All Eyes

Okay, so we’re now going back to basics.

I find many of my friends finding it difficult to read or analyse art. Maybe, we shouldn’t put it in such a serious context as “analyzing” or “ studying” art, but simply try to think and see things in another perspective.

Contemporary art, especially, consists of so much variety that may drive a person who doesn’t usually appreciate art confused. A rather simple yet enlightening read would be John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing”.

Although the art world has gone under changes from the classical period to its adventures across the modern period (late 19^th – 20^th Century), and now left in an age of disillusionment and endless “murkiness”, the general public’s way of viewing art is still rather stuck in the classical period, investigating how well is a painting painted by judging its details and “traditional” aesthetics. This is not the wrong way, but not the best or more comprehensive way in understanding art. Cultural backgrounds as well as noticing the visual techniques embedded in an artwork can heighten the sensory enjoyment and sense of fulfillment when one views an art.

John Berger’s “Ways of seeing” brings us along a journey of the mechanical re-production of art, the use of signs and symbols as well as the artist’s self-awareness  …

To keep this introduction short, I hope after this excellent read it can inspire viewers to understand the art they are viewing and in turn, understand their own contemporary cultures more after contemplation.

Who owns the art?

No, probably not the artist – wouldn’t it be too obvious to be the answer for this blog post?

The previous discussions have already set and started off the trend where we discussed the changed status of art from a privileged and exclusive status to being circulated among the public. The public, it seems, holds and even controls the fate of the artwork – the authority slips from the artist right after he finishes the artwork into the swarming arms of the masses.

Here comes the question of displaying art. When Lars Nittve mentioned about how contemporary museums changes their way of showcasing art in a talk held in SCAD Hong Kong, he emphasized about balancing between creating a museum for the masses while strictly maintaining the original intentions and meanings conveyed by the artists.

So are museums becoming more “user friendly” or are they “spoon-feeding” visitors? To what degree should museums explicitly guide the public to view the art? Or, in another perspective, should museum curators simulate experiences as the public themselves, which is mostly assumed to have less knowledge than the academia, in order to create the best suited experience for all?

While suspecting the efficiency of the balance, we cannot but admit he has by these far achieved significantly successful and popularly accepted new changes in the museums he has managed.

The tension between an artist trying to send his message and a mass that dilutes and is reluctant to accept only one dominating doctrine is never-ending, if not heightening in degree.

In the coming post, we will look further into one of his very latest museum and curating works – M+, the repeatedly debated and discussed new museum in Hong Kong, located in the West Kowloon area. We will see how, in a specific example is this balance carefully weighed.

The Contemporary Controversialists – Takahashi Murakami and Andy Warhol

Exposing the endless mechanical reproduction of images and signs; revealing the empty decadence behind visual glamour. The two artists, Takahashi Murakami and Andy Warhol, stand as influential figures in the contemporary art scene. Yet it is not without debate when the public first received their works. What doesn’t trigger debate is not an interesting issue to explore with. Therefore, this special post will be dedicated to how these artists influenced culture and we can also insert the context of Hong Kong’s art scenes as a comparison

Murakami, stating in his latest book – “Art in Battle” , reveals that while his works are highly popular and lucrative among the international art scene, the art community in Japan shows reluctance in accepting his success. They see him as a businessman using art for money – an artist, in their eyes, should live a poor man’s live.

Andy Warhol, similar to Murakami, flaunts his talents not only in art but also using art as a cultural irony. Echoing the mechanical reproduction of images, he shows how that an image, which he tries to detach from emotions or meanings by reproducing infinite amounts of copies, can inflate in value – the originality is not concerned as crucial any more. He devotes a great amount of his time among the business of art – making art indeed a commodity to be sold.

Murakami, as discussed before, pushes this to a further extent – after the glamourous illusion Andy Warhol imposed on contemporary art, he pushes it to a decadent and hysterical extent. The tragedy of society is that desire keeps on growing without a halt – an exhausting yet addictive drive towards desire.

They are not shy to use their own images, putting themselves into the artworks themselves. By placing their image in the same dimension as their art, they seem to blur the line between what we call reality and illusion. By diminishing the difference between virtual existence and real existence, they suggest that everything can be glamourous and everything can be art – in a radical reverse, nothing is art and the status between art and rubbish can be inverted. No wonder their art and theories are highly debated and controversial.

a banal good can be promoted as an expensive art too

Marilyn Monroe might be the wanted all-time-favourite film star – yet in Warhol’s art, detaching meanings and emotions results he being juxtaposed as having the same status as a campbell can soup!

Of course, we cannot ignore the recent craze of the Andy Warhol exhibition in Hong Kong! The collection is amazingly huge – though a bit too cramped in such a small place in Hong Kong, definitely worthwhile to visit. It is said to be the largest collection ever being shown in Asia!

It is interesting to see Andy Warhol’s early works and inspiration as a shoe-illustrator and his progression towards the concept of art becoming commodities and detaching emotions from images.

Andy Warhol and Takahashi Murakami strikes me as being very similar to each other – both reflecting (or even predicting) city cultures at their times and at the same time facing as much commercial success as their controversies in contributing/ “destroying” art.

Wait for the special comparison post of the two masters

More in-depth analysis of Andy Warhol will be available and also the two master’s influence in art and how they affect us in Hong Kong as well!

Art’s status has undergone a humungous change across the centuries.

While art images once projected a sense of authority, such as religious images and political propaganda, art has become more of a commodity circulated among consumers – which means all of us can share a part of art.

Indeed, seen in this light, artists seem to be losing their authority in dictating meaning and a piece of artwork hardly maintains a sole meaning imposed by the artist himself.

Yet there is no fear of losing his authority in deciphering his artwork in the Beijing-based artist Sung Dong’s latest exhibition – 36 Calendars. Held in an interesting art exhibition location – Artistree, Sung Dong created a special art event where he invited the Hong Kong public, people of all ages and occupations to take part in writing their own history.

The public’s work/ re-work of Sung Dong’s calendar templates

He believes that history not only consists of the grand narrative we study in history books. Everyone should have their own ways of recording memories. The public used different styles and medium to draw on the provided calendar formats. On the walls that surrounded the public’s works, there lies Sung Dong’s calendar drawings where he records them in a neat yet very interesting and intimate moments of his life.

Sung dong’s “diary” on Ai Weiwei’s disappearance in April 2011

The most striking part of the exhibition is its display, which triggers an uncanny feeling of the tension between absence and presence. The tables represented the person who once was present in that location recording a moment and feeling of his life. Yet time passes and what remains is this particular essence of one’s trace. This feeling is at once intimate and also transcending.

Viewers visiting the memories of others.

Highly dependent on viral news and journals, can Hong Kong people really write a discourse of their own? Indeed more events like these are needed to encourage the Hong Kong art scene to become more dynamic and interactive, for both the sustainability of art development and Hong Kong people’s attitude towards art appreciation.

Smiling flowers and vibrant colours. Seems too innocent and commercial for any deeper meaning? Takahashi Murakami, a Japanese pop art artist, stands as one of the most influential contemporary grand masters of art. His latest Flowers and Skulls exhibition in Hong Kong Gagosian Gallery continues his utopia/ dystopia theme of the contemporary world.

His art ironically reflects an honest situation of our contemporary world – an over abundance of images and colours to actively feed us with desire has in turn infantilized our senses to purely passive recipients. In short, we are impotent because of an abundance of exhausting desire.

Looking closely up to the happy flowers we see their eyes painted in colourful saturated colours – as if they are high on drugs!

His latest works added on a new element that heightens the sense of crazed glamour – glitters!

Japan has an interesting city culture. Its rapid development started since the end of the Second World War where they viewed the Hiroshima bombing as the starting point of America’s invasion in Japan’s culture, a commercialization that pushes them towards an intense and quick phase of fake glory and decadence. Viewing this intense and rapid developing culture, we might even be inspired to predict and reflect on our own city, Hong Kong’s culture, which seems to be running on the same path of cheerful decadence with our abundance of commodities.

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Add a chic yet clean piece – all in white!

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Choose your items wisely and have fun curating your own gallery at home!

Resting on emptied dreams, building upon ruins.

  The Fotanian Open Studios 2013 serves as the perfect material for this blogs’ officially first post on introducing contemporary art in Hong Kong. The open day was hosted for 3 weekends in January 2013.

  Fo Tan, an old industrial area in Hong Kong, now hosts a many and increasing number of artists – both local and foreign. With its spacious interiors and relatively inexpensive rent, the buildings are now reincarnated into a special kind of community art hub.

  From established artists like Mr. Danny Lee to amateurs and art students, the visit to the open day showed not only an interesting variety of art but also a promising hope to the art scene in Hong Kong.

An artist presenting and introducing her work to a group of visitors.

Visitors can also talk to artists and discuss anything about art.

Obviously Hong Kong stuff

Exploring the maze with my friend.


Visitors can get a glimpse of an artists’ everyday studio.

  
Work of Mr. Danny Lee

  The power of artists lie in their ability to utilize concepts and materials to create their own dimension of reality. The abandoned and outmoded industrial buildings once held the high hopes of Hong Kong’s rapid development – because of this phase Hong Kong has grown into this vibrant city we come to know of today. Now, artists infused these spaces with new hopes with their very own vision.

Definitely worth supporting!

As a keen lover for art, I cannot bear wonderful pieces of works appear without being noticed and disappear before it gets its chance to communicate with its viewers.

Guidances and personal reflections on exhibitions and works might be found on this blog.
Yet, this is not a showcase of analytical ability,
but rather, I hope that this blog helps the viewers to develop
an attentive, if not keen, eye for art.

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