The Hong Kong Museum of Art hopes to closely work with the art community through guest curators to illustrate a richer history of Hong Kong art.
This research project examines the crucial turning points, new trends and sensibilities in contemporary art in Hong Kong during the 1980s and 1990s. Taking the curator's experiences as a point of departure, the project sheds light on the creative breakthroughs of young local artists in different mediums including installation art, new media and photography, which ushered in the rise of new artistic experimentation and formats. In addition to the showcase of artworks by eight representative artists and artist collectives, the exhibition features a restaging of iconic art spaces of the time, as well as an archival section, re-presenting the significant shifts in Hong Kong’s art scene during the era.
Participating artists include Choi Yan-chi, the founding members and the second generation of Para/Site (Patrick Lee Chee-fong, Leung Chi-wo, Leung Mee-ping, Phoebe Man Ching-ying, Tsang Tak-ping, Sara Wong Chi-hang and Anthony Leung Po-shan), May Fung, Ellen Pau, Chan Yuk-keung, the co-founders of NuNaHeDuo (Lee Ka-sing, Holly Lee, Lau Ching-ping, Patrick Lee and Blues Wong Kai-yu), Joseph Fung Hon-kee and David Clarke.
01 Exhibition Introduction
Artists and Collectives
| Choi Yan-chi | A pioneer of the “New Esthetics” in Hong Kong in the 1980s, Choi Yan-chi created Light and Shade for her solo “An Extension Into Space”, the first installation art exhibition in Hong Kong, at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 1985. The experimental interactive work introduced the international avant-garde scene to Hong Kong art. In this exhibition, Choi presents a reinterpreted installation, entitled Butterfly Dream as Smoke, which captures her poetic sensitivity through the changing times. Lured into the artist’s world by music, the viewer walks between fragments of Choi’s memories printed on gauze scrolls, with glimpses of the Victoria Harbour and Hong Kong Island outside, reflecting the setting and the visitors’ presence, as well as the artist’s reminiscences, and creating an intense experience and reflection that embody the spirit of the times. |
| Para/Site | Founded in 1996, Para/Site art space (renamed as Para Site art space in 2012) was the pioneer of alternative artist-led art spaces in Hong Kong, leading in experimental creation and showcasing contemporary art. In 1998, co-founders Patrick Lee Chee-fong, Leung Chi-wo, Leung Mee-ping, Phoebe Man Ching-ying, Tsang Tak-ping and Sara Wong Chi-hang, along with Anthony Leung Po-shan, created the site-specific project “Coffee shop”. Turning the art space into a makeshift café, the artists displayed their experimental works in the venue and opened the showcase with a live performance. This rendition of the “Coffee Shop” invites the viewer to interact with the work and the site, illuminating the experimental quest of Para/Site, which echoes the spirit of Hong Kong and hints at the drama of time passing. |
| May Fung | May Fung remains trailblazer in media and video art in Hong Kong to this day. Both the 1989 and 2016 versions of her work She Said Why Me are featured in this exhibition. Her video in 1989 version depicts a woman walking blindfolded from a temple in the countryside to the bustling downtown area of Hong Kong. Interspersed with the historical footage, the work poses questions about culture and the identity of women. In 2016, Fung presented her video installation of She Said Why Me, featuring herself as one of the characters. In this exhibition, the two earlier versions of the work are shown on two back-to-back screens on a rotating monument-like pedestal, becoming the 2021 version of this installation. The viewer has to physically follow the movement to appreciate the work. The simultaneous display of the three versions symbolises Fung’s response to the ideological and cultural consciousness of Hong Kong at three different points in time. It also demonstrates her lifelong quest for creative experimentation, and her devotion to steering the development of Hong Kong’s cultural ecology. |
| Ellen Pau | Ellen Pau has been a pioneer in bringing together new technology and art creation in Hong Kong since the 1980s. In 1986, she co-founded Videotage with Wong Chi-fai, May Fung, and Comyn Mo Man-yu, and the collective receiving funding from the then newly established Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Videotage was the first video artist collective and archive for media art in Hong Kong. Recycling Cinema, featured in this exhibition, is one of Pau’s iconic works. It was showcased at the first Hong Kong Pavilion at the “49th Venice Biennale” in 2001, reflecting her status as a seminal figure in media and video art in Hong Kong. She also founded the "Microwave Festival" (now “Microwave International New Media Arts Festival”), offering a platform for local and international dialogues on contemporary art and fostering the rise of new media works in Hong Kong contemporary art. |
| Chan Yuk-keung | Returning to Hong Kong from the United States in the 1980s, Chan Yuk-keung introduced his brand of “Chan’s Domestic Aesthetics” into the local art scene and incorporated his unique conception of mixed media art and conceptual art into his teaching. In his over two-decade-long career as an educator, Chan has nurtured several generations of young artists at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In this exhibition, Chan recreates his mixed media installation, Vertical Rye Field, which he presented at the “Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art” in Australia in 1996. In this rendition, Chan puts together unrelated objects from daily life, creating a spatial texture that is uniquely representative of Hong Kong. The combination of hard and soft lines creates a precarious relationship between the work and gravity, alluding to a bizarre and unsettling reality and a sense of resignation. This rendition reveals the intersection of temporal and cultural contexts; while Chan rekindles the form of his original work, the new installation features materials from the present and hints at the inevitability of change. |
| NuNaHeDuo | NuNaHeDuo (also known as Dislocation) was a photography publication launched in 1992 and distributed as a supplement to the magazine Photo Pictorial, in circulation until 1998. Edited by Lee Ka-sing, Holly Lee, Lau Ching-ping, Patrick Lee Chee-fong and Blues Wong Kai-yu, it featured photographic works mainly by local artists. Embodying the concept of a crossover exhibition on paper, the publication was a ground-breaking experiment in publishing in Hong Kong. With funding from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council from 1997 to 1999, these artists founded the NuNaHeDuo Centre of Photography (NCP), which advocated the development of Hong Kong contemporary photography in conjunction with the "OP Print Program". In this exhibition, the reconstructed NCP and the photographic works by the five founding members of NuNaHeDuo showcase an illumination of the new imagescapes of the 1990s. |
| Joseph Fung | A pivotal figure in the development of photographic art in Hong Kong, Joseph Fung Hon-kee has made immense contributions as a photographer, educator, artist and curator. His experimental spirit is manifested in both his artistic practice and his teaching, and his photographic work reflects a ceaseless inquiry into new possibilities in image making. Fung was among the first group of Hong Kong photographers to enter mainland China after the reform and opening-up of the Mainland. This exhibition features two of his iconic series: East-West Diptychs (1986–89/2013), which comprises the black-and-white work Shenzhen (1982), along with black-and-white and colour works that he shot in mainland China and around the globe; and the Butterfly Dream Series (1998-2000), which is a series of 3D digital images. Being displayed on iMac computers of the period, the works delineate changes in the artist’s photographic language in response to different social and cultural contexts, and mirror the development of Hong Kong contemporary photography over the years. |
| David Clarke | David Clarke is an honorary professor in the Department of Art History, University of Hong Kong, where he taught from 1986 to 2017. He is both an art historian and a visual artist. As an art historian he has written on American, European and Chinese art from the 18th century to the present day. Amongst his sole-author books are: Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonisation (2001); Water and Art (2010); and China—Art—Modernity (2019). As an artist, Clarke primarily engages with photography, printmaking and video. His work has been widely exhibited during the last 30 years, including several one-person museum shows in Hong Kong and an extensive one-person exhibition in Britain. He has published two photo books concerning Hong Kong: Reclaimed Land: Hong Kong in Transition (2002) and Hong Kong × 24 × 365: A Year in the Life of a City (2007). Recent projects have often focused on artistic collaboration—he has worked with performance artist Kwok Mang-ho, composers Chan Hing-yan and Joyce Tang Wai-chung, and creative writer Xu Xi. |
02 Video Clips of Artists’ Interviews
| Choi Yan-chi (27 mins 37 secs) | View |
| Para/Site (46 mins 2 secs) | View |
| May Fung (19 mins 39 secs) | View |
| Ellen Pau (20 mins 40 secs) | View |
| Chan Yuk-keung (14 mins 1 sec) | View |
| NuNaHeDuo (40 mins 29 secs) | View |
| Joseph Fung Hon-kee (18 mins 21 secs) | View |
03 “Discourse of Reimagined Hong Kong Art Communities” Archival Series / Lo Yin-shan
| Archival Fragment A (38 mins 57 secs) Experimentation of “Self / Selves” Re-Presented — Not Only Personal, But Also a Public History |
View |
| Archival Fragment B (43 mins 17 secs) Inter-act-ivities of “Coterie” — Collective and Social Networking |
View |
| Archival Fragment C (37 mins 35 secs) Glocalisation — DNA Mapping and Refabrication of Layering Identities |
View |
| References | View |
04 Art Talk Series for “New Horizons: Ways of Seeing Hong Kong Art in the 80s and 90s” exhibition (in Cantonese)
| Talk 1 (46 mins 29 secs) Development of Hong Kong Alternative Art Spaces: Para/Site vs 1983 |
View |
| Talk 2 (58 mins 34 secs) From Video Art to New Media Art |
View |
| Talk 3 (1 hr 47 secs) From Photography to New Interpretation of Image Art |
View |
| Talk 4 (53 mins 49 secs) Art Learning in the 1990s, Concurrent Discussion on “Chan’s Domestic Aesthetics” |
View |
| Talk 5 (55 mins 8 secs) [Re-] Fabrication: Choi Yan-chi’s Conceptual Art Crossover with Space |
View |
| Talk 6 (55 mins 24 secs) Discourse on Reimagined Hong Kong Art Communities: Sharing of Hong Kong Art Research on the 80s and 90s |
View |
05 Research Project Publication
The videos and text about the research project can be viewed on-site by appointment. Please refer to the FAQs for details.