but somehow, I'm not…

Chinese are known to inhabit every corner of the planet - no matter how far or desolate. It is not uncommon for Chinese natives to come across washed people of their own kind. They will still treat you as if you are Chinese and will not look strangely upon you. They are generally glad to have someone back.

To my surprise there are a surprising amount of Canadians. Scarborough (Toronto) / Vancouver as well as San Francisco (USA) are the major satellite communities inhabited by huge numbers of Chinese. The communities are so large that CBC's and ABC's (American Born Chinese) have become a breed of their own.

Perhaps if I wandered into the mainland, I would be treated more as a foreigner. For now, though language problems are always a barrier in any new territory, HK's not so bad.

Tables have turned...

It's interesting here to see reactions to the White minority. The Chinese have similar prejudices against the visible aliens. To the Chinese they are see as clumsy, lumbering...even stupid. It shows that appearance does matter more than essence, which is a sad fact of life. Getting a job here at face-value would be easier, since I naturally fit the profile. People are more inclined to listen if they like what they see.

Part of the fun for being here for me is being in a world that is build and designed for someone like me. I am the average size and stature of an average Chinese person. I fit a size medium and 37 shoe, which gets hard during sale times since those are the first sizes to go. Even little things like the height of a door knob or eye hole, or water fountain, public chair or ceiling are all perfectly proportional to me. I can comfortably walk into any shoe store (except for the one in IFC American/European stores tend to be a bit larger) and try on a display shoe and it will fit without needing to get a new size. I can try on a pair of pants and have the length, ass, width fit perfectly snug - no hemming or altering required. Perfect pants are so hard to come by. It is a glorious feeling.

One of the first things I noticed about being here is that everything is somehow.. very "Chinese". Just little things.. Chinese are very practical and cleanly. I remember as a grade-schooler I was one of the kids who didn't like sharing straws. I thought it was gross while my friends were going around sharing gum. I also remember not liking having to change in front of everyone during gym class. It was kind of violation of privacy. After a few years, I soon lost every inhibition I ever had. One of the first things I noticed here are that almost all the public bathrooms have large and distinct coat hangers, large locks (without holes) and doors that close without gaps. Walls are also lower to the ground and there is almost always paper towel and toilet covers. Certain things my Mom always complained about in North American public bathrooms were no longer an issue. Functionality and cleanliness (in modern China) prevail.

huh?

http://www.hongkongartwalk.com/

HK Artwalk - Charity event

Is an interesting concept.. However, it's not what I had originally gathered from the description.

It is an event organized by Hong Kong Commercial Galleries Association to promote art and community (and themselves). Participants pay 75-400 HK for a pass that gets you into all the galleries in an evening (March 1st) where they will serve finger foods and wine brought to you by local restaurants. All proceeds go to local charities (helping people with HIV, sick children etc.)

Initially I thought it was a big dinner and art conference, then I realized it's essentially just a venture to get people out to the main commercial galleries in the central area, only tempting them with food and "charity". Perhaps if the event had more to do with art than improving their "do-gooder" community image and an excuse to get publicity, then maybe I would think it was an interesting idea. The event can be seen as a means to promote the Arts in the city, but then it would make more sense to at least give proceeds to non-profit arts organizations in the city.

gimme five! i'm alive!

Decided the first pictures I were to take (as I finally got a new memory card!) were the things in my room. Just to let you all know.. I'm alive!

paper collection..



These are the ones I found most interesting/useful. Some look awfully nice, but unfortunately are all in Chinese.

HK Magazine (english weekly), BC Magazine (english Bi-weekly) - the obvious ones.
Artlink - put out by the Art Centre - mostly in chinese but parts in English - good resource and coverage for things happening mostly related to the centre.
Artmap - map of exhibitions and galleries during the month.
Parole - French / HK art exchange. publication on HK art in French.
Am Post - all in Chinese culture mag
APO (Art Promotions Office) magazine - upcoming art news
Fringe Club - booklet on their events

Oh and of course my wallet, and notebook.



2nd from the right is my mom. things change hell of a lot in 40 yrs.

HKTV!

Havn't watched a lot of TV, but it's not as flashy and seizure inducing as one might think Asian TV is. Actually HK TV is pretty international. There is a lot of British news and television, bad dramas/comedies that seem to satirize traditional Chinese emperors and court people (e.g super long beards, angry slanty eyebrows, bad acting) and the National Geographic Network.

Oh and there are also rather good movies like Good Bye Lenin and Battle Royale II (which actually sucks ass compared to the first one).

I also saw this pretty great Korean dark comedy about a family that tries to get by off life insurance fraud (after realizing they could cash in huge when their husband/dad gets hit by a truck that backed into him when he was peeing on it when he was drunk). The family continues to buy insurance, and trying to come up with ways to hurt themselves (the more serious the injury, the more money). It’s rather amusing… especially when they try to kill off a "very very very very very" distant relative that turns out to be a mafia slob that never seems to die.

I’m not sure what it is called in English.. something like making money without investing..


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Check the links section - some added Asia/China experimental labels will discuss later.

fUSION: to bring together and consolidate a hybrid existence

FUSION has such horrible connotations. It's like spaghetti and meat sauce chow mein or sticky tuna fish sweet buns. Whether its East meets West or West meets East, either side becomes somehow flat, diluted… or just plain wrong. Things can, however, be looked at in a more positive way - It can be seen as getting the best of both worlds.

Now with the Internet and globalization, FUSION is the inevitable future for the world. Influence of the East in the West is most prominent in art and avant-garde (as well as in occasional trends in pop culture such as movies or tv/anime). Influence from Eastern philosophies help the West push the (language and knowledge) boundaries it has written out for itself. The East, however, seems to adopt Western influence in business and commercialism, media and pop culture. So-called ‘modern industrialization’ seems to be a Western construction that has been, and continues to be something pushed upon “non-developed” countries by the West.

Western influence seems to pour out of Asia. It is always amusing to see what I call appropriated and 'brilliantly confused' American culture. Things are getting so mixed up that sometimes one can no longer even try to make distinctions. It's like mixing a marble cake until everything turns grey.



Separation doesn’t really need to be noted, but areas I found signs of fusion and increasing openness here were in the foods (Chinese bakeries now serving pizza buns, donuts, croissants, muffins like NYC street stands), financial/commercial areas (highly stylized malls with more Gucci, Prada, Armani (high designer) than I’ve ever seen anywhere else), and certain areas of pop culture and fashion (mimicking American hiphop/graffiti styles etc - Hip hop, in my eyes, is the furthest thing from an Asian development).

Hong Kong is already a highly hybridized state, especially since it was considered a British colony since 1996. There still remains a strong British presence. Nearly every person who speaks English, speak with a British accent. There is definately a stronger European vibe than American. (I will speak about International Trade in a bit..)

Western landed establishments like taverns/bars (Chinese don't drink a lot especially in that kind of context), yuppie cafes (Starbucks and the like), Italian Eateries etc, remain occupied mostly with white customers.

As more Asians assimilate into the business market, and learn the business language (English), these establishments will increasingly become further adopted into the Asian society and culture. “Modern industrialization” was a Western construction, but has now been adopted as the global future.

Though I’ve always considered myself as a hyphenated identity (CBC – Chinese Born Canadian), I’ve been entirely socialized as a North American. Even amongst ‘typical’ CBC’s who seem to have a more hybrid tie to their heritage, I seemed to have been allowed to assimilate my surroundings to the fullest. It came to a point where I questioned my own personal knowledge of my heritage. I often rejected being constantly reminded of my visible difference, baffled at people’s ignorance. Even amongst friends I don’t know how much they would identify me as Chinese beyond mere appearance (though appearances matter immensely in this world). Perhaps it was a bit of shame that I was taught to feel growing up. The Asia I am discovering is an increasingly hybridized Asia, which maybe why I somehow feel strangely comfortable and at home here. For one, visible difference is no longer an issue… (I will write about the glories of being in a city constructed and designed for people like me in a later post.. – i.e. CLOTHES THAT FIT!)

I think I maybe perhaps more deeply Asian than I think.
This is all in hopes to achieve a more accurate (hybrid) relationship to myself.

blah blah bla..

-aw


email me: ashley.leee(a)gmail(dot)com

PS > unfortunately, i lost my camera memory card and cannot post pictures until 1. i get a new one and 2. i take more pictures... sucks.

Bird Flu

this one is a quickie..

Much like NYC during terrorist season, Asia seems similarly paranoid about the Avian Flu.

Daily reports on the news either talk about individuals quarantined after eating an infected bird, dead birds testing positive, and dead birds found taking an hour for its removal from a local park. Signs on the street and parks warn you not to touch bird shit, feed birds or get close to them and announcements on the subway tell you to wear a mask if you are exhibiting flu symptoms.

A series of rather cheerful and comical commercials were issued by the Health Council of HK enforcing rules and precautions - the commercial showed families enthusiastically washing their hands, wearing masks, and staying away from live poultry.

It is not uncommon to see people covering their face on the street or openly wearing masks in public, which in North America would seem rather suspicious. It has become almost a fashion accessory.

I saw one particular western traveler wearing rubber gloves, a mask, and covering his mouth with one hand and clutching his briefcase in the other.. obviously paranoia. In reality only a small number of people have died from the flu.

Not quite as bad as my experience in Toronto during SARS, when I also happened to be sick with the common cold. People were running from me in every direction.

Often in times like this, it is hard to see how serious the situation really is when everyone is talking about it. The virus hasn't developed into a form that can be easily passed-on amongst humans, and they don't know when and IF it will.

The global strategy has been to avoid the spread of the flu by quarantining individuals, and lessening human contact with birds.

**update: the HK government has banned the owning of any poultry livestock and have begun confiscating birds particularly backyard bred chicken even pets to avoid the spread from bird to human. There have been cases of bird flu, however, in individuals who have had no contact with birds.

artartart

http://www.videotage.org.hk

I've really been meaning to take a visit to the Cattle Depot Artist Village and 1a Space out in Kowloon (the Brookyln of Hong Kong - on the mainland off the island, a bit slummier, the "dark side"). It's just a bit hard to get to..

http://www.oneaspace.org.hk/

It's an entire complex dedicated to contemporary art organizations/galleries etc. Videotage - a media art collective (above) is also there.

An example of the mass migration of people from mainland China to big cities - it was said on the news that 330 000 people came through the HK train station back from the Lunar Year holidays. Just as there was a mass exodus at the start of the holiday.

HMV

A good indication (sometimes) of the music culture in larger cities is what is being sold at HMV. It gives one an idea of what people listen to and what material they have access to and what’s popular. In the long weekend here where most things where closed I spend an afternoon browsing the sections at the downtown Central HMV.

The Charts were separated into a smaller Asian chart and a broad based general chart as well as a Jazz section. It seems what’s available in HK of Western content is vastly behind on what is actually happening, which is normal for a place that is on the other side of the Earth. It’s just interesting to see what various fragments of the west does catch on, and often it is quite random. Only the big names and far few of them catch on in the various genres. Like Eminem in hiphop, The Killers in rock, Sufjan Stevens in indie rock and there is surprising still quite a bit of Alterna-rock – like Korn and System of a Down (even Chinese imitation nu-metal in clothing stores that sounds just like Linkin Park). It seems a lot of the mainstream Chinese bands imitate and mix up at lot of the various western genres. A band’s songs will swing from emo to alt-rock to country to slow jam on a single album. The HMVs here are equally divided between Visuals (DVDs) and Music.

Aside from the usual Rock pop section there is an entire section dedicated to Asia music including Japanese, Korean, Karaoke and strangely enough the only category separations for Chinese music is Male and Female and a section for Groups. In China, music revolves around the Pop Icon. Usually there is one main singer that leads every single song in a heart-felt slow jam. One face I see everywhere is this b-boy/pretty boy Justin who looks more like a clean cut hip hop guy, but turns out to be a sensitive, boy band type singing English lyrics of “Alloone..! so Alone…!” before continuing in Cantonese.

The Chinese (mass population) seem to really like their music compilations – like Dance mixes, or mega mega live hip hop party … mix or something. They don’t seem to know enough about individual artists to buy it, but instead just want something to listen to that might be catchy. In terms of artists there seems to be a lot of adult contemporary stuff on the charts. Old stuff like Enya, or Elton John, Kenny G (is EVERYWHERE!), Eurythmics etc… They also seem to dig live performances (like where they wear their headsets, with a backing band and audience participation).

I spent a good part of my time sampling their Asian pop. I found the voices dominate and control the music so much that I couldn’t get much from any of it. Some were definitely more creative musically than others, but most often I found the CD would start off really sharp and catchy (good beats) and then revert back into slow heart-felt jams that everyone does. A girl group called “She” started off with hard mean beats like the Chinese Christina Aguilera or Gwen Stefani I was really digging and then after the first few songs it just reverted back into everything else. Bian Bian Bian at least tries to do something different musically sounding more like Stereolab with the same songy girl vocals.

In terms of indie, there was a bit. It seems Montreal’s Constellations Records gets some crazy distro in HK from Monitor Records (the Chinese Monitor Records). Monitor Records is also a local label and record store. In every record store I’ve been to there has been a good supply of Do Make Say Thing, Fly Pan Am and of course Godspeed..

Chinese listen to music for face-value pleasure. They don’t care what it is as long as it’s catchy or good for the car.

In fashion on the other hand, the mainstream youth fashion is more up-to-date / stylish than North America. Much more experimental and creative.