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EVENT DESCRIPTION
Tai Kwun Contemporary is thrilled to present Killing TV, a new exhibition about how contemporary artists deploy, disrupt, and deconstruct television as a medium. The artworks in the exhibition—dating from the 1970s up to the present day, by 15 artists from around the world—shed light on how television has influenced art, in particular how artists have reflected on and challenged television’s pervasive power on culture as a whole. Curated by Jill Angel Chun and Tiffany Leung, Killing TV runs from 27 September to 19 November 2023.
For decades, television has been a major mass medium globally, transforming how we have consumed information, news, and entertainment. With social media on the rise, however, television—especially live TV and broadcasting—has been overtaken by digital platforms and steaming technologies. While Killing TV does not offer an exhaustive survey of artists’ responses to television, the featured artworks in the exhibition do show how television has provided a fertile ground for examination and critical reflection by artists.
With video works that take in performance art as well as sculptural installations—from parodying TV shows to appropriating TV commercials—the broad range of works in Killing TV invites audiences to embrace artistic experimentation and discover unfamiliar formats and settings. Together, the different artists explore issues of identity, consumerism, and human relationships in society, thus probing the mass psychological and social impact of television from new perspectives. Ultimately, these artists offer us different way of looking at television as a medium—a medium which has fundamentally affected the way we understand ourselves and the world.
Over the course of the exhibition, Tai Kwun Contemporary will be hosting a range of public programming and educational events that dive into the deeper themes raised by Killing TV. These include Tai Kwun Conversations; Teacher’s Morning and Teacher’s Workshop; curator’s tours and other guided public tours. In the After Hours series, the audience gets the chance to listen to a fascinating spectrum of speakers working in art, photography, literature, as well as academics who will be chatting and discussing a broad range of topics. Finally, the Hi! & Seek corner at the 2/F, a space of dialogue and exploration, will as usual be open for visitors of all ages, providing different ways of interaction and conversation.
Killing TV runs from 27 September to 19 November 2023, every Tuesday to Sunday from 11am to 7pm at the art galleries in Tai Kwun. Admission is free, with guided public tours and related public programmes available. Along with Killing TV, visitors can visit I’ll Be Your Mirror, a new live art exhibition by the trailblazing artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi from 13 October to 26 November 2023.
