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Here are the latest shows, immersive experiences, and must-see art exhibitions for this November 2021.

M+ Museum

Not a "show" per se, but we can't round up everything art in the city without shouting out the brand new M+ museum. The highly-anticipated cultural hub opened last week and houses 33 galleries, three cinemas, museum shops and much more – you can find out everything you need to know by reading our guide here. Entry will be free for all visitors for a year, with an exception for entry to special exhibitions and events.

M+ Museum, 38 Museum Drive, West Kowloon Cultural District

Axel Vervoordt Gallery: Shen Chen

Axel Vervoordt Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition by Shanghai-born, New York-based artist Shen Chen, comprising 12 paintings created between 2009 and 2021. Although Shen’s works bear stylistic influences of paintings from the "color field" movement of 1940s and ‘50s New York, his practice is rooted in a philosophical mode of thought deriving from his training in traditional Chinese ink painting. If you don’t catch the show in Hong Kong now, you’ll have to visit Kanaal in Antwerp in the spring, the exhibition’s next stop.

Until December 25. Axel Vervoordt Gallery, 21/F, Coda Designer Building, 62 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang

Ora-Ora, Tai Kwun: Living with Botero by Fernando Botero

Living with Botero is an exhibition of work at Ora-Ora's new gallery in Tai Kwun by Colombian-born figurative artist Fernando Botero, in a faithful recreation of his New York apartment. An open invitation to step into the artist's working environment, the show comprises paintings and drawings never seen before in Hong Kong, many of which Botero lived with and considered his personal favourites.

Until November 27. Ora-Ora, 105-107, Barrack Block, Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Road, Central

Woaw Gallery: TEKNOLUST: OBJECTOPHILIC FUTURES

Curated by Ben Lee Ritchie Handler and Melanie Ouyang Lum, Woaw Gallery’s latest exhibition, TEKNOLUST: OBJECTOPHILIC FUTURES opens with Stephen Neidich’s The so-called blush response (2021); a set of kinetic curtains that animate at will, obscuring then revealing then obscuring once more what lays beyond. From female human-android sculptures emerging from the gallery floor to EPOCH’s REPLICANTS, a full-scale, digital replication of Queen’s Road Central, prophesying the future of the neighbourhood as one devoid of humanity, the multi-artist showcase examines many, many “What If?” theses.

Until November 24. Woaw Gallery, 9 Queen’s Road Central, Central

Carnaby Fair x The Stallery: SUB9TURE

The Stallery plays host to Hong Kong’s first ‘CAP-ART’ exhibition in collaboration with Carnaby Fair, showcasing seven local Hong Kong artists’ capsule collections including those of The Stallery’s own Ernest Chang, Plumber King and DaddyBoy®️. Works showcased will include digital installations, large-scale displays, and interactive experiences, with all artists involved collaborating with Carnaby Fair to imprint their pieces onto caps, t-shirts and NFTs. All proceeds from the exhibition donated to V Cycle, a Hong Kong social enterprise that supports poverty alleviation and COVID-19 stress relief. Beyond the gallery exhibition, the façade of The Stallery will also become canvas to a large-scale, cross-generational collaborative graffiti-jamming project for Mr. Yim (The Plumber King) and BOMS.

Until February 13. The Stallery, G/F, 82A Stone Nullah Lane, Wan Chai

10 Chancery Lane Gallery: Love in the Dream

A celebration of 10 Chancery Lane Gallery’s 20^th anniversary, Love in the Dream is a sweeping 44-artist showcase, with the exhibition itself segmented into groupings of artwork thematically, salon-style. Sections include works built from resin, a dedication to Southeast Asian artists, photography and a solo partition for Hong Kong’s iconic Frog King Kwok — also featured in the toilet. 

Until January 22. 10 Chancery Lane Gallery, G/F, 10 Chancery Lane, Soho, Central

THE SHOPHOUSE x MINE PROJECT: perspective parallel by Yang Bodu and Zhao Zhao

A collaborative exhibition between THE SHOPHOUSE, MINE PROJECT and Qiong Jiu Tang, perspective parallel is a collective exhibition between Yang Bodu and Zhao Zhao, the couple’s first-ever joint feature. The title of the exhibition nods at the couple’s daily routine; a communal experience of shared time, shared space and shared professions as artists. Bodu’s paintings are connected by similar points of obscurity, from one jet-black stripe to another jet-black column in a separate painting; a theme that acts as portals throughout the artist’s oeuvre. Zhao’s paintings, on the other hand, posits questions asked since time immemorial: What is “THE WORLD”? Zhao’s answer: A fully abstract series that neither answers nor posit; instead, leaves the viewer wondering if the point of reference is microbial cells, floating grains of sand or the entire galaxy from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. 

Until 21 November. THE SHOPHOUSE, 4 Second Lane, Tai Hang

Gallery HZ x Arta: skin in the game

From mixed-media paintings by Ewa Budka, Javier Martin and Ewelina Skowrońska to photography by Chong-Il Woo, Gallery HZ and Arta’s group exhibition skin in the game brings together pieces that thematically represent the complexities of womanhood in today’s increasingly ambiguous world, especially with regard to gender, gender expression and gendered expectations.

Until December 16. Gallery HZ, 222 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan

Karin Weber Gallery: Wish You Well by Sharon Lee, Wai Kit Lam and Linda Norris

Karin Weber Gallery’s Wish You Well exhibition is a celebration of neither painting nor installation, instead, focuses attention on an "often underestimated" medium: that of the A6 square-footage of a postcard. Sharon Lee’s body of work, for which this exhibition is named after, is inspired by postcards of the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Garden, while Wai Kit Lam and Linda Norris present their submissions from the “Root & Branch” project, where postcard-sized collages and paintings thematically linked through inclusions of wood and trees delve into notions of identity and heritage.

Until December 18. Karin Weber Gallery, 20 Aberdeen Street, Central 

Gagosian: Jonas Wood

Jonas Wood’s plant-focused oeuvre makes its way to Hong Kong for the very first time with this solo exhibition at the Gagosian gallery, featuring ten new paintings of flowers, fruits and houseplants rendered on black backgrounds alongside two series of related drawings including Yellow Flower with Lines 2 (2021). Originally from the East Coast, Wood’s interest in flora manifested upon his move to Los Angeles in 2003, where lush, verdant growth reflect the artist’s immediate environment at home as well as his then-new chosen home’s cultural identity. 

Until January 15. Gagosian, 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central 

Simon Lee Gallery: Georg Karl Pfahler

Designated as Georg Karl Pfahler’s first solo exhibition in Asia, this showcase predates the exhibition’s later, more comprehensive showing in Spring 2022 in the gallery’s London chapter. Here, Pfahler’s work from 1965 to 1975 is exhibited, beginning first with the artist’s Tex and Metro series in the early ‘60s to his later Ost-West Transit and Espan series that defined his work through the ‘70s. Known as one of the first “hard-edged painters”, Pfahler’s signature traces through abstract geometric shapes and crisp colour-blocking; an exploration of colour, shape and space that defined the artist’s entire life’s work. 

Until January 8. Simon Lee Gallery Hong Kong, 304, The Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central

White Cube: His Own Worst Enemy by Damien Hirst

His Own Worst Enemy features sculptures from Damien Hirst’s Venice installation Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable (2017) — as well as a series of new paintings entitled The Revelations. Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable (2017), in development for over a decade, weaves a tale of an incredible archaeological excavation from an ancient shipwreck, with found treasures verging on whimsy and the fantastical, including a black-bronze sculpture of The Severed Head of Medusa (2008). 

Until January 8. White Cube Hong Kong, 50 Connaught Road Central, Central

David Zwirner: Isa Genzken

If you’ve found yourself in the vicinity of Victoria Dockside and K11 MUSEA in recent months, you’d undoubtedly have walked past one of Isa Genzkhen's most recognisable works: Rose II, standing ever blooming, ever larger than life. Coinciding with the 8.5-metre-tall sculpture’s tenure in Hong Kong, Isa Genzken's key works from the past decade — including the “tower” and “column” sculptures and the Schauspieler (Actors) series — will be on display for the artist’s first solo presentation in greater China. 

Until December 18. David Zwirner, 5-6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central

PERROTIN: Behind My Back, in Front of My Eyes by Gregor Hildebrandt

Gregor Hildebrandt’s preferred medium of choice is a technique named “Sound Paper,” or “Tönendes Papier,” as it was first coined by inventor Fritz Pfleumer in 1928 in reference to magnetic tape used to tape audio; then, the kinds of paper coiled in cassette tapes several decades later. Hildebrandt, however, uses the medium to produce silence. Capturing a recorded melody on empty tapes, Hildebrandt then uses the treated audio cassette tape as “paint”; thus, "sticking" music to canvas in what he calls “rip-off paintings.” From the graphic motifs of White flower pointing up (Alphaville) to the multi-coloured Sur le comédien, Hildebrant manufactures a silent soundscape rife with memories, yet amputated from its latent musicality. 

Until November 20. Perrotin Hong Kong, 807, K11 ATELIER, Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Tai Kwun: Poetic Heritage

Questions of heritage, generally, most likely, come with implications of tradition; of heirlooms. Of things and lore and customs someone from generations past thought was worth keeping. Poetic Heritage — a joint exhibition borne out of Tai Kwun Contemporary’s open call for curatorial proposals — ruminates on precisely this; on the how, the why and, then, the why not. Six chosen artists and artist groups intentionally chose debris and objects — think reclaimed granite, wood pallets and cardboard boxes — otherwise unsavoury and headed for the landfill as materials that hold evidence of the past. As evidence of stories untold and forgotten.

Until November 21. Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Road, Central, Hong Kong

The post The Must-See Art Exhibitions for November 2021 in Hong Kong appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Here are the latest must-see art exhibitions and experiences to satiate the art-and-culturally-minded individuals in this city.

Soluna Fine Art: Prism

Until October 21, Soluna Fine Art presents a group exhibition titled Prism in celebration of the third anniversary of the gallery's relocation to Sheung Wan. Its biggest group show yet, the exhibition comprises the work of 16 local and international artists.

Until October 21. Soluna Fine Art, G/F 52 Sai Street, Sheung Wan

Woaw Gallery: Maxx Headroom by Michael Lau

Hong Kong-based artist Michael Lau, known as the “Godfather of the Designer Toy”, is presenting a solo exhibition at Woaw Gallery in Central. Original paintings and sculptures from the artist’s signature Gardener series showcase an important part of Lau’s career. Delving into Maxx Heardoom, hero of the Gardener series, the exhibition explores the concept of youth, passion and perseverance through a selection of works old and new. It also reflects Lau’s own journey through the character of Maxx as a metaphor for the artist himself — a strong-willed character who sacrifices everything for his passion.

Until October 23. Woaw Gallery, 9 Queens Road Central

K11 MUSEA: A Muse by the Sea

K11 MUSEA is presenting a collection of six art and design dreamlands – titled Muse Rooms – to bring visitors an immersive experience into arts and culture. Six leading artists, including a'strict, Jon Buergerman, Nelson Chow, Tony Oursler, Hajime Sorayama and Joyce Wang, are tasked to put their artistic spin to some of K11 MUSEA's most popular retail destinations. Interior designer Joyce Wang has for example, reimagined an ice cream pavilion with creations by Cookie DPT, while Sorayama continues to blur boundaries between virtual and tangible with his installation at Gold Ball. Discover it all for yourself now with a visit to K11 MUSEA.

Until November 14. K11 MUSEA Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui

Perrotin: Gregor Hildebrandt

German artist Gregor Hildebrandt's latest exhibition Behind My Back, in Front of My Eyes, is on show at Galerie Perrotin until November 20, marking his second solo show in the city. Hildebrandt often used repetition in his works, and "sound paper" as his medium, allowing him to visualise music and to paint, or stick, "music" onto canvas.

Until November 20. Perrotin, 807, K11 ATELIER Victoria Dockside, 18 Salisbury Road, Tsim She Tsui.

David Zwirner: Isa Genzken

This month, David Zwirner Hong Kong presents the first solo exhibition in greater China by artist Isa Genzken.  It presents key works from the past decade, including highlights from her Schauspieler (Actors) series, as well as recent “tower” sculptures (pictured), which together attest to Genzken’s continued innovation as an artist. The show also coincides with an ongoing presentation of the artist’s Rose II at K11 Musea.

Opens October 20 until December 18. David Zwirner Hong Kong, 5-6/F, H Queen's, 80 Queen's Road Central

(Hero image: Exhibition view at David Zwirner Hong Kong)

The post The Latest Art Exhibitions to See This Month appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

What’s the future of fashion? What’s unique about Hong Kong style? What’s next for your industry? What’s in and what’s out? We pose these questions to the designers, entrepreneurs, leaders, stylists and influencers who’ve made an impact on fashion here.

With Covid focusing attention on our own backyard, this era of style in the city is renegotiating in familiar territory. And from talking to the experts, common arcs emerge. 

Johanna Ho

Designer, sustainability champion and founder of Phlvo Platform

Circularity, transparency, responsibility, respect and a proper value system – I feel these all must be the future of fashion. In fashion, I’m inspired by people, human values and the new possibilities of technology. In Hong Kong, there’ll be more connections between fashion education and the industry: mentorships and bridging or training programmes for students within the industry. This is a new season for me – with this new platform concept of Phlvo I want to start bringing a connection between the East and West. I don’t want to chase the chase anymore, or “accelerate growth”, which has been the fashion industry over the past decades – fast fashion, whether mass-produced or luxury brands. It’s all about reworking the system and dealing with issues such as exploitation, values, customers experiences, connection and relevance.

Karmuel Young

Designer and founder of Karmuel Young

Fashion’s future is gender-neutral. Some brands propose that direction by wading into gender-fluid, unisex or polysexual fashions, but I believe it’s about an extreme sense of self. Fashion is becoming more open to self-expression and letting the audience decide what they buy and want to wear. The younger generation pays less attention to traditional gender roles and looks and more towards integrity and authenticity.

Arnault Castel

Founder of Kapok

The future of fashion is in rediscovering how to make people feel beautiful, confident, comfortable and fun. It should be less a signifier of “coolness” or social class. It should stay away from limited edition and collectors and become again a way for us to communicate who we are. Hong Kong is unique because it embraces the new with a great knowledge of past style. Hong Kong style has no fear.

Vivienne Tam

Designer and founder of Vivienne Tam

Since the pandemic began and everyone is homebound, fashion is localising … Society is now ready to support and appreciate Hong Kong designs, we’ll search deeper into Hong Kong’s history and culture, but maintain a proud global voice. It seems there are more restrictions and taboos with the political conflicts around; it’s getting challenging, but challenges make us more creative and focused. The future of fashion is more inclusive with universal values and an emphasis on sustainability and health. People are adopting healthier lifestyles and sporting cultures – I’m designing to blend beauty and style with protection, as in my crossover collection with Masklab and using antibacterial fabric for my travelling trench coats when the gates finally open. Fashion shows can be at any time now and anywhere; the fashion norms and rules are deconstructed and move towards more artistic and unexpected ways of presentation.

Douglas Young

Co-founder, Goods of Desire

Fashion, like art, is a form of social commentary, and our society is very polarised now. You have split realities and fashion will mirror that, in the sense that it will become more diversified. In the past there was a central flow of fashion trends. In the future, these trends will break into fragments and become multiple trends. There won’t be one mainstream trend any longer – the future is diversity. Local fashion will find its own identity and uniqueness through local street culture, because Hong Kong is an advanced city. People are sophisticated in their style and taste, very international and diversified … Hong Kong will soon find its own identity, uniqueness and style. I’m inspired by the way people dress in Hong Kong, especially grass-roots people. The way they boldly mix things freely without consideration – so you have a lot of accidental fashionistas! Also, the ingenuity of adapting things really inspires me, not just in fashion but design in general. The unlikely combinations produce surprising contrasts. Hong Kong people don’t seem inhibited by putting things together in the same way that, say, Westerners might not do.

What’s next for us? We’ve found success in translating our company from initially focusing on furniture to lifestyle and clothing. We found a unique angle in Chinese clothing that’s simultaneously both traditional and modern. A continued focus on boosting our e-commerce is also on the agenda. It also allowed us to discover a market beyond borders for our type of clothing and we’ll continue to pursue that.

Elle Lee

KOL, actress and emcee

The future of fashion is more environmentally cautious, easy on the Earth and soft on the skin. Hong Kong style has always been quite sharp, especially for ladies. Women aren’t afraid to dress out and express their personality in unisex and edgy ways.

Mayao Ma

Director of Fashion Farm Foundation

In the future, fashion will be more focused on the design than where the brand or designer is from. There are many more Hong Kong brands with potential to stand out in the international market. I believe there’ll be more collaborations too. For spring/summer 2022, the Fashion Farm Foundation is presenting the new collections of three brands – Pabe Pabe (accessories), Ponder.er (men’s and womenswear) and VANN (jewellery) – at Paris Fashion Week with a digital film presentation. The crew members are all from Hong Kong. It’s a chance to show the world how creative and talented our young people.

Kev Yiu

Designer and founder of Kev Yiu

Fashion has always been a personal statement of who you are, rather than trends to be followed. However, with technological advances I can imagine in the near future there’ll be something like a one-button device that can dress you up in any way you can imagine.

As the younger generation has become more open-minded through the information on social media and the internet, there’ll be no more stereotypes. The boundaries are about to be broken. Well, maybe they already have been: men in skirts and other gender-blending concepts are no longer as shocking as they once were.

Justine Lee

Stylist and influencer

With the limitations of travel, I feel the city is looking inwards for fashion talent. I still feel there’s room for creativity even with the restrictions we’re under. In Hong Kong, the speed at which we consumed fashion before the protests and Covid-19 was super-fast-paced and, in a way, unsustainable. We’ve slowed down a lot recently and I think consumers, brands and retailers are reprioritising their focus. There’s a greater sense of community and I feel we’re seeing a gradual shift into more conscious consumption.

Faye Tsui

KOL and stylist

The pandemic led us to adopt a new normal in every way, people are paying more attention to reducing pollution. I’ve noticed people in Hong Kong are changing their buying behaviour – it’s important for local designers
to be environmentally conscious, use sustainable materials, especially packaging, and design in a way that’s more durable. Now, I think Hong Kong has its own unique style. People tend to showcase their own personality and won’t just follow a trend if it doesn’t fit them – this wasn’t the case 20, 10 or even five years ago, when fashionistas were following or copying Japan, Paris or London … Now, we’re unique.

Jacky Tam

Stylist and editorial director at Vogue Man Hong Kong

The future of fashion is all about being yourself, trusting your own feeling and being honest to yourself. I think freedom defines Hong Kong style. After the past year or so, people are going through major changes, mentally as well, from being fashionable to wearing comfy PJs at home. To me, comfort is in; being pretentious is out.

Dorian Ho

Designer and founder of Dorian Ho

Nowadays fashion isn’t just about the design, but also how you build and market your brand. Social media have led consumers to adopt and move on from fashion trends quicker than ever before. We must react very quickly, and adjust designs and stock, but also learn to anticipate what the market wants from us. With the development of technology such as AR and VR, I believe the future of fashion is sustainability and technologically innovative design. There’ll be breakthroughs in design and more functional materials to improve the quality of life.

Barney Cheng

Designer and founder of Barney Cheng Couture

What’s the future of fashion in Hong Kong? Three words: sustainability, awareness and responsibility. I think it’ll be all about customisation, personalisation and interactive creativity next in the local industry. What’s Hong Kong style really? Branded living? My style is extravagant simplicity, always has been, always will be. And what’s next for my brand? I’m a glorified tailor to the discerning few! I’ve been here for 28 years and hope to stay here for at least as long in the future.

Harrison Wong

Designer and founder of Harrison Wong

What’s the future of fashion? In design, sustainability remains the main issue and concern from my perspective. From a retail perspective, I think successful businesses will become more data-driven. By leveraging data on consumer trends and tastes, brands can create pieces consumers are more likely to buy. AR and VR will increasingly redefine the online and in-store experience. And high-tech will continue to reshape fashion – for example, catwalks will become increasingly virtual and new innovative functional fabrics will appear. Hong Kong-style is unique, because of the diversity of influences and cultures, as well as our dynamic metropolitan environment.

The post What’s On This Month in the World of Art appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

There’s no doubt Alex Lam inherited his musical talent from his parents, his father being Cantopop legend George Lam Chi-Cheung, and his mother, Sally Yeh. Still, the singer-songwriter and actor hasn’t let privilege get to his head — he’s not afraid to explore other paths, from a stint in Los Angeles to discover yoga and becoming a yoga teacher, to dipping his toes in fashion.

Lam met Hiro Yoshikawa, founder and designer of Washi Jeans, a Japanese denim brand, a couple years back and was intrigued by the designer’s backstory. Now based in Hong Kong, Yoshikawa is the 18^th generation of a revered sake maker in Okayama, Japan, and the first to leave the family business to pursue his own passion in denim-making. By chance, Yoshikawa had found an old document that charted out his family’s history, written on washi paper. Inspired by this, he developed and patented the Washi No. 6 paper yarn, which he utilizes in his first solo collection launching this month.

Lam, who has always had an eye for detail, quickly became an ambassador and muse for Yoshikawa, and took it upon himself to bring the recognition Yoshikawa deserves by helping him stage his upcoming solo debut.

We sit down with Alex Lam and Hiro Yoshikawa at Washi Jean's studio to talk about style and the upcoming debut of Yoshikawa's solo collection Life on Earth.

Can you describe your style? What are your wardrobe essentials?

AL: My style has always been inspired by musicians. I grew up watching some of my favourite bands like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and today, I'm inspired by singers like Drake. For me, my summer essentials include a sleeveless vest, a good multi-functional blazer and a pair of high-quality designer jeans.

Have you always been passionate about fashion and did you want to work in fashion?

AL: I have always cared about how I look and my outfits since I was a kid. I remember there was one time when the collar of my t-shirt wasn't right and I wouldn’t wear it out until my parents fixed it for me. Having friends who are in the fashion industry allows me to execute and experiment my ideas during workshops, like the ‘marshmallow’ colourway of the t-shirt I’m wearing right now. 

How did the both of you meet?

AL: I met Hiro-san thought some of our mutual friends.

HY: have been making jeans for other brands for the past 30 years and it has always been my dream to have my own denim brand. I have always hung out with people from the fashion industry, and meeting Alex from the music and acting world has made my life more fun and exciting.

Can you tell us a bit about your project with Hiro-san?

AL: I was hanging out with a group of producers and we often talk about fashion shows, designer brands’ videos, installation art and music. Once we found out Hiro-san wanted to launch his own denim brand this year, we decided to catch this opportunity and put our ideas together. We are organising a VIP launch event with a fashion show on June 11, 2021.

What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome with this project?

AL: I think the rules of the game changed after Covid started last year. We looked at online fashion shows last year, without the tradition styles, and we knew our team needed to do it in a cleverer way. The restriction for event gathering is 30 persons at the moment, so we were not able to invite too many friends and make the event as big as before. Plus the campaign and fashion show video shoot all in one day, that’s the biggest challenge in this project.

HY:  We have been staying in our studio almost every day is the past few months, meeting different parties like our PR team, models, videographers and producers.

What else are you up to this year that you can share with us?

AL: I have released a new song and I just finished a music video for another song. I have also been working on my YouTube channel and created a few series, but it’s been slightly slowed down because I was focusing in this project.

Has the pandemic affected the way you work or changed your priorities?

AL: Before Covid, I was busy working with clients, who often prepared everything. With changes and restrictions during this period, I am able to organise and create more content by myself.

What are you currently inspired by?

AL: There are many indie musicians and young kids out there who are doing their music in their unique styles. I admire them a lot as they can release songs as long as they think it sounds good. I used think good music requires the best studio and recording equipment, but turned out a lot of indie musicians are producing high quality songs just by working at home.

You have a YouTube channel, you're into fashion, music as well as classic cars. How did you get into each of those passions and how do you balance it all?

AL: Project by project. I’m now focusing more on quantity over quality and I'll keep learning from the progress and mistakes.

Do you have a motto you live by?

Stay healthy. As I was a yoga teacher, I still practice yoga for two to three hours each day. It’s a good way to reflect on myself and find peace.

The post Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Minimalist Art, Maximum Emotions appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Liberal-minded Hong Kong is drawing a growing arts audience locally and internationally even as Beijing restrictions loom.

The post Art in Hong Kong: Asia’s cultural capital? appeared first on The Peak Magazine.

Liberal-minded Hong Kong is drawing a growing arts audience locally and internationally even as Beijing restrictions loom.

For more stories like this, visit www.thepeakmagazine.com.sg.

Neo Rauch's canvases are dense panopticons, the figures he paints trapped in their own story, frozen in time among other lost souls condemned to the same fate. The stories the paintings tell are just as easily interpreted as misinterpreted: twisting roads that lead to haunted houses or burning furnaces, oversized beetles performing for or preying on their human companions, and often a stern-looking woman chastising an exhausted man hiding behind a canvas or hunched over a table with his head in hands.

“They come from my mind, my soul and therefore must be of me, but they are also not me,” their creator says, when we meet at his studio on the top floor of an old cotton mill in Leipzig, Germany. The 58-year-old Leipzig native goes on to describe how the pieces flow out of him, at times summoned through excursions or trips, such as a visit to Crete, and other times bubbling up from his childhood or seemingly thin air.

“I approach the canvas like a white haze. I spend hours, days, weeks meditating into that fog until the images start to surface in front of my eyes,” he says. “I often paint a figure over and over again, the shoulder or arms or head all need to be of a very specific weight and proportion before they are finished and sit perfectly in the frame -- one figure could send the whole cosmos another way.”

[caption id="attachment_132910" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo credit: Uwe Walter[/caption]

Rauch says a “quick” painting could take around a year but it’s never as linear as that. And his studio definitely attests to the fact. The space is filled with canvases, some on easels, others stacked against walls, table legs, chairs. In fact, every available surface seems to be supporting a frame. There are also books, CDs, bottles of wine and whisky, and even a beautiful array of house plants. It’s every bit the studio you’d imagine, down to the thick crust of oil paint coating it all. The only rather uncanny fixture is a little pug, who dominates the space in a loveable way that reveals a hint of Rauch’s sweeter side.

When asked to explain his process, Rauch says, “In general my work bundles all the images, reflections and information into one stream of consciousness. I then occupy that particular point of internal and external influences, and react to that. I paint from that starting point always. That’s the moment when the image finds me.

[caption id="attachment_132921" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo credit: Uwe Walter[/caption]

“I’m a rather chaotic person and so the canvas tames my mind. My images reflect on narratives that I find inside me. They are somehow inconsistent and hence painting them gives them a form that holds a certain plausibility; saying that, they do keep me awake at night. They are a waking dream. I do see one consistent trope in my expression and that is that the form has to be legitimate and has to tame the pandemonium that is my internal landscape.”

The air in the studio is heavy with turpentine and oil. It’s a smell that reminds me of lilies, I tell Rauch. He smiles and says, “Every studio has its own scent.” We talk briefly about lilies being symbolic of the moon, a space of light and death, and this leads to talk of his formative years and how he began to paint.

Rauch’s life has been as tumultuous as his paintings -- skewed awkward reveries that would haunt anyone, well, forever. At birth he was christened Neo, an ancient Greek prefix meaning “new” or “revived”. It was just four weeks later when he lost his mother and father in a train accident, and a year after that when the wall was built that would divide Berlin for almost three decades.

[caption id="attachment_132917" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo credit: Uwe Walter[/caption]

Rauch, who recalls despising the wall, grew up in East Germany under strict Socialist order, where art was seen as political. It had to fall under the doctrine of Socialist Realism, a genre that dealt with proletariat depictions that were often easy to grasp conceptually in order to be accepted by the dominating powers. There were, however, certain younger artists like Rauch who didn’t aspire to such norms and would hold bootleg shows in living rooms and other private spaces.

[inline-quote author="Neo Rauch"]"Art is about leaving the airtight concrete surfaces and entering the marsh districts, the peripheral areas."[/inline-quote]

When I ask him if his own history and story influenced his paintings, he answers while slowly turning the pages of a book of his works from the early ’90s -- sullen dark blurs of abstract shapes and rough lines entitled Dromos or Gesang. “We all, in the first years of our lives, unconsciously absorb and memorise certain things, without reflecting on them or sorting through them in an intellectual or logical manner,” he says. “These memories, this material is getting stored in subterraneous archives, it is unconsidered and unsorted. It might reappear and emerge much later or it may not, but it’s always there.

“For example, if you’re a painter, it’s likely you archive colours and shapes. You can see that certainly inside me. I have a lot of stored aesthetics (in my mind) from the early ’60s. The way I accessed this was much more intense, say, 20 years ago,” he continues. “Today I’m not that focused on infantile perception -- or should I say I’m not really pulling from that memory bank. But these early childhood experiences definitely have been a great source of inspiration for me once I found my real artistic/painterly identity around 1993.

“This was when I finished the first period of self-reflection. Until that point, I was going down all different routes, trying to find my own language. I had idols and role models, but I was mostly wandering around in foreign territory, disconnected from my peculiar and authentic self.”

Rauch and his peers fell into a genre that was dubbed the New Leipzig School, a somewhat controversial term for a group of artists who emerged in post-reunification Germany in the 1990s and was championed by the likes of Eigen art gallery, curator Christian Ehrentraut and dealer Gerd Harry Lybke.

[caption id="attachment_132915" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo credit: Uwe Walter[/caption]

The self-described “very angry young man”, who studied at the famous Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, found painting to be an outlet for his penchant for rebellion and irony, and railing against the Concrete Art movement that had declared the medium dead. “I’ve found it’s about creating openings on the canvas that allow the human mind to sink into them,” he says. “Art is about leaving the airtight concrete surfaces and entering the marsh districts, the peripheral areas, the zone of transition where language fails, where I as the painter have to trust my instincts and my perception.

“That’s how I find my place in the production of art. That’s the domain of art. If I find I can explain everything rationally, it’s not art. It remains only an airtight surface under some neon lights framed in the studio or gallery or seminar room or in the latest Documenta.”[inline_related_article article_id="104737"]

When I visit, Rauch is preparing for Propaganda, a solo exhibition at David Zwirner’s Hong Kong gallery that opens on March 26 in conjunction with Art Basel. His debut solo exhibition in Asia features 15 new paintings and is accompanied by a new catalogue with a short story by novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann.

A tiny mock-up of the space sits in the corner of the room. “Would you like to see the show?” he says, laughing. The canvases overwhelm even the model of the gallery, squeezed on to its tiny walls. As I look down into the rooms, I feel as if I could walk straight into his paintings. The familiar figures Rauch depicts are there, all hegemonic in a European aesthetical sense. They mostly conform to traditional gender norms and roles, yet in these new paintings they’re dressed as clowns, magicians, animal tamers or jesters doting more on the mystical.

There’s something morbid about the figures, almost like the walking dead. I once heard someone refer to them as “sleep walkers”, but this description seems somehow too comfortable. They’re frozen and cast into their roles forever, unable to escape.

[caption id="attachment_132923" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo credit: Uwe Walter[/caption]

When asked if his figures are inspired by sleep and dreams, Rauch explains that he no longer uses his dreams as inspiration but instead paints as if he could be dreaming. He speaks in depth about the practice of becoming lucid and the point of view that creates.

“We, of course, are not able to grasp dreams in any rational way,” he says. “They have their own mechanics. Time changes and proportions become irrational. And then there is, of course, the demonic component of every sleeping pattern. There’s often something eerie to dreams. Freud spoke of it as if a dream could be likened to some sort of hairline crack in the familiar. For example, when we dream we encounter a familiar person and recognise that there’s something slightly different to them. It might not even be that person. That’s the weirdness I try to capture and for me, that is a space where painting as a form of expression can become very interesting.”

This hairline crack seems to have found its way into Rauch’s new body of work -- you see it depicted in curtains that fall away into the sky or openings that slip into passages of worlds all connected by rhizomes of rooms. They could be likened to works by MC Escher, although they’re never as regimented and nor do they simulate one pattern for one frame.[inline_related_article article_id="112921"]

Rauch’s paintings seem more to traverse between frames. “There are periods in the studio, and each canvas then becomes familiar to the others,” he says. “Like a family, they exist next to one another and therefore they begin to take on characteristics from the others. That’s why you see recurring motifs. They almost become genetically connected, as they’re formed in this room.”

It’s a very romantic notion of painting, I tell him. “Well yeah, sure,” he says with a smile. “It’s about re-enchanting the world.”

Re-enchanting or possessing? This is the question I pose to Rauch, as all art aims to possess the viewer in the sense that the eyes cannot look away. “If we encounter real art, which isn’t always the case just because someone claims it to be art, we experience a moment of absence of gravity. Paused time,” he responds. “We become unhinged, taken away from any rational frame of reference we might have held before. Something is talking to us that’s not entirely human, such as a painting, and it’s sucking us into a parallel universe. In any case, a painting has to have the ability to imprint itself on to someone’s retina to call itself art.”

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