The Collector | Art review: Hong Kong Contemporary Photography exhibition is ‘unusually good’

H ong Kong in all its variety is the subject of the unusually good Hong Kong Contemporary Photography Exhibition. For this group show, curator Tse Ming-chong, photographer and organiser of the non-profit space Lumenvisum, at the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, in Shek Kip Mei, has selected a diverse range of local and international photographers who live in the city.

There’s also the subtle influ­ence of European Photography magazine editor Andreas Müller-Pohle, who has devoted an entire issue to the show. The inter­national publication is both catalogue and conduit to a wider contact list. Publicly funded inter­national cultural initiatives can be
hit and miss, but this time the Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s resources have had a successful outcome.

The show covers all aspects, physical and emotional – back alleys, countryside, sea, concrete and high-rises; the grittiness and life of the street, and the contrasting living conditions of the middle-class and the poor. This suggests a fill-in-the-box approach, but the choice of photographic genre and styles is consummate.

Taking centre stage is Peter Steinhauer’s Yellow Cocoon #2, Hong Kong (2011), a dip­tych of an enormous Mid-Levels building under con­struc­tion, with its yellow safety netting play­ing hide-and-seek and a fractured anonymity. Hong Kong’s urban designs and current poli­ti­cal climate are captured in this embracing photograph: in the bottom corner is a glimpse of the century-old Chinese Rhenish Church, a pillar of solid community, its facade now primly covered in pink tiles that destroy its historical aura. Across the adja­cent nullah, separated by the incongruously named Beautiful Terrace, is a seemingly inno­cuous apartment block, Bonham Towers: overlooking the University of Hong Kong, it is a “military closed area”, guarded by the People’s Liberation Army.