Belgian artist Luc Tuymans’ Hong Kong exhibition plays on ‘Made in China’, colonialism and global trade
- Titled ‘Good Luck’, Luc Tuymans solo show in Hong Kong is his first exhibition in China
- His paintings reveal the many layers of a scene and encourage viewers to question what they are looking at
Delftware was appropriated from China during the 17th century after Guido da Savino, an Italian potter living in the Netherlands, discovered how to produce cheap copies of Ming dynasty porcelain. Large-scale production took off, with the Dutch versions retaining the Chinese blue-and-white style while creating objects of a more European nature. Remarkably, these were then successfully exported to China.
“It’s an interesting irony,” Tuymans, 62, says over Zoom from his studio in Antwerp. “We usually think of ‘Made in China’ as things being made very quickly and of a lesser quality, but this was the other way around.”
The title of the exhibition – “Good Luck” – can be taken as an expression of sympathy or as sarcastic, the half-Belgian Flemish, half-Dutch artist says. “It can go both ways. It’s open-ended in the meaning – you can attribute what you want to it.”
Initially scheduled to open last November, when the US-China trade war dominated the news, the exhibition features works that not only introduce Tuymans’ practice to Hong Kong but also have strong regional resonance.
