My name is Victoria

My name is Victoria, now showing at "Long time no see, Victoria" in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

Voices Lapsed

A new work for the exhibition White Walls Have Ears

It is about the voice of the present of the past, translated and transformed. Two interviewees from my previous project Domestica Invisibile have already passed away. One mid-career American arts writer, who witnessed the development of Asian contemporary art, and one young Japanese multi-media artist from the snow country talk about their home. And we listen and ponder over the words voiced for the people who once uttered. Specially dedicated to cmbb.

Original interviewees:
Jonathan Napack (1967-2007) was a correspondent for The Art Newspaper and official representative for Art Basel. He started his writing career for a number of publications in New York including New York Observer and Spy, before moving to Hong Kong in 1997 where he became increasingly involved in the Chinese contemporary art world.
Hiroaki Muragishi 村岸宏昭 (1984-2006) was a philosophy student and a self-taught musician and artist in Sapporo. He wrote and played experimental music; and exhibited multi-media installations. He also took the lead role in Singaporean filmmaker Royston Tan’s short film Monkey Love.

New recording by:
Mimi Brown is the founder of the new non-profit art centre Spring Workshop and a board member of the Asia Art Archive.
Robin Peckham is an art critic, curator and the founding director of Saamlung, commercial gallery and project office in Hong Kong.
Ko Hasegawa is a hair stylist and founding artistic director of Voi Voi Rakkaus in Hong Kong.
Hitomi Hasegawa is a researcher, curator and the founder of the Moving Image Archive of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.

My top 10 exhibitions in Hong Kong

These days how do you rank exhibitions? I always found much easier to ask myself how much I remember of those shows by end of the year. So I also post my top 10 memorable shows in Hong Kong. (*Obviously there is a personal interest as those that I participated I would remember better!)

1. Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Works by Chu Hing Wah (HKU)
2. Culture(s) of Copy* (Goethe)
3. An Unexpected Turn of Events: Chen Shaoxiong and Tsuyoshi Ozawa (Osage)
4. Hong Kong Diary: Pak Sheung Chuen (HKMA)
5. Spectral Evidence (1a)
6. Tempestade/ Unwetter/ Tempest (Goethe)
7. Ho Sin-tung : Don't Shoot the Messenger (Hanart)
8. Runscape: Map Office (10Chancery)
9. Jompet.Third Realm (Para/Site)
10. Nadim Abbas: Cataract (Exit/Experimenta)

I might remember a couple more but it wouldn't be far away from that.

Monopol

Monopol is a Berlin-based art magazine. Culture(s) of Copy where I took part with Sara in Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst in Oldenburg got featured in it.

Reference 1978-1994-2010

A new collaborative work by Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong as our contribution to "Lui Chun Kwong. You Are Here, I Am Not. From Ho Siu Kee to Kong Chun Hei", opening next Saturday at Osage Kwun Tong.

Lui Chun Kwong, Back Shadowing, oil on canvas, 130x96cm, 1978

The second piece of work Lui had produced ever since he returned from London in 1994, untitled and never exhibited.

The back of the 1994 piece. He signed on it again recently before we took it to "collaborate". We added the inner angled- and exterior frames, ribbon and stamp with reference to the 1978 piece.

Mysterious housewife

Now hanged in the Goethe Institut, my collaboration with Sara Wong consists of a large new photograph and a book of Tokyo of the 1950s. The very small back figure of a typical housewife at the centre of a photo from the book has become the inspiration of the large print. Both should be visually corresponding to each other.
However a friend just told me he saw that work 2 weeks ago for the first time just as seen above. But recently he went to the gallery again and looked at the work. He just couldn't find the housewife in the old photograph. We checked it today and nothing has changed. It's really mysterious....

She was lost in the past and we found her today.

Site-specific installation (conceptual illustration above) by Leung Chi Wo & Sara Wong, vinyl sticker on glass, Yaguchinowatashi Station, Tamagawa Line, Tokyo, 2010

Shopping street at Yaguchinowatashi (right next to the station), Tokyo, 1955

Opening programme, Tamagawa Art Line Project 2010

Chen Shun-chu 陳順築

It was a time the artistic practice of Taiwanese artists was such a good reference for me. Perhaps it was the hit time when everybody was talking about cultural identity. And Chen Shun-chu's work was always cited. My vague memory recalls someone had even said this was the Taiwan's answer to Boltanski. Above all, I really like his work. 14 years ago when I for the first time visited Taipei, I got his contacts from perhaps IT Park. And he did show up and chatted with us. Back then I was only a student and you already saw his work featured in international magazine. Then you could imagine his generosity and openness to others. He was very gentle, somehow you might like to relate to his work. I also remember his work in the exhibition Inside Out (curated by Gao Minglu) of predominantly mainland Chinese artists in the Hong Kong Museum of Art. From the first glance at his work, you could a;ready tell he's no mainland Chinese artist!
He also did a solo show in Hong Kong almost ten years ago. It was a beautiful exhibition but not very well attended unfortunately. Was it the indifference of our community then? Not sure, but if it's yes, perhaps it's also our indifference in general to contemporary art.
Anyway, this time it shouldn't be missed!

Economy Class

It's been amazing to see how video has changed the art world. With a small fund and online resources like UbuWeb and Video Data Bank, you can curate an "international" exhibition of artists like John Baldessari, Francis Alys and Gary Hill, etc. With lesser known local artists, thanks to the light-weighted DVDs, international touring exhibition means only a page of installation instruction, a small package and free of insurance. Para/Site's This is Hong Kong is a typical example. It's been exhibited in Barcelona, Seoul, Hamburg, Birmingham, Berlin, and of course Hong Kong; and on its way to Taipei and Vienna.

(Inter)Viewing Possession

My new site-specific project is now being exhibited at the Asia Art Archive. Probably it is the most difficult to explain about!

About (Inter)Viewing Possession

Process:
A group of interviewers were recruited to interview people from the neighbourhood about their treasurable possession. The artist listened to these audio recordings and transcribed/rewrote them into a series of monologues. Then the artist also interviewed the interviewers and has written another set of monologues about their experience and memory of the previous interviews. All the monologues were compiled and edited into eight pairs. Finally the artist read them together with his long time collaborator Sara Wong as the voice over of totally eight channels of video of slow panning motion of the close-up image of the windows from the buildings around. Eight video-viewing stations have been made and set against the cityscape as the backdrop of the installation.

Keywords:
Colonial The Asia Art Archive which houses the project is located in Possession Street that was extended from the waterfront where the British army landed in 1841.
Urban The location and the nature of the space where we are based.
Art In the name of art we begin to think beyond what we see and experience.
Observation The basic activity when encountering something unfamiliar, but perhaps we can also observe the familiar for something different. In addition, I imagine the AAA as an observation platform, a place to see how other see.
Tourist One becomes tourist to re-visit his/her home hoping to see something new. It is natural to see tourists in the observation platform.
Gaze/view Gaze is more dominant than view.
See/seen As said, we see how people see.
Photography It is this gaze for sure whereas our naked eyes always scan.
Value I try to learn about subjective value. It is the value being described but not to be justified.
Introspection When we start to talk to ourselves, pretending to talk to others….
Connection It is interesting to see how people can be connected, especially if invisibly. There is now connection between the AAA and its neighbours not because of their proximity…. Seeing is the link which is invisible.
Seeing It is a subjective act. No one else can really see if one really sees.
Voyeurism A voyeur sees another voyeur.
Private/pubic It is a performance which negotiates these two realms.
Community I am not sure. Or could there be a community that its members share views or have opposite views?
Fictional There are facts but no fact is identified. Or it simply does not matter one talked about facts in these interviews.
Interview The view in between, or views between two persons.
Monologue The subject is I.
Dialogue I and I.
Shift Still image in motion.
Windows The opening to go in but not to come out.
Process/medium The way to talk is more interesting than what to talk. My role somehow is also like a medium that might be tempted to take over.
Transcribing It is a creative process to turn from what you listened into somewhat you would like to read.
Reading It is not role-playing but to replace someone’s presence with your own voice. That is to possess.
Image We keep telling the reality is the substance which is far more important but we still like to treasure the image because it looks better than the reality.
Imagine However, the best image only exists when it is invisible.
Opposite field Il contro campo where we see each other, like the photographer and the photographed but their roles can be swapped.
Relational It is a trendy word.
Identity Something we do not really need but I. We better subvert it.

Depot of Disappearance

Depot of Disappearance is a text-based installation that addresses issues of memory, space and cultural policy. It takes as its focus an independent arts organization, Depot, which was located in the MuseumsQuartier during 1994-2001. Fragments of personal memory and knowledge (or ignorance), be they contradictory or consistent, of Depot during this period from diverse individuals collectively suggest a metaphor for the independent cultural development in the times of socio-political changes. To recall the immediate past is neither a relief from fear of disappearance or a pursuit for nostalgia. Instead, it is to contemplate disappearance in its own right. In fact, Depot continues to exist behind the MuseumsQuartier today.

The Death of Audience

A great exhibition at Secession in Vienna at the moment was carefully studied and curated beyond the conventionally western-euro-centric perspective of Conceptual Art from the 1960s & 70s. Amazing to see conceptual art practices in back then communist countries. Also for the first time I learnt about Filipino artist David Medella who did very interesting work already in the early 70s.

Seoul

Leung Chi Wo LOOP Chi Wo Leung

ifa-Galerie Stuttgart - Das Paradies ist anderswo - 17. April bis 16. Juni 2009

Toronto: In the name of Victoria

Press release

許願的橫額

俞是說亞洲國際都會

Lost in Stuttgart

After two days, a jealousy-free zone and clean air & ocean have been lost.

"Jealousy-free zone"

"An ocean that we can swim and the air we can breathe"

Stuttgart

Jakarta Biennale

The Hong Kong Biennial somehow claimed itself as one of earliest biennales in Asia. Its first chaper was held in 1970s but nothing has been really changed as its nature as a local art contest. In spite of many expectations in the Hong Kong arts community, it made its "big" step simply to change its title to "Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial Award".

The first Jakarta Biennale was held in 1968 with a different title. It also takes it ages to evolve. Finally it went international this year. And Ade Darmanwen is the artistic director.