Recent Hong Kong history, from Sars epidemic to ‘umbrella movement’ to ‘fear of now’, inspires city artists’ work, on show in two exhibitions
- Jaffa Lam’s art is about coping with ‘fear of Sars, fear of ageing, fear of now’. For Kurt Chan, art carries hidden messages in a ‘high pressure’ situation
- Their work and others inspired by events from 1997 to the present day can be seen at the Axel Vervoordt Gallery and Ben Brown Fine Arts in Wong Chuk Hang
Works by Hong Kong artists are showing in commercial galleries in the city that ordinarily only sell art from overseas, under an initiative by the Hong Kong Art Gallery Association.
This comes at a time of unprecedented interest in Hong Kong culture. The city is enduring a difficult transformation, which has spurred creativity.
Hong Kong artists have been reflecting on the city and its circumstances, often in subtle ways. Examples of their work are on view in Wong Chuk Hang at Axel Vervoordt Gallery, in an exhibition called “Residual Heat”, and at Ben Brown Fine Arts, in an exhibition of female artists’ work called “Ze/Ro”.
Curated by Chris Wan, “Residual Heat” features works by seven artists of different generations. Just as the blazing summer heat scorches the streets, residual heat is Wan’s metaphor for how the difficult chapters of the city’s history have informed the art on display.
The story begins in 1997, the year sovereignty over Hong Kong passed from Britain to China. Ivy Ma’s Her Newspaper Clippings (2018) uses interwoven clippings from newspaper published that year to challenge the way historical narratives are constructed.
