BBC: The Strand

The Hong Kong artist has a new show on in London which explores history, who owns it and why via some mysterious bullet holes. Listen

ArtReview: Future Great 2012

Future Great 2012: Leung Chi Wo, by Mark Rappolt

Based in Hong Kong, Leung Chi Wo is an artist who manages to pull off the difficult trick of combining the particular with the universal. Almost all of his work starts with the image and the imagination of a specific urban or architectural site and then transforms it into a complex network of ideas, histories and competing interpretations. Read more

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.

Aston Webb's prophecy

construct - destroy

“We must construct as well as destroy”
- Webb, Sir Aston (Ed.) & The London Society, London of the Future. London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1921, p.21.

Szeto Keung (1948-2011)

Photo: ©Travis Price

Szeto Keung, a mentor and a good friend passed away last week. One of the most popular figures in the Chinese artist community in New York in the last 30 some years, Szeto entered into the mainstream art world well before Chinese contemporary art was recognized. Represented by OK Harris as an artist for his own merit and not because of his ethnicity, he has been well respected by fellows of his generation and the younger. He was befriended with many Chinese artists and curators from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China, no matter well-known or unknown, for his very helpful and open-minded character. His studio in Spring Street was a meeting place and point of contacts for friends and acquaintance. Curious in different knowledges and Chinese cultures, Szeto was generous for conversations with elders or youngers.
I first met him in 1996 when he was the artist-in-residence in the Chinese University of Hong Kong where I was doing my MFA. Although he was very famous for his superrealist painting, I was impressed with his knowledge of Barthes and his insight in photography. As a student only, I was feeling so much encouraged by such a conversation in which you were fully respected as a mature artist. It was a brief encounter but impressing. Three years later I got an opportunity to reside in New York for 18 months. It was the time that I could really enjoy his humour and wisdom at the same time. As a walking dictionary for artists in New York City, his presence would always make you feel secure and easy. He could also exchange on many technical issues of art as well. Basically, I learnt how to operate a large format camera from him. I still use the camera that he used before.
With him, many nights in the diner round the corner of his studio where we had unlimited barely-drinkable watery coffee at 50 cents would just become joyful. He would also extend his social network for you, so you can survive many otherwise lonesome moments.
He might not want a label of Hong Kong artist on him but his importance in the Hong Kong contemporary art is unquestionable. He is always a good artist with substance and integrity. He is always missed.

A memorial will be held in the Eric Hotung Studio, Hong Kong Arts Centre on Sunday, September 18 at 7pm.

ENEMY BOMBING

Bomb damage on the exhibition road facade of the Victoria & Albert Museum.