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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260224
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260503
DTSTAMP:20260223T025718Z
CREATED:20260223T025718Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260223T025718Z
UID:10022411-1771891200-1777766399@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Trevor Yeung: swallowing rumination\, gracefully
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Trevor Yeung: swallowing rumination\, gracefully\, on view from 24 February to 2 May\, 2026\, marking his fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. Yeung is known for using aquariums\, horticulture\, found objects\, installations and photographs as cyphers to project his internalized perception of the world. Excavating the logic of natural and artificial ecologies\, he orchestrates scenarios that evoke emotional resonance and simulate social dynamics\, eliciting viewers to contemplate upon notions of selfhood and intersubjectivity. Coinciding with his Blindspot presentation\, Yeung’s first institutional solo exhibition in France\, Garden of the Nine Suns\, will be on view in CAPC Musée d’art Contemporain de Bordeaux from 3 April to 29 September\, 2026. \nYeung’s exhibition at Blindspot Gallery is conceived as a space of introspection for the solitary pensive dweller. Projecting one’s interior world\, a thread of sentimentality\, desire and vulnerability runs throughout the exhibition\, bearing the visceral traces of time and impermanence. It features Yeung’s latest tank\, mixed-media and light sculptures\, photographs\, and new installations composed of rocks and crystals\, reflecting the artist as an avid hoarder\, and belief systems which serve as comfort during change. \nYeung will have a conversation at 4pm on 21 March with artist Lap-See Lam\, moderated by Olivia Chow\, Director of Curatorial Programs at the Chinese Canadian Museum. Chow curated Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Attachments\, Hong Kong in Venice\, Hong Kong’s Collateral Event at the 60th Venice Biennale\, as well as its return presentation Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Detachments at M+. The conversation will be conducted in English. Lap-See Lam: Bamboo Palace: Revisited (23 March – 2 May) will take place in tandem with Yeung’s exhibition at the gallery. \n 
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/trevor-yeung-swallowing-rumination-gracefully/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/TY_-Night-Mushroom-Colon-Corridor-2_2026_w.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20251202
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260201
DTSTAMP:20251210T071138Z
CREATED:20251210T071138Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251210T071138Z
UID:10022197-1764633600-1769903999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Un Cheng: Bedroom Paintings
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Un Cheng: Bedroom Paintings\, from 2 December 2025 to 31 January 2026\, marking the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition will debut her newest body of works and coincide with the book launch of her first artist monograph titled Now\, and Then?\, encompassing her works from 2017 to date. \nUn Cheng is known for her distinct palette capturing the quotidian details of city life\, each scene brimming with psychological depth and emotional fervor\, depicting a universal longing for human connection. In Bedroom Paintings\, Cheng encapsulates the complexities and nuances of the human experience. The scenes are recreated from photographs and memories\, each rendered in expressionistic strokes that evoke the artist’s underlying psyche. \nThe exhibition is anchored on the notion of the bedroom painting\, a term coined by the artist\, alluding to the intimacy of vignettes where Cheng lays bare her introspective observations on the surroundings within her studio\, domestic space\, and the places beyond. It connotes a sphere of solace and healing\, and it is a further nod to the art historical depiction of the bedroom and bed\, recursive motifs that embody the inner landscape of the artist. Each painting transforms ordinary moments into emotive compositions – being locked out\, bathing\, resting\, praying or reminiscing.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/un-cheng-bedroom-paintings/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Un-Cheng-Bedroom-Paintings.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250916
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20251102
DTSTAMP:20250917T183023Z
CREATED:20250917T183023Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250917T183023Z
UID:10021949-1757980800-1762041599@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Isaac Chong Wai: Carefully
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Isaac Chong Wai’s second solo exhibition\, Carefully\, from 13 September to 1 November 2025. Chong explores the human condition through the lens of movement\, time\, and the traces they bear. He delves into the performative qualities of materials\, showing their relationship with the body and their potential for world-making. \nCarefully acknowledges precarity while embodying a gesture of care. It proposes solidarity as a way to heal and to move forward from traumas. The new works featured in the exhibition continue themes Chong explored in his video installation and performance\, Falling Reversely (2021/2024)\, presented at the 60th Venice Biennale\, reflecting upon the fragility and resistance of the body in the face of systemic violence. In Carefully\, Chong probes our attentiveness to the past by drawing from his upbringing in colonial Hong Kong\, contemplating what we choose to remember and its influence on identity and the present. Through neon lights\, glass sculptures\, drawings\, prints and video\, the exhibition invites us to reflect upon our shared humanity converging temporalities\, and to imagine an alternative microcosm of human relationality through mutual support and understanding.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/isaac-chong-wai-carefully/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Sculpture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Isaac-Chong-Wai_Die-Muetter_2022_film-still-001.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250617
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250810
DTSTAMP:20250603T015952Z
CREATED:20250603T015952Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250603T015952Z
UID:10021625-1750118400-1754783999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Wing Po So: Polyglot
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to debut Wing Po So’s solo exhibition “Polyglot”\, on view from 17 June to 9 August 2025\, featuring her recent body of work. So’s intuitive approach towards art-making is influenced by her formative encounters with Chinese medicine\, characterized by a meticulous observation of nature and its interconnectivity. She wields the materia medica derived from our living environment as vocabularies in her conceptual works\, seeking to excavate the inner logic and systems latent in our surroundings. So shows a distinct sensitivity\, curiosity\, and fantasy towards nature and the cosmos\, all through a pharmacological lens. \n“Polyglot” refers to an individual of multilingual proficiency\, and here\, So draws a parallel between materials and language. “Polyglot” encapsulates how materials embody the multiple “languages” of nature’s patterns. Akin to how languages carry their own logic\, codes\, and structures\, materials embody their own rules and systems. So’s works accentuate the patterns\, forces and interconnectivities hidden in our everyday. \nBy foregrounding “material as language\,” “Polyglot” invites viewers to not only attune to what is being said but to how it is being said—through grain\, fiber\, residue\, tension\, and transformation. Just as language evolves over time and use\, materials have the ability to metamorphose\, combine\, and regenerate\, embodying how nature is an archive of living potentials.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/wing-po-so-polyglot/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/24352c1bc4fab1c06bf9e5d2906f8fbf.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250513
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250608
DTSTAMP:20250515T043722Z
CREATED:20250515T043722Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250515T043722Z
UID:10021594-1747094400-1749340799@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:South Ho Siu Nam: Wandering Daily
DESCRIPTION:Ho’s artistic practice is centered around photography\, a point of departure from which he expands further into other mediums including drawing\, performance and video. The exhibition “Wandering Daily” is rooted in the photographs Ho takes navigating the city. These quotidian urban scenes are devoid of figures\, yet palpable with human presence. They carry the nuances of moving bodies\, turning a once familiar cityscape into uncanny sites. Through depicting the city\, Ho also articulates his personal reflections and introspections about the time and place he lives in.During the opening reception\, the artist will give a durational performance titled Me\, My White Sneakers\, and Shoelaces (2025)\, in which he will wear a pair of white sneakers with shoelaces measuring 100 meters long each. With the artist’s and audience’s movements over time\, the orderly arranged laces will become jumbles\, turning into stumbling blocks that require careful navigation and tiptoeing.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/south-ho-siu-nam-wandering-daily/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Photography
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/0ebf0d6d34e1446e70598c8b4c183ec2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250325
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250511
DTSTAMP:20250402T003512Z
CREATED:20250402T003512Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250402T003512Z
UID:10017190-1742860800-1746921599@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Sin Wai Kin: The Time of Our Lives
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present “Sin Wai Kin: The Time of Our Lives”\, marking the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery\, on view from 24 March to 10 May\, 2025. The exhibition features Sin’s latest video works: The Time of Our Lives (2024)\, The Fortress (2024)\, and Asleep (2024). \nThese will be shown alongside face wipes imprinted with the make-up of Sin’s characters featured in the films. This exhibition marks the final stop of a touring solo exhibition that has travelled to Accelerator (Stockholm)\, Kunsthall Trondheim (Trondheim)\, and is on show at Canal Projects (New York) until 29 March.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/sin-wai-kin-the-time-of-our-lives/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-03-at-7.54.48-PM.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250218
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250406
DTSTAMP:20250120T000015Z
CREATED:20250120T000015Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250120T000015Z
UID:10021305-1739836800-1743897599@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Chen Wei: Breath of Silence
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Chen Wei’s second solo exhibition with the gallery\, “Breath of Silence”\, on view from February 18 to April 5\, 2025\, presenting his recent body of works encompassing photography\, LED light sculptures and video. Chen is known for his staged photography capturing cinematic scenes suspended in a fragmented time space; these scenes are meticulously constructed in his studio. Muted and often vacant\, these charged compositions are allegorical of the psyche of contemporary milieu. His LED sculptures and video installations further transpose in three dimensionality the urban textures and motifs photographed on lens. \n“Breath of Silence” captures an era characterized by alienation and solitude\, a repercussion of the global pandemic. The title alludes to the tacit and suppressed traumas from a collective experience that has engendered disquietude and paranoia. The turning to virtual technology and screens as a means of escapism further creates barriers between people. The exhibition also signals a curtain fall to Chen’s New City (2013-) series\, wherein the former boisterous promises of progress and prosperity muffle to diminution in a declined economic climate\, exposing the cracks between people’s expectations and the reality that unfolds.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/chen-wei-breath-of-silence/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Chen-Wei_Breath-of-Silence-沉默的呼吸_2024_150-x-187.5-cm-HR.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20241119
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250112
DTSTAMP:20241031T030058Z
CREATED:20241031T030058Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241031T030058Z
UID:10021158-1731974400-1736639999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Weather-world
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present “Weather-world”\, a group exhibition of seven artists from Hong Kong\, Taipei\, Manila\, and New York who re-imagine atmosphere as a blend of poetic and political landscape. Showcasing recent and new works by these artists including videos\, paintings\, collages\, installations and sculptures\, the exhibition explores how art alludes to atmosphere as a formative and contingent way of being in the world. It reveals the broader non-human world through aesthetic categories such as landscape\, naturalism\, romanticism\, and idioms. The exhibition’s title is inspired by the anthropologist Tim Ingold\, who examines how the notion of atmosphere is molded by the fusion of the meteorological perspective — viewing atmosphere as a measurable and observable external phenomenon — and the affective viewpoint\, which sees atmosphere as an extension or projection of inner psychological conditions. \n\n\n\nThe exhibition offers different entry points into thinking about the atmosphere\, portraying it as an external phenomenon represented in art\, a facet of planetary conditions. Mark Salvatus\, who is currently representing the Philippines at the 60th Venice Biennale\, considers the atmosphere as a condition that cultivates improvisational methods. In C_rafts (2011-2024)\, Salvatus takes inspiration from the vessels that urban city dwellers in Manila devise during typhoon catastrophes: rafts from various everyday materials such as water gallons and airbed mattresses. In Watermarks (2024)\, Salvatus presents a personal collection of postcards that he has been collecting from second-hand shops\, recording connections between the Philippine archipelago and other countries. Many of the postcards have considerable moisture-related damage: the pristine and unchanging photos of idyllic places featured in them succumbing to a volatile atmosphere. \nMatina Partosa presents paintings that track changing weather and its effects on her surroundings— intimate details of interactions between elements and instruments that create form\, such as a mirror that renders these elements into characters of light and color. Zhang Xu Zhan\, Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year” awardee (2021)\, creates paper puppets and maquettes from delicate paper-mache. In his latest film\, Termite Feeding Show (2024)\, Zhang playfully integrates stop-motion animation and live action to narrate the news story of termites causing major blackouts in mountainous cities by chewing through power cables. Each maquette creates its own atmosphere\, shaping and being moulded by the cinematic context established by the artist. \nOther artists view atmospheric conditions as a technology for staging reality\, utilizing natural phenomena as frameworks in their artistic conceptions. Continuing a series that explores the materiality and objecthood of books\, Lesley-Anne Cao imagines books made from different materials\, ranging from textile to fruit wrappers. Each book is placed inside water-filled tanks\, within which it interacts with water and artificial waves. It is an\nexperiment that ponders what constitutes the task of reading because here\, the human reader is displaced by an atmospheric activity of pages gently undulating from one to the next. Yuen Nga Chi’s Family Tree (2024) uses the metaphors of water currents and enchanting melodies to convey impermanence through a fantastical lens. Her video journal explores 19th-century population emigration dynamics from Japan to Southeast Asia\, emphasizing personal stories that are often overlooked within the broader\, overarching macro narrative of migration experiences. \n\n\n\n\n\n\nYip Kin Bon uses photographs and paper crafting techniques to illustrate the impending impacts of ecological change on Hong Kong’s expansive skies. The bird silhouettes that appear cloaked and confined evoke a sense of desperation and uneasiness\, highlighting the tension between nature and human influence. Stella Zhong’s Nùo. (2024) and Nùo.. (2024) installations comprise discreet and compact clusters of pebbles\, resembling sticky rice grains. They conjure the imagery of man-made stone landmarks inuksuit which in modern settings symbolize various weather signals. Zhong’s works induce close examination\, as they are held together by a magnetic mechanism\, defying gravity and provoking a poetic exploration of ephemeral atmospheres and visual viscosity. \nDrawing from Ingold’s idea of the “weather-world”\, this exhibition explores how our environment remains in a state of flux and evolution. A network emerges as we view separate islands as a world interconnected with its surrounding lands and waters. Considering the shared vulnerabilities and the ever-changing conditions in an expanded archipelagic world\, be it pertaining to weather or politics\, what emotional and social experiences might emerge for us as a result? \n“Weather-world” is curated by Jims Lam and Carlos Quijon\, Jr.\, Curator of the Philippine Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. The curators will be present at the opening reception\, together with Lesley-Anne Cao\, Matina Partosa\, Mark Salvatus\, Yip Kin Bon\, and Yuen Nga Chi.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/weather-world/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Painting,Sculpture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Mark-Salvatus_C_rafts_2011_installation-view-s.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240917
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20241103
DTSTAMP:20240826T072610Z
CREATED:20240826T072610Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240826T072610Z
UID:10021006-1726531200-1730591999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Jen Liu: I Am Cloud
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present “Jen Liu: I Am Cloud”\, the artist’s debut solo exhibition at the gallery and in Hong Kong\, on view from 17 September to 2 November 2024. The exhibition will present Liu’s recent and new body of work which encompass videos\, paintings\, and mixed-media animatronic sculptures. “Jen Liu: I Am Cloud” moves from the final chapter of Liu’s project Pink Slime Caesar Shift (2017-2023)\, marked by her film The Land at the Bottom of the Sea (2023)\, into a new body of work including the titular video I Am Cloud (2024) which will premiere at the exhibition. The gallery will analogously be divided into a dark and light room\, signaling the change from ocean to cloud\, liquid vaporizing into mist. \n\n\n\nIn this presentation\, Liu draws upon research and non-fictional materials to create fabulated narratives that examine the virtualization of work – its realities\, its speculative futures\, and its historical precedents. The title evokes the Cloud\, a cyber infrastructure which stores our memories and data\, seemingly automated but in fact powered by an invisible soft body network of humans.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/jen-liu-i-am-cloud/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Jen-Liu_I-Am-Cloud-painting-series-1_2024.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240723
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240901
DTSTAMP:20240709T041131Z
CREATED:20240709T041131Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240709T041131Z
UID:10019603-1721692800-1725148799@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:PLAY & LOOP VI
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Play and Loop VI\, the sixth iteration of our summer video screening program. The program will be divided into two scenes\, each scene lasting for three weeks \nScene 1 | 23 July – 10 August 2024\nFeatured artists: Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong\, Benjamin Li\, Charmaine Poh and Yu Shuk Pui Bobby \nScene one of the program brings together four compelling works that delve into the intricate themes of identity\, self- image\, body politics\, and the multifaceted meanings of home. Charmaine Poh’s and Yu Shuk Pui Bobby’s works discuss gender expectations related to queerness and femininity\, drawn from personal experiences; while Benjamin Li and Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong adopt a detached and observational approach of phenomena and processes shaped by history and cultures. These works invite us to reflect on how societal standards\, upbringings\, and personal narratives intersect to shape our perceptions of self and belonging. \nScene 2 | 13 – 31 August 2024\nFeatured artists: Chu Chun-Teng\, He Zike\, Hsu Che-Yu and Santiago Mostyn \nScene two explores how our lives are shaped by geopolitical\, historical\, and technological contexts. It conveys vulnerability in an individual against a larger system due to bureaucratic inertia\, humans’ collective dependency on technology\, colonial migrations and intergovernmental relations. Hsu Che-Yu and Santiago Mostyn’s expansive lens focus on transnational power dynamics across different timelines. Chu Chun-Teng and He Zike’s videos capture the experiences of communities and individuals grappling with the realities of their living circumstances\, using specific localities as backdrops.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/play-loop-vi/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Chu-Chun-Teng_ELL_2021-2022_film-still-21-s.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240604
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240714
DTSTAMP:20240517T015103Z
CREATED:20240517T015103Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240517T015103Z
UID:10019473-1717459200-1720915199@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Yooyun Yang: With Hands
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present “Yooyun Yang: With Hands”\, the South Korean artist’s debut solo exhibition in Hong Kong. With a background in Korean ink wash painting\, Yang paints and builds up layers of diluted acrylic on Korean traditional paper\, Hanji\, which is made from the mulberry tree bark. Yang’s realist paintings of cropped close-ups of people\, places and objects are like disjointed excerpts unveiling fragments of a narrative. Incorporating light and shadow to conjure enigma\, Yang’s paintings which stem from journalistic images and personal snapshots evoke jamais vu\, turning the mundane into visceral and uncanny tableaus. \n“With Hands” presents a new body of work that spotlights labor and its palpable traces in hands and objects. The paintings isolate the hands\, heightening a sense of solitude in the menial and repetitive task performed by their owner. Hands are synonymous with manual labor\, something that is undervalued and overshadowed in an era governed by digital technology. These paintings are a shift from her earlier works which portray hands with physical wounds\, a result of resistance and nonconformity. “With Hands” also features Yang’s paintings of worn and discarded objects which display the vestiges of labor\, like things that are outlived and have become redundant. \nYang’s close-up on the hands accentuates their gestures\, movements\, and marks which display the traces of labor. Through the use of Hanji\, which has a fibrous and skin-like texture\, the hands become tactile and evoke a sense of tenderness and intimacy. This texture also captures the state of isolation and concentration that comes with performing repetitive and monotonous tasks. \nWith Hands is an elongated blow-up of a pair of hands carefully working with a spool of metallic thread\, preparing to assemble an appliance. The right-hand sits atop a black electric component which doubles as a hand rest to ease the meticulous and repetitive task. Contrastingly\, A Short Break captures a moment of respite as a worker takes a break from painting\, holding a cigarette between his paint-splattered fingers. \nFrom Early Evening frames in on a hand holding up a lamp to illuminate a dark space\, perhaps a symbol of the tireless work that continues even into the night. In Night Workers\, the legs and hands of the laborers are captured under a glaring light during the nocturnal hours. The shadow cast from beneath the feet of the worker runs beyond the picture frame\, positioning us viewers as if we are peering into the scene from a close distance. \nObjects become imbued with the remnants of labor\, disposed and abandoned because they have outlasted their functionalities and usefulness. Yang analogizes these neglected artefacts with laborers whose value have become undermined. Trace 1 depicts tattered banners drifting in the wind\, forgotten in the corner. They hang merely on two metallic wires hooked onto the drying rack. A sense of melancholy is evoked in the object\, the image of the cloth lingering in one’s mind. Net is a chiaroscuro spotlighting a hole in a net\, hinting at a space for potential escape or breakthrough. \n\n\n\nDeparting from focus on labor\, Yang’s Agitation\, Reflector\, and the Afterglow in Between explore the surreality and otherwordliness of nocturnal cityscapes. These works\, shrouded in darkness and shaped by light\, offer abstract and mysterious imageries. In Reflector\, the shadow of a stranger is cast upon the shard of mirror\, revealing a deserted street with only a single railing. Afterglow in Between depicts the silhouette of a folded chair\, backlit by an unseen light source. Agitation is an intimate diptych that captures the anxious motions of hands\, overlaid with a shadowy depiction of skin\, creating a sense of unease. \n“With Hands” is a continuation of Yang’s works which are derived from her observations of the world and scenes which appeal to her emotions. Yang writes that she feels a different sentiment when creating works about labor\, with laborers’ rights being an issue in modern day society. She parallels laborers struggling and fighting to protect their rights to objects that are worn and torn\, like commodities that are no longer relevant. Through this series of paintings\, Yang seeks to convey that labor is not merely the execution of a plan and task\, but is itself a daily and repetitive practice that requires autonomy and agency\, necessary in the day to day.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/yooyun-yang-with-hands/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Yooyun-Yang_A-Short-Break_2024_73-x-91-cm-s.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240604
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240714
DTSTAMP:20240517T014629Z
CREATED:20240517T014629Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240517T014629Z
UID:10019471-1717459200-1720915199@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Chihoi: Leeway
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is delighted to present “Chihoi: Leeway”\, the first solo exhibition by artist Chihoi at Blindspot Gallery. Chihoi’s artistic practice began with comic and pencil drawing and has evolved to include oil painting. The exhibition presents a body of twelve paintings recently created. \nThese paintings capture serendipitous and poetic moments from Chihoi’s memories and imaginations. His foundation in comic drawing\, which emphasizes segmenting motion and time into panels\, intriguingly contrasts with extended moments preserved in his oil paintings. These dual methodologies represent the complementary dimensions of his artistic exploration\, where emotions\, imagery and memory coalesce within a singular frame. \nChihoi seizes introspective encapsulating the longing for a different reality. The Bankers catches a group of well-suited individuals smoking quietly in the alleyway behind a building in the financial district\, reveling in brief evasion from the busyness of the day. Their exhaled smoke gently engulfs them\, the artist poignantly capturing their idle demeanor and temporary detachment. The man who doesn’t take metro anymore portrays a man gazing at a traffic tunnel\, enveloped in a mysterious\, burgundy aura. The convergence of the man’s sightline and the end of the tunnel becomes a focal point\, leading to an unknown destination\, eliciting a yearning for an escape. \nMy Sky features a tempered blue sky with the sun in the center\, obscured by a pattern of dots. In the subtropics\, the overhead sun can be excessively intense and glaring. This abstract scene recalls experiences looking out from the window of a bus masked by semi-transparent advertisement stickers. Aim High depicts an aerial view of a cityscape with towering\, spiraling clouds that seem to mimic the silhouette of the urban buildings. The quick encounter with the unusual scene inspired Chihoi to portray the scenery. Peace Attack encapsulates a serene moment from Chihoi’s visit to Los Angeles in the summer of 2023\, his furthest travel since the lifting of covid restrictions. While strolling along Santa Monica Beach and its long coastline\, seagulls were hovering low above his head\, adding an unexpected and captivating sentiment to the scene. Chihoi’s paintings transform urban experiences into universally recognizable vistas\, transcending specific locations. \nThe exhibition “Leeway” invites the audience to delve into Chihoi’s inner world\, shaped by everyday observations\, recurring memories and silent resonances. Based in Taipei\, originally from Hong Kong\, Chihoi’s mobility was restricted because of the pandemic lockdown from 2020 to 2023\, leading to a surprising reconnection with his birthplace in the post- pandemic era. Chihoi’s witnessing of the rapid progress and fading historical traces sparked a profound sense of estrangement. This compelled him to closely examine the state of alienation in both Taipei and Hong Kong. The exhibition\, aptly titled “Leeway\,” draws inspiration from the Chinese term “remaining land” as a symbol of a space that encompasses both past and future imaginations. The term also embodies the idea of conditioned freedom\, reminding us that mindful navigation is necessary to attain it. Through his paintings\, Chihoi explores the paradoxical feeling of both closeness and distance between Hong Kong and Taipei\, offering viewers a moment of extended time to contemplate and reflect.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/chihoi-leeway/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Chihoi_The-bankers_2024.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240326
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240519
DTSTAMP:20240510T074101Z
CREATED:20240226T005731Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240510T074101Z
UID:10019234-1711411200-1716076799@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Xiyadie: Butterfly Dream
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is delighted to present “Xiyadie: Butterfly Dream”\, Xiyadie’s debut solo exhibition at the gallery\, on view from 26 March to 11 May\, 2024. Presenting over thirty works from the early 1980s to the present\, it is the largest exhibition of Xiyadie ever presented.Born in 1963 in Weinan\, Shaanxi Province\, China\, Xiyadie is a self-taught\, traditional Chinese papercut artist who uses a medium with origins dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 CE) to narrate his journey coming out of rural China as a homosexual person. His autobiographical papercuts chronicle his transformation through an environment that does not lend political agency to queer identifying people\, and reflect the struggle of a marginalized individual navigating the big city as a migrant worker. The exhibition titled “Butterfly Dream” alludes to the artist’s pseudonym Xiyadie\, meaning Siberian Butterfly\, emblematic of resilience and its flamboyant beauty. It signifies the artist’s determined pursuit of freedom and endurance in the harshest of conditions. During the opening reception on 23 March (4 – 6 pm)\, there will be an artist talk (3 – 4 pm) moderated by Hera Chan\, Adjunct Curator\, Asia-Pacific\, supported by Asymmetry Art Foundation\, at Tate. This year\, Xiyadie will also be taking part in the Main Exhibition of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia\, entitled “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere”\, curated by Adriano Pedrosa.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/xiyadie-butterfly-dream/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Xiyadie-Train-1986-138-x-138-cm-s.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240123
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240310
DTSTAMP:20240103T121426Z
CREATED:20240103T121426Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240103T121426Z
UID:10019130-1705968000-1710028799@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Pixy Liao: Comfort Zone
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Pixy Liao’s first solo exhibition at Blindspot Gallery\, marking her debut solo exhibition in Hong Kong. The exhibition titled “Comfort Zone” features selected works recently created by Liao\, encompassing photography\, video\, and ready-made sculpture. (23 January – 9 March 2024). \nLiao is known for her staged photographs of her and partner-collaborator Moro. Her works upend traditional representations of heterosexual relationships by inverting gender roles\, often placing Moro as the subservient male muse and herself as the domineering artist-orchestrator. Tongue-in-cheek and imbued with a sense of humor\, Liao’s work straddles between the performative and the autobiographical\, unfurling her and Moro’s growing relationship.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/pixy-liao-comfort-zone/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Photography
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/liao_2022_Space-Girl-met-Earth-Boy-4804-Zaha-Hadid-room.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231128
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20240114
DTSTAMP:20231128T050249Z
CREATED:20231128T050249Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231128T050249Z
UID:10019068-1701129600-1705190399@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Zhang Wenzhi: Tiger in Mountains\, Deer at Ocean - Zheng Haozhong: Melodic Variations
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present the duo solo exhibition “Zhang Wenzhi: Tiger in Mountains\, Deer at Ocean” and “Zheng Haozhong: Melodic Variations”\, showcasing the recent paintings of the two Mainland Chinese artists. \nZhang Wenzhi is deeply influenced by the colonial history of the Japanese and Russian Empire in his hometown in Northeast China. The cultural history of the region dating to the early 20th century and the subsequent industrialization and modernization of the area are fundamental to Zhang’s practice. He creates ink paintings that incorporate archival materials\, exploring the enduring presence of histories\, overshadowed by shifts in power and urbanization\, in the region’s collective cultural memory. \nZheng Haozhong creates portrait paintings of close friends and acquaintances\, finding traces of self-expression in the depiction of other individuals. His studio acts as a working space but also a source of inspiration\, often serving as a backdrop in his paintings. The window on the studio wall emphasizes the interiority of the space\, analogous to his connection to the exterior world. Zheng continued to practise the saxophone during the pandemic\, harnessing the performative nature of music as a tool in his artistic language. His work is imbued with an expressive and uninhibited character\, reminiscent of musical improvisation. The brushstrokes channel the sentiments of his sitters\, and teetering on prescribed norms\, they are like dissonant notes within order. \nThrough different approaches\, the two painters share a commonality in exploring how individuals navigate through complex realities\, dealing with the internal and external\, the past and present\, the private and public. Their works reveal a poignant self-awareness that is explored through the language of painting.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/zhang-wenzhi-tiger-in-mountains-deer-at-ocean-zheng-haozhong-melodic-variations/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Zheng-Haozhong_QIUCHEN-in-the-Studio_s.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230912
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20231129
DTSTAMP:20230921T085547Z
CREATED:20230921T062925Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230921T085547Z
UID:10020286-1694476800-1701215999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Solo・Exhibition・Twice II
DESCRIPTION:Solo・Exhibition・Twice II is the second joint exhibition by Yeung Tong Lung and Sze Yuen since 1995. The exhibition includes Yeung’s recent oil paintings\, and Sze’s charcoal works and oil paintings from the past decade to the present. Yeung Tong Lung is known for his large-scale figurative paintings\, characterized by vibrant colors\, vivid contrasts\, and collagesque compositions that connect multiple spaces\, different characters and narratives on the same plane. \nSolo・Exhibition・Twice II also reflects the artists’ deep and unhurried contemplation on the act and process of “looking at paintings”\, through the making of painting\, the display of painting\, and the interaction between paintings (and the artists). It may not necessarily reach a destination\, but it unfolds as an intimate dialogue between the two.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/solo%e3%83%bbexhibition%e3%83%bbtwice-ii/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Yeung-Tong-Lung-Tattoo-House-2023_HR_web-min-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230523
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230702
DTSTAMP:20230522T015322Z
CREATED:20230522T015322Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230522T015322Z
UID:10020023-1684800000-1688255999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Leung Chi Wo: Past-Future Tense
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present “Past-Future Tense”\, Leung Chi Wo’s third solo exhibition at the gallery\, continuing his articulation of an unprescribed history of Hong Kong across time. Leung’s recent research into the colonial history of Hong Kong introduces a new anchor point set in the year 1982 when negotiations commenced between the Chinese and British governments with regards to the handover of Hong Kong\, prompting an unpredictable future for the city. \nLeung explores the anonymities embedded within records of the past\, facilitating the notion that anyone can become a part of history through reimagining a pre-dated future. In a historical encounter on September 22\, 1982\, previous British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made her first visit to China where she met with the former Chinese Communist Party Leader Deng Xiaoping to discuss the future of Hong Kong following the handover year of 1997. Officials reported that the meeting had failed to reach a verdict but two years after\, the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed. \nSurfing through real historical events that read like fiction\, Leung investigates the contesting narratives of history. Rather than solely focusing on factual accuracy\, he employs a unique approach of “self-searching” which embraces side-tracking and deviating attention from history’s grand narrative. Disparate timelines converge in the handwritten notes of Margaret Thatcher (derived from National Archives\, London)\, the first official photograph celebrating the birth of Prince William\, and archival footages from TV news. The result is a constellation of past events seen in a new rendition\, opening up new possibilities for the interpretation of history\, an antidote to the saying: “history is written by the victors.”
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/leung-chi-wo-past-future-tense/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/14d69cbb3eb3b9e8cabe7dff469f1608.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230321
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230507
DTSTAMP:20230322T070035Z
CREATED:20230322T070035Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230322T070035Z
UID:10019619-1679356800-1683417599@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Wang Tuo: The Second Interrogation
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present “The Second Interrogation”\, Wang Tuo’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. The Second Interrogation\, the titular film of the exhibition\, is a video installation based on the artist’s observations and reflections on cultural censorship in the art world in China in recent years. The film stages the dramatic encounter of the fraught friendship between an artist and a censor\, as well as the creeping tension in their exchanges. Together and in reversing roles\, they ask fundamental and existential questions about the arts\, testifying to the uncertainties they share about the purpose of art in society: what is the role of an artist in an authoritarian state? How could art bring about social change? \nThe exhibition will also feature Weapons\, Wang’s new series of oil paintings depicting portraits of anonymous individuals who are part of the underground art and culture circle\, working within the margins of China’s art scene. Also on view are his new drawings derived from the film The Second Interrogation and archival images of people’s campaigns in China.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/wang-tuo-the-second-interrogation/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/c1dd81cfe43a0c3745776d89d51928ac.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220913
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20221030
DTSTAMP:20220825T084156Z
CREATED:20220825T084156Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220825T084156Z
UID:10018001-1663027200-1667087999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Soy Dreams of Milk
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot gallery is pleased to present Soy Dreams of Milk\, a group exhibition of 6 East Asian artists that explores the complex experiences of migration\, movement\, and diasporic worlding. The exhibition title entangles a compact imagery comprising of universal substances\, relating “soy”\, a legume endemic to East Asia and a major export food crop in the Americas; “milk”\, a white mammalian fluid evocative of the biblical promise land “flowing with milk and honey”; and “dream”\, a cherished aspiration or a series of scenes and sensations occurring unconsciously in the mind. In its surrealist assemblage\, Soy Dreams of Milk attempts to stage the complex sensorium conjured by the restlessly wandering subject. What is the experience of leaving\, of being diaspora\, and of returning? Why are you here\, and what are your dreams? \nThe selection of 6 artists in Soy Dreams of Milk presents a sample of a diverse network of migration routes. Not only do we have artists speaking from a traditional diasporic perspective of people of Asian origins emigrating and making home in the West\, but we also have artists speaking of repatriating from Southeast Asia or migrating internally within China. Thinking fluidly by viewing migration as natural history in a non-anthropocentric lens\, Soy Dreams of Milk posits animal and species migration as part and parcel of a continuously unfolding ecological archive. This story is besieged by climate change and geopolitical forces\, but vivaciously full of aspirations\, fantasies\, perils\, and heartbreak. \nCollectively\, artists in Soy Dreams of Milk articulates an aesthetic of animist\, mnemonic\, and elegiac forms that expand on the senses and pathos of being diaspora. Embodying the fantasy of travel\, the journey of migration takes us to faraway countries\, telling many myths and adventures\, promising or shattering the illusion of a good life. Zadie Xa paints a scene depicting a fantastical procession of shapeshifting animals\, female shaman\, and shadowy spirits\, creating a world centered on the folkloric imagination of a distant ancestral land. Patty Chang ritualistically washes the body of a beached whale in Canadian Newfoundland and a stranded boat in the dried- up Aral Sea\, meditating on the fragments of mortality and cyclicality in a global trans-species movement. \nLiving and dying along the way\, artists summon ghostly scaffolding\, messy signifiers\, and malleable vessels of cultural symbols in the process of emigration\, assimilation\, and acculturation. Lam Lap-See uses 3D-scan to capture the leaky interior details of Chinese restaurants in Stockholm\, revealing the glitchy cultural transmission across generations and regions. Tan Jing creates a multi-sensorial account of her family’s history of repatriating from Thailand to China by reincarnating her grandfather as a dog who gathers memory traces through smell\, sight\, and touch. \nCruising to waves\, yearning to be touched\, and longing for love\, this sensualizing journey is nonetheless filled with queer jouissance and salty dreams. Xiyadie\, the Siberian butterfly\, channels homoerotic desire in the traditional craft of papercuts\, creating an earnest expression of sexuality and yearning for freedom at the root of his emigration to the capital city. In his oil paintings executed en recto and verso\, Michael Ho lays bare the fragility of cross-cultural relationality and meaning making\, whereby leather cowboy boots belie an alienated Asian masculinity\, and the mighty dragon claws devolve into indelible chicken feet. \nThinking in Hong Kong\, a city built on intersectional waves of immigration and presently witnessing another wave of outgoing emigration\, to look at migration expansively is integral to cultivating an idea of what it means to have belonging here\, to be “from” here. People tend to think of themselves as special and their cohort the “chosen generation.” Against such egocentrism\, seeing that our epoch is extraordinary but neither exceptional nor unique\, it is possible to forge kinship with other immigrant communities and solidarity with other movements.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/soy-dreams-of-milk/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Xiyadie_Gate.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220719
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220828
DTSTAMP:20220727T042249Z
CREATED:20220725T123543Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220727T042249Z
UID:10018690-1658188800-1661644799@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Play & Loop IV
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Play and Loop IV\, the fourth iteration of our summer video screening programme. Play and Loop IV will be divided into three scenes\, each scene lasting for two weeks. The gallery space will be divided into four screening rooms with single-channel artist film projections playing in loop\, along with three video works that are on view throughout the exhibition. \nSCENE 1: 19 – 30.7 2022\nThe Way We Move: Animation and Hybrid Forms\nFeatured artists: Chihoi\, Hsu Che-Yu\, Liu Yi\, and Chris Zhongtian Yuan\nScene 1 will feature animation works by four artists from the Greater China region\, conceived in an expanded field of animation that taps into its contemporary hybridity with other media and genres. \nSCENE 2: 2 – 13.8 2022\nHope and Resistance\nFeatured artist: Agil Abdullayev\, Lam Tung Pang\, Angela Su\, Chulayarnnon Siriphol\,\nTT Takemoto\, and Yuan Goang-Ming\nScene 2 will showcase a selection from “After Hope: Videos of Resistance”\, a project at Asian Art Museum\, San Francisco\, that explores the expressions and legacies of hope in contemporary art\, with contributing artists from America and different parts of Asia. \nSCENE 3: 16-27.8 2022\nSpotlight: Christian Jankowski and Wang Tuo\nScene 3 will give a deeper dive into the practices of Christian Jankowski and Wang Tuo. On one side\, we will feature a selection of video works from Christian Jankowski’s expansive conceptual practice spanning more than three decades. On the other side\, we will feature selection from Wang Tuo’s Northeast Tetralogy\, a multi-part epic that retells the history of the Northeast China. \nAlso on view: 19.7 – 27.8 2022\nLuke Casey\, Yuk King Tan\, Eason Tsang Ka Wai\nAlso on view throughout the 6-week exhibition are video installations by three Hong Kong artists. Their works show a sense of alienation\, absurdity\, and abeyance experienced in the city.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/play-loop-iv/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Scavenger-min-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220524
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220710
DTSTAMP:20220518T012036Z
CREATED:20220516T010623Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220518T012036Z
UID:10017732-1653350400-1657411199@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Un Cheung: What’s there when you ain’t home
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is proud to present Un Cheng’s exhibition What’s there when you ain’t home\, encapsulating a visual journal of the restless wanderer-painter in Iceland and Sham Shui Po. No two landscapes can be more different than the sparse winter of a Nordic Island and the hectic urban subtropics of Kowloon. Yet\, the artist ravishes in the amorphous abstraction of atmospheric light\, thick textures of oil\, vibrant blocks of colours\, and strokes of falling snow and rising vapour. Resonantly\, these psychological landscapes lay bare the desire of an itinerant artist-traveller to resist loneliness\, forge human connections\, and fall in love with an eclectic world that at times feels geographically isolated and emotionally indifferent. \nThe exhibition’s centerpiece is a grand two- meter painting titled No Man is an Island (2020-2022). This fictional psychological landscape serves as a carrier bag of the artist’s turbulent emotional experiences over the last two years. A candy-colored carousel stands amidst a deserted amusement park framed by unwieldily strewn chairs. The brewing storm scatters and threatens all\, while celebratory fireworks bloom conflictually in the background. Framed in the center are three portraits\, in lieu of prince charming and Cinderella\, feature the artist’s self-portrait in the middle\, a Lolita-garbed murderer on the left (sinister)\, and a praying angel on the right (dexter). Rhapsodic\, untamed\, and unsettling\, No Man is an Island is an allegorical scene that expresses the occurrence of internal suffering without recourse of external redemption\, a dark fairy tale warning the cruel optimism in the artist’s vision of benevolent order and security. \nEscaping the violent foreclosure of relational possibility in the wishfully titled No Man is an Island\, Cheng’s Iceland series comprise of paintings that reference memories and photographs of real-life situations\, the artist’s desperate attempt to get out of her head and be in the world. Channeling her three-month residency in the winter of 2018\, the artist creates canvases completely devoid of human figures yet bears enough human traces to suggest their deliberate absence in the deep winter of a sparsely populated island. Anonymous storefronts\, pavilions\, and parked cars emerge from layers of glistening snow\, while Christmas trees discarded from their festive moments casually stand erect or lie horizontal in public. \nThe artist is utterly alone out there because everyone is home. Alien in the landscape\, the artist retreats to her internal dialogue\, finding companionship in her own wondrous whims and child-like imagination. Death of Xmas Tree (2021) is a play on Death in Venice\, the famous Thomas Mann novel adapted into film by Visconti (1971)\, where a composer escapes ennui in a foreign city and becomes fatally attracted to a beautiful young boy. 23:48 The Night Bus That Never Came (2021) is based on the wait for a 9-hour overnight bus ride from Akureyri to Reykjavik\, demonstrating how the expectation of waiting and eventual disappointment are heightened in the approach of midnight\, an arbitrarily magical moment that marks today from tomorrow. \nLeaving behind the escapist Romanticism in Iceland\, Cheng immerses herself in the ephemeral sensorium of stimuli\, observation\, and dialogue in her local neighborhood. In the Sham Shui Po series\, Un Cheng depicts the idiosyncrasy of the working-class\, multicultural\, and rapidly gentrifying district in Kowloon\, where since 2020 Cheng has had her artist studio that doubles as her living space. The artist chronicles her nightly jaunts on the streets as her restless body struggles to stay at home. With a dash of magical realism and local Cantonese humor\, these paintings depict quirky neighborhood sites and lore unbeknownst to daytime café goers and instagrammers: Boundary Pho (2022) captures a noodle shop that escapes the omni-surveillance of google map; Salon Rejuvenato (2022) imagines a synthesized medley of nearby hair salons rumored to give clients lost youth; Gluey Life (2022) recreates a scene where Cheng’s own apartment erupts in fire\, the title a homonym in Cantonese for being utterly knackered mentally and physically. \nMoreover\, these scenes document the artist’s fleeting encounter of the zany characters in a loosely defined marginalized community\, such as the flamboyant rider of a DIY electric mobile scooter in XX Flagman of Maple St. (2022)\, and the impertinent elderly nighttime food hawker of Ah Po Calls My Bluff (2022). The most touching encounter is perhaps the intimate scene in Love Methadone (2022)\, when an outcasted boombox-playing man dances spontaneously with his interracial wheelchaired lover along the Tsim Sha Tsui harbor front. Embedded in Un’s insistent search for midnight connection is an earnest humanism that wishes for an emerging public of intimacy\, an expansive definition of love\, and an inclusive community of commiserating outcasts including strangers and herself. \nThe French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud quipped in Une saison en enfer (A Season in Hell\, 1873) that “Love has to be reinvented”. Cheng’s practice realizes an analogy of this verse from the legendarily itinerant poet\, that to love properly\, Home has to be reinvented. For a young artist whose home is not here\, home is in exile\, home is where we are.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/un-cheung-whats-there-when-you-aint-home/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/3e26c726a86f783591113895e1f523c3.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220326
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220508
DTSTAMP:20220324T082025Z
CREATED:20220324T002419Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220324T082025Z
UID:10018070-1648252800-1651967999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Trevor Yeung: Not everything is about you
DESCRIPTION:Trevor Yeung’s solo exhibition Not everything is about you\, sees the artist’s continuation of personifying botanic ecology and inanimate objects to articulate human emotion and relationships\, he examines the way we manoeuvre through our social habitat\, delving into the complexities and unspoken rules defining the way we interact. Conscious of cultural codes during his travels\, Yeung reflects on the strain on interaction during the pandemic and the increased time spent with oneself. Dissecting psychological nuances of co-dependent relationships\, unmet expectations\, and communicative frustrations; he reveals multi-layered sentiments on his observations. For Yeung\, this learning curve is essential\, as after all\, not everything is about ourselves. \nHaving gone through multiple hotel quarantines in Hong Kong since the outbreak of Covid-19\, Soft Compromise (2022) is an installation comprising 100 pillows packed between the crevice of a freestanding wall and its surrounding building structure. Crammed against cold concrete\, the pillows fail to bring long-due solace and restful respite. The toss and turning of the sleepless state extends to Sink if you don’t move (2022)\, a bed with an abundance of small coral carcasses distributed beneath its bedsheet. Whilst anticipating a state of relaxation\, the uneven surface triggers an unpleasant night for the sleeper. Using this as a metaphor for complacent relationships\, Yeung questions the risks of having a false sense of security and the consequences of being too comfortable. \nHanging from the ceiling is Wall of a Hamster Cage (Mira Moon) (2022)\, a drawing produced during Yeung’s most recent 14-day quarantine. Marking the passing of diurnal time by tracing sunlight and shadow casted onto his hotel window with tea stains and pencil tracing. Comparing his living environment to a pet hamster where containment and prescribed amenities become a default mode for living\, Yeung questions the duality of being taken care of and being kept watch of. In light of the recent culling of hamsters during Hong Kong’s Omicron outbreak\, Yeung visualises the temporary and disposable companionship of these little lives and our own. \nTurning our gazes beyond confined spaces\, Yeung’s photographs capture aqueous and avian critters whose worlds are bound by fathomless waters and skies. Three Pelicans (2021) depict birds in single-file cleaning their feathers in a self-absorbed manner\, whilst Trapped Fish (2021) portrays a lost koi in an overgrown pond\, unable to foresee its predicament. As they fulfil their minuscule narratives in a colossal universe\, we’re reminded that life goes on. A man in a thobe takes a break in Dubai’s hazy metropolis\, whilst a woman gazes downslope in a forest clearing at dusk\, titled Garden Sitter (Sharjah) (2022) and Garden Sitter (Paris) (2022) respectively\, these pensive individuals have no recourse to futurity\, no immediacy to take action\, only solitary relationships to partake. \nWhilst these sitters take their minds on a wander\, Yeung’s botanical works endure physical restraint and psychological pressure. Mr Cuddles (double falling) (2022) features two Pachira trees dangling from the ceiling. Commonly known as the money tree\, Yeung often depicts these braided species strapped aggressively into uncomfortable positions\, their captivity mimicking their own twisted nature. Hanging an inch away from the ground\, the trees appear to have finally gained footing\, only revealed at a closer glance that they are fated to rely and submit to the ruthless harness of construction straps. The sadism of binding pervades to torment in Bottom line challenger (2022)\, an Arabian Balsam tree possessing properties of shedding bark. Placing a set of forceps by the tree\, he triggers the audience’s compulsions to peel its skin\, testing limits of the plant’s silent tolerance and our temptations to dominate and control. Yeung positions these living species in perverse conditions of being bound and pricked\, yet their Promethean vigour a testament to the stoicism of being despite almost unbearable suffering. \nWhilst exploiting the deceptively passive silence of plants\, Yeung utilises sounds of aquarium systems to project communicative turbulence. Around the periphery of the exhibition space is Lunatics murmur (2022)\, a set of six containers filled with water\, producing rhythmic noise frequencies of air bubbles through an air pump. These reverberations are likened to incomprehensible utterances of unfamiliar languages\, merely white noise to the artist’s ears. Inability to understand strangers and the breakdown of signification systems permeate in Music Box 1 (You will get used to it) (2015)\, a water filter choking in discomfort near the water surface of a filled tank as it struggles to cycle water through its body. As we assimilate to the background noise\, we become desensitised to the array of communicative signals. This liminal space between comprehending failure and function\, expands beyond language barriers into our social structures. \nYeung participated in the shortlist exhibition for the Future Generation Art Prize 2021 presented by PinchukArtCentre in Kyiv\, Ukraine. In solidarity with Ukrainian resistance against Russian invasion\, Yeung has produced a limited edition of 20 for Underground Lilies\, a photograph taken at an underground flower shop in Kyiv during the artist’s last visit to the city. As the citizens of Kyiv find refuge from air raids in bunkers and subterranean tunnels\, Underground Lilies serve as a metaphor for Ukrainian resilience and determination for liberty and survival. All proceeds will be donated to Support Hospitals in Ukraine which provides medical aid and equipment to Ukrainian hospitals.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/trevor-yeung-not-everything-is-about-you/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Photography
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Trevor-Yeung-Pull-it-together-2022-e1648081258845.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220326
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220508
DTSTAMP:20220324T001330Z
CREATED:20220324T001131Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220324T001330Z
UID:10018069-1648252800-1651967999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Sarah Lai: Pure Heart Shopping Street
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present Sarah Lai’s solo exhibition Pure Heart Shopping Street. Presenting a brand-new installation which unfolds into a collection of light boxes\, videos\, oil paintings and other sourced objects\, these works position themselves within a fabricated scene of a shopping street in 80s and 90s Japan. \nInterested in the emotional responses conjured from visual language\, Lai sources her visual references from vintage archives of mass media on the internet\, carrying the power of sentiment and imagination for a bygone era. Against the chaotic overabundance of visual imagery in the age of digital content\, Lai creates rarified moments and distanced spaces to encounter images in a new light via the possibilities of figurative painting installations. The intervening gesture of art could ever so lightly shift and transform our relationality to the found image\, and subsequently our relationality to the World. \nPure Heart Shopping Street is a continuation of the artist’s practice of the appropriation\, aestheticization\, and reactivation of contemporary visual culture. The artist meticulously chooses and orchestrates found images\, facsimile\, props\, interior design\, and architectural forms\, to recreate the impression of a scene with minimum visual elements. \nThis is a follow up on previous projects such as the Gang Killer (Seoul Mediacity Biennale\, 2021)\, Kyusekkin! (Love SOS) (Art021\, Shanghai\, 2018)\, (In)tangible Reminiscence (Mill6\, Hong Kong\, 2017)\, which sources materials and visual language from the pop culture of manga\, anime\, and TV and print commercials respectively. The artist holds dear to these materials as formative influences and ingrained mnemonics in her teenage years growing up in Hong Kong\, as Japanese popular and material culture holds sway across emerging economies in Asia. Hyper conscious of its fungible subjectivity\, Lai’s project is altogether a representation of deliberate representations\, an abstraction of untruthful abstractions. \nLai’s exhibition greets with a series of stimuli and selective visual signs. A pink telephone booth brings us to a setting predating portable mobile phones\, whilst a video of women fiddling with electronic products loop on a grainy CRT television below a store canopy. Lamps from the 90s dot the space alongside illuminated large-scale spinning cassette tapes on the wall of a video store\, next to a backdrop of quaint storefronts. A light box at eye level reads as a street name sign – “Pure Heart Shopping Street”\, pinpointing our whereabouts. Full of considered elements that vie for our attention\, Pure Heart Shopping Street equally restrains from offering excess information. Longing to be seduced with contingency and surprises\, we ourselves as observers craft an embodied experience that straddles between public entertainment and personal delight. \nGracing the gallery walls and the built elements of Pure Heart Shopping Street are Lai’s painted photorealistic depictions of found imagery rendered in a deliberately cropped close-up. Blue Sporty Shorts (2022) depicts a woman in blue shorts riding a bicycle saddle\, her athletic thighs and round buttocks dominating the picture frame. Another painting renders curled toes underneath nude stockings\, whilst farther ahead we spot a shy face being shielded from view with a cassette box. Lai excels in executing pure\, pale-palette images that are modest and risqué\, exuding palpable sensitivity as they reveal the in-betweenness of a female body straddling coy adulthood and naive adolescence. The painter taps into the obsessive desire to idealize and sexualize the woman’s body\, mobilized by a relentless image culture to exploit and profiteer. \nLai’s shopping street harks back to the Parisian arcades from the 1840s\, the genesis of modern bourgeois visuality luminously elaborated in Walter Benjamin’s The Arcades Project (1927-1940). Lai brilliantly turns the figure of the Baudelairean flâneur\, the leisurely young man who saunters in the city in search of desire and pleasure\, into the nuanced feminine protagonists frequenting the Pure Heart Shopping Street. They are reflexive about the ire of consumer culture\, critical of the sexualizing identification of womanhood\, yet not too cynical to partake in the seduction of images and representations\, their own or others’. The artist’s alienation and fetishization of cutely anachronistic signifiers are aptly analogized in Roland Barthes’ The Empire of Signs (1970)\, where the French semiotician\, after three visits to Tokyo\, attempts to “‘entertain’ the idea of an unheard-of symbolic system” without “lovingly gazing toward an Oriental essence.” Like the close up of Lai’s sheer underwear painting This kind of feeling (2022)\, overlayed by Japanese hiragana and kanji text\, of which Lai is illiterate\, the artist boldly utilizes these empty signifiers in the Barthesian. It is exactly this emptiness and meaninglessness\, for both Barthes and Lai\, which regenerate the possibility of sheer jouissance and wonder in encountering a visual culture anew.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/sarah-lai-pure-heart-shopping-street/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Painting
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20220125
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220306
DTSTAMP:20220114T050504Z
CREATED:20220113T235706Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220114T050504Z
UID:10017908-1643068800-1646524799@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:New Beginnings
DESCRIPTION:New Beginnings is a group exhibition of four artists based in different cities working in the expanded field of painting and abstraction\, including works by Paul Barlow\, Harminder Judge\, Osamu Kobayashi\, and Andrew Luk. Painting in the manner of sculptor\, builder\, gardener\, and designer\, these artists inhabit the precarious balance between stability and entropy\, ideation and abstraction\, optimism and nihilism. In their works\, two key themes emerge: the uncertainty of being\, and the primacy of action despite. \nThe works exhibit subtle and intentional marks left behind by the artist’s hands and body\, manifested through dynamic gestures of control and release. The material ground (canvas\, plaster\, metal) becomes personal sites for taking action – the act of making becomes metaphors for the exigency of genesis\, the power of change\, the possibility of being touched and transformed\, and the promises of new beginnings. \nHarminder Judge creates colourful plaster paintings that are portals to an ineffable world. Judge takes inspiration from the abstract paintings from the esoteric tantric tradition in 17th century Rajasthan\, India. Intended to be used as a visual aid for meditation\, these images are more diagrams than painting\, as material portals to an immaterial realm. They demand viewers not to look at them\, but to look through them. \nJudge describes himself as an artist-maker “who paints like a sculptor\, who sculpts like a builder”. His experience as a housebuilder gives him deep intimate knowledge and bonding for the material of plaster\, which involves a laborious process that creates meaning in repetitive rituals. Judge fuses pools of pigment with wet plaster\, agitating the mixture to create a gradient of merging colour and moving texture. As the image is cured and the front of the painting is revealed and polished\, with incredible depth\, we appear to be looking into a tranquilising harmony of thick fog and reflective liquid. A meandering colour field of graceful order is born out of the layering of aqueous chance and choreographed uncertainty. \nPaul Barlow is an artist who creates geometrical paintings that are psychological\, materializing pictures that hold the in-between spaces of recognition and unconsciousness\, awareness and vagueness\, clarity and mystery. Barlow often abstracts these states into universal patterns expressed in the physical world\, resembling interference of light waves\, fractals\, and halos. \nUnlike traditional oil painters who work with the logic of addition by laying on viscous pigments atop each other\, Barlow subtracts and removes. Using water as a solvent\, he strips away residues of colour using a sequence of repetitive motions. Like currents forming sand ripples\, seawater eroding coastlines\, and the flow of a river shaping a meander; seeping and spreading\, water configures the patterns and silhouettes on Barlow’s canvas. The pigments react\, sediment and congeal into gradients of hues\, forming micro-geological strata of vegetative tendrils\, oceanic trances\, and psychedelic hallucinations. Like the ceramicist’s application of glazes and oxides whose outcome is unknown until it comes out of the kiln\, or the photographer who develops the image in the darkroom\, Barlow’s pictures are reliant on the intelligence of liquids\, the beauty of contingency\, and the discipline of trial and error. \nRejecting traditional modalities of painting\, Andrew Luk turns towards an exploration of materials and surfaces that see to both the establishment and destruction of civilization. Creating mimic paintings of sorts\, the artist enacts upon the ‘canvas’ surface\, treating it as a foundational plane for building and intervention. Working with volatile processes and metamorphosing materials\, Luk likens transformation to the historical abstraction of time and space. \nRisk and chance occupy a central role in Luk’s practice\, wherein unstable abstraction takes the action of scorching combustion of napalm on brass\, uncontrollable expansion of expanding foam protruding hardened cement\, and archeological sedimentation of prehistoric beings in resin. In the three series of Oxidization/ Immolation\, The Fragility of Things Built from Rocks\, and Deep Earth Event Horizon\, Luk investigates the law of entropy\, creative agency and imaginative expanse of worlds beyond humans. \nOsamu Kobayashi’s compositional process is a mechanical and conceptual puzzle. Kobayashi’s practice draws connections to Modernist design movements\, geometric abstraction\, as well as manga and anime visual culture. Like a mathematician balancing an algebraic equation\, the painter solves for a visual solution with line\, colour\, shape and size. The picture plane is a field of action and counteraction\, a dualistic plane between flatness and illusion of space\, softness and hard edge\, tension and release\, stillness and dynamism\, seriousness and lightness. \nWith a self-made contraption that links a bevy of paint brushes\, the artist applies paint onto the canvas in a grand sweep. The artist twists and turns into awkward positions to curve the seemingly continuous stroke\, leaving uniformly spaced traces in a grand sweeping colour field; the marks resemble the elegantly raked sand in the rock garden of Ryōan-ji in Kyoto.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/new-beginnings/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Painting,Sculpture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Paul-Barlow-up-down-up-down-up-down-2020-e1642117993785.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20211123
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20220109
DTSTAMP:20211109T074220Z
CREATED:20211109T074220Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211109T074220Z
UID:10017673-1637625600-1641686399@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Sin Wai Kin: It’s Always You
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is delighted to present It’s Always You\, Sin Wai Kin’s first solo exhibition in Asia. Presenting works never previously shown in Hong Kong\, chronologically from 2016 to 2021\, this exhibition traces the creative journey of the artist\, who again and again reinvents themselves to hold multiple identities\, and to shift between different ways of being. Encompassing film\, face wipes\, performance\, texts\, ephemera\, Sin’s practice embraces a breadth of material and gender expressions and the worlding of alterity. The manifold journey of It’s Always You manifests the perils and joys of naming\, the cycle of birth and endless rebirth\, the inevitability of change\, and the ease and grace of metamorphosis. Sin Wai Kin is a carrier bag\, a gatherer and forager of characters\, dances\, fictions\, truths\, histories\, and possible futures. \nNarrative Reflections on Looking (2016-2017) marks an important development in the practice of then-named Victoria Sin\, who started integrating fictional film narratives into their established club-based drag performances. The four-part series comprises staged scenes where Sin poses in glamorous drag regalia\, as the camera moves sensuously in close-ups of their body. In a first-person voiceover\, Sin guides the experience of looking and identifying with the images in real time\, troubling the space of desire in the process of identification. Sin shows that there is no innocent looking\, that our relationship to images is promiscuous. \nThese images stand as ontological doubles that demand to be looked at\, just as they look back at viewers with equivalence and indifference. Enshrining these looks are make-up removal wipes documenting the faces Sin painted for a character. Shroud of Turin of sorts\, each of these masks is the artefact of its own death. To give birth\, something must be laid to rest. \nA Dream of Wholeness in Parts (2019-2021) marks a cinematic turn for Sin. The poetic epic unfolds into a mytho-realistic dreamscape\, inspired by famous musings of foundational Taoist writing\, such as the “Butterfly Dream” and “The Death of Wonton” by Chuang Tzu. In the mediation of Chinese metaphysics\, Sin debunks the Aristotelian logic and categories that produce the false dichotomies in our world\, such as self and other\, waking and dreaming\, male and female\, fragments and totality\, life and death\, fantasy and reality. \nA Dream of Wholeness in Parts marks the beginning for Sin’s weaving of traditional Chinese dramaturgy with contemporary drag\, music and poetry\, in order to queer genres and categories while cultivating a space for imagining different worlds and new ways of being. At the core of this experimentation is the birth of The Universe\, face painted with a lotus flower rooted in the earth flourishing towards the stellar\, a character in the Cantonese opera tradition of Jing role known for their lyrical singing and martial arts. A Dream of Wholeness in Parts was produced by Chi-Wen Productions and supported by Hayward Gallery Touring and Soft Opening for “The British Art Show 9”. \nInspired by the skillfulness and fluidity in which Chinese opera singers put on myriad gendered roles\, Sin intentionally turns to masculine drag\, along with the recent announcement to return to their gender-neutral Cantonese birth name\, Sin Wai Kin 單慧乾 (formerly known as Victoria Sin). The artist describes this turn as one of “trying things on\, rather than taking things off”. While Sin’s drag queen persona stripped bare the expectations of femininity and its relationship to womanhood\, their drag king modality evolves space to experiment and play with fantasy in masculinity. \nSynthesizing all these characters and selves\, Sin creates It’s Always You (2021)\, a four-piece boyband comprising of The Universe (the pretty boy)\, The Storyteller (the serious one)\, The One (the childish one)\, and Wai King (the heartthrob). Sin hyperbolizes the ontological paradox of boybands\, where individuals exist in integrity with the collective. The phenomena of boybands highlight how identities are strategically commodified for mass consumption\, how queer codes subvert and trouble within the matrix of heterosexual language\, and how boybands contain the promise of love\, fantasy\, and collective escape. \nVisitors are promised the full fangirl/boy/by experience\, flush with ephemera and merchandise. Lifesize cut-out boards of the four characters greet viewers with ample photo opportunities (#itsalwaysyou2021 @sinforvictory). Perspex-framed posters signed by respective members are must-have collectibles for all loyal fans. And a dual channel installation including karaoke style lyrics for viewers to sing along to features the Boyband’s hit single\, “It’s Always You”. \nThis project is jointly commissioned by Blindspot Gallery and Shedhalle\, Zurich\, and was first exhibited in Shedhalle\, Zurich as part of the group exhibition “Protozone 4: Extra Worlding” and later Frieze Focus\, London.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/sin-wai-kin-its-always-you/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Photography
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210928
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20211114
DTSTAMP:20210913T025236Z
CREATED:20210913T025145Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210913T025236Z
UID:10017239-1632787200-1636847999@cultureplus.asia
SUMMARY:Chen Wei: The Last Night
DESCRIPTION:Blindspot Gallery is pleased to present The Last Night\, Chen Wei’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. Spanning large-scale photographs and multi-media light installations\, The Last Night presents scenes encountered in a city. More intimate than landscapes and grander than still lives\, the artist situates these settings between fiction and reality\, artifacts and fragments. This is an experience that all city dwellers share as a collective\, infused with dreamscape\, glitches\, afterimages\, and memory traces. They form a New City that refuses to be abstracted\, resolutely holding on to the object and the experience itself. Articulating a nostalgia that hesitates to find a place in the present\, The Last Night bids farewell to a sentimental vision of the past and foresees the building of a new city. \nThe show title captures Chen Wei’s creative pivot from Noon Club to New City\, his new body of work shown in the gallery. The Last Night takes its title from the song sung by Tsai Chin\, performed at the end of the 1984 film adapted from the short story The Last Night of Taipan Chin (1971) by Taiwanese author Pai Hsien-yung. The story follows the retirement of Madame Chin\, a veteran nightclub hostess who emblematizes the glamour and grace of old-Shanghai. The invocation of the “Old” prefaces the imagination of what is to come and lies at the core of Chen Wei’s New City project. In China\, where cities develop at breath-taking speeds\, there is often a sense of being rushed\, of not having enough time to experience\, or space to reflect on such drastic changes. There is no name for this complex feeling of emptiness and recognition\, but perhaps melancholia comes close to capturing the mood of The Last Night. \nUpon entering\, viewers come face to face with a tiled wall. Against the industrial setting of the gallery\, the ornate craft of the wall accentuates its fabricated nature\, alluding to the constant construction and reconstruction of the city. Taking on an animating luster\, the celadon tiles shimmer under the moving lights of a suspended LED display light commonly used for advertisement in Chinese cities. Titled Trouble 21082 (2021)\, the LED has its face oriented towards the wall\, its advertised content unviewable\, the moving image in the panel is full of glitches\, error and jolts. Messages and errors are abstracted into one blurry reflection\, as the jarring artificial light of publicity infiltrates our interior domesticity\, absorbed into the quotidian perception of city dwellers and night walkers alike. There is no escape from the hazy lights of the sleepless New City. \nThe glitchy urbanism pervades into interior games in Billiard Ball (2020)\, where colourful billiard balls spill over from a capsized snooker table. The players have left\, and there is no way to determine the winner of the game. Unable to keep up with the New City\, neglection inevitably declines things into disorder and randomness. Entropy becomes the new guiding principle of New City. These quiet remnants of a gathering carries on into Goblets After Dancing (2009)\, an image of broken glass lying on a tablecloth stained red by wine from a raucous farewell party. Across the gallery is Time Shop (2019)\, a watch repair shop that stores faulty analog clocks with hands pointing in all direction\, indicating divergent time zones and temporalities. Ambiguity arises of whether these wayward scenes are the artefacts of an old time or the beginning blocks of the new city. Are we too late or too early? The arrival time for New City is to be determined. \nThe will for order dances in the carefully choreographed chaos of urban life. Brilliantly Lit Lights / H.K. (2021) is a sculpture of a life-size malfunctioning streetlamp emanating irregular flashing lights in random rhythms and amplitude. With its sensuous curves following distinct state-sanctioned aesthetics\, these lights are modelled after common streetlamps\, called zhong hua (Chinese) lamps. These lights line the boulevards of Chinese mega-metropolises\, designed to bring an aura of prosperity and flamboyant décor\, and to represent an aspirational image of progress. The bright lights project a collective yearning for betterment shared by Hong Kong and mainland cities alike\, places experiencing growth and aspiration at different phases of its evolution. Brilliantly Lit Lights / H.K speak to a flickering state of organic incompleteness in which cities constantly strive towards perfection and identity. Coexisting with banal absurdities\, we always live in the gap between lofty expectation and faulty reality. \nIn a quiet corridor\, Bitter Abstract (2019) captures an abandoned frame containing a mysteriously disposed wastewater. The concealed artwork is transformed and coerced into an organic being emitting alluring hallucinogenic spectra. Tree (2016) is strung together by discarded satellite dishes found in construction sites\, no longer needed in the digital age of cellular data-driven entertainment. Its obsolescence gives these dishes a clandestine second life. A curious post-urban ecology emerges as non-human subjects become metonyms for the flux and transition experienced by city dwellers. \nPassing through two layers of curtains reminiscent of hygienic or disinfectant usage\, a sole LED lightstand and a charging iPhone sit within a dark room. Trouble Malevich (2021) is a triangular-shaped standing LED panel that displays glitchy abstract images that almost resemble Malevich’s non-objective geometry whilst On the Way #0907… (2021) features an iPhone screen showing a gif of a night cityscape\, the lagging image indicated by the all too familiar spinning wheel\, a no doubt dissatisfying experience for those accustomed to high speed internet and instant gratification. Similarly in any city\, behind the façade of sleek industry\, imperfections permeate\, forcing us to tolerate necessary frustrations in order to appreciate the beauty in the process of becoming. \nThe exhibition ends with Goodbye (2019)\, a photo showing a half- closed gate with a doormat bidding farewell to visitors. As Chen Wei said in an artist interview\, “We all live in mutual misunderstandings and biases. Differences breed culture and propose coexistence. These give birth to unreachable goals\, unspeakable subjects\, and a New City that is always under construction.” Chen’s The Last Night is a bid to preserve the pluralism of positions\, the entanglement of material memories\, and the conflicting ideas of what makes a city anew.
URL:https://cultureplus.asia/event/chen-wei-the-last-night/
LOCATION:Blindspot Gallery\, Po Chai Industrial Building\, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road\, Southern\, Hong Kong
CATEGORIES:Multimedia,Photography,Sculpture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cultureplus.asia/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Chen-Wei-Goodbye-2019-e1631501442734.jpg
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