EVENT DESCRIPTION
Tai Kwun Contemporary presents Isaac Chong Wai: An Intimate Surrender, the Berlin–based Hong Kong artist’s first solo live art exhibition in Hong Kong. This newly commissioned project takes the celebrated Chinese novel and film Farewell My Concubine as a point of departure, and through spatial arrangements and corporeal language that balance rigidity and fluidity, together with intimate interactions among performers, the exhibition inspires audiences to reflect on gender performance both on and off stage.
Over four weeks, two sets of monumental installations will be staged across the 3/F galleries. Comprising metal structures, etched glass and mirrored panels, the first gallery resembles stage and film sets. Through the reassembly of phoenix coronets and textiles, the second gallery creates the atmosphere of a rehearsal room.
The live performance channels the physicality of the stage and references the Peking Opera gestures found in the film, activating the installation and creating an experience of multilayered interlacing of memory, space and time.
Walking into the gallery, audiences encounter performers up close and bodily traces left behind in the installation, delving into the artist’s profound rendition of the fluidity of bodies, gender and identity explored in Farewell My Concubine.
Curator: Louiza Ho
Artist: Isaac Chong Wai
Performers: Chan Wai Lok, Cheung Wai Yin, Isaac Chong Wai, Jon Henri Ferrer*, Gao Sheng-ting*, Jiang Xu-ling*, Lau Pak Hong, Li De, Siu Yau, Tang Lap Hang, Solong Zhang
Sound Design: Nobutaka Shomura
*With the kind permission of City Contemporary Dance Company
