Celebrity Life

With cases on the rise and social distancing measures in place, we’re turning to sanctuaries within galleries to bide one’s time and soak up some cultural goodness.

Chapter Three

Crafts on Peel’s Stories Encapsulated: Wood is the third in a series of creations featuring handmade pieces by local and overseas artists. Works range from smaller decorative objects to functional wooden structures, showcasing a spectrum of talents and techniques within the wood crafting community.
Until May 21

Art on Your Sleeve

Wear Earthero’s first exhibition, Classics Reimagined, features a series of revamped rare vintage pieces with hand-painted artworks by local artists. The sustainable wearable art brand is a subsidiary of Earthero Project, founded by local eco-warrior Bertha Shum. Available from wear-earthero.com.

Portrait of the Artist

A collection of prints, Annie Leibovitz. The Early Years 1970-1983 and Wonderland at Hauser & Wirth, charts the early development of one of the greatest portrait photographers of our time.
Until February 12

Meeting Point

Galerie Koo presents We Met by Hong Kong sculptor Joe Li. Fascinated by the possibilities of fate and destiny, the artist encourages viewers to be conscious of the people in their lives by re-examining the ties that initially brought them together.
Until February 11

Hero image courtesy of Crafts on Peel and Galerie Koo.

The post Wood, Paint and Print: Here Are The Exhibitions to Visit 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 Hauser & Wirth’s First Global CEO Ewan Venters on His Role and the Gallery’s Sustainable Agenda appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Takesada Matsutani is one of the most relevant voices of Japan's post-war unique atheistic and artistic expression. A member of the Gutai Group, one of the first radical artistic groups that emerged in the country in the early 1950s as a response to the reactionary social and cultural context of the period, Matsutani remains one of the most important Japanese artists still working today.

Thanks to a combination of different techniques, media and artistic forms, his works continue to demonstrate the spirit and essence of Gutai. To celebrate Matsutani’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, we spoke to Hauser & Wirth's Senior Director Fiona Römer about the artists' legacy and ground-breaking works.

Can you tell our readers more about Takesada Matsutani and his legacy?

From the early 1960s until the 1970s, Osaka-born, Paris-based artist Takesada Matsutani was a key member of the influential post war Japanese art collective, the Gutai Art Association. For six decades Matsutani has developed a unique visual language of form and materials. As part of the Gutai group, Matsutani experimented with vinyl glue, using fans and his own breath to manipulate the substance, creating bulbous and sensuous forms. By working closely with the material, this approach embodied an important aspect of Gutai: letting material and spirit work in conjunction with one another to create something new.

How does Gutai art fit into the post-war aesthetic of Japan?

Japan in the decades following World War II underwent a period of unprecedented expansion, and artists responded to the dramatic social changes in kind, unleashing an irrepressible creative spirit that was both provocative and innovative, opening to experimental movements, new trends in abstract artistic exploration and materialist aesthetics.

Arising out of a long century of war and conflict, the Gutai Art Association was a seminal group founded in 1954, which sought to challenge the entrenched framework of representative artistic traditions in Japan. The name “gutai” combines “gu” (technique, instrument) and “tai” (body), which translates as “concreteness”, it articulates one of the Gutai group's most distinctive traits - their desire to physically engage with an extraordinary range of materials. The name also anticipated their investigations into the reciprocal connection between matter (paint, chemicals, tar, mud, water) and physical action (breaking, exploding, tearing, dripping). They wanted to create a new kind of art that explored the relationship between the human spirit and material.

"We have decided to pursue enthusiastically the possibilities of pure creativity."

The Gutai Manifesto

What are the most relevant works included in the artist's first solo exhibition in Hong Kong?

First inspired by blood samples he had viewed under a microscope in the 1960s, Matsutani began to develop his signature style of circular, bubble-like forms from blobs of vinyl glue that he deposited on the surfaces of his canvases. Matsutani went on to refine his unique method of pouring vinyl glue, inflating it with his own breath and slicing it or letting it collapse on itself as he dried it with a fan. The strange, sensual forms of works that resulted can be seen in many works in the show, some evoke deflated balloons, such as ‘Puffed up-1’ (2020) and ‘Puffed up-2’ (2020); or flesh and wounds, in ‘Slow Slow 20-6-8’ (2020). Arising from an elegant painterly surface, the shapes were simultaneously attractive and repulsive, sculptural and dynamic. The long hours that it takes to pour, dry, inflate and cut the vinyl glue, infuse the work with a sense of lived time.

What can people expect from the exhibition?

This is Matsutani’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, we are excited to have included new mixed-media paintings, works on paper, assemblages and an important site-specific installation from the artist’s archive. The exhibition spreads both floors of our gallery space (15F & 16F of H Queen’s). The exhibition starts with the most recent production, some of which produced during lockdown in 2020, while on the lower floor, we had a chance to re-install his incredibly energetic “The Magic Box”, which had not been seen since the late 80’s. The work expresses best his sense of energy and movement and a pinnacle in realising the 3-dimensionality present in all his work.

Over his 6-decade-long career, how has his style evolved?

As one of the most important Japanese artists still working today, Matsutani has kept his voice until now and being able to continue his very unique vocabulary. He carries on demonstrating the spirit of Gutai throughout his practice, conveying the reciprocity between pure gesture and raw material.

Does Paris influence his art? What about Japan and its culture?

Matsutani moved to Paris in 1966. Living in Paris in the 1970s with limited resources, Matsutani was compelled to reconsider the essential tools of art-making. The inexpensive materials of graphite and paper allowed the artist to discover the elementary and immediate technique of black and white drawing. He was exploring what surface could emerge out of an accumulation of repeated pencil strokes – a practice he has continued over the last 40 years. As the deep blackness began to materialise, the process became almost diary-like, with each stroke upon stroke and the deepening tone representing the passing of time. The drawings, taken as a whole, provide an impressive summary of Matsutani’s practice. In one, there is the pencil’s insistence; in another, an oscillating in stream is evaporating. His zen-like approach to these simple materials and the meditative repetition of the strokes allowed Matsutani to consider their connection to his Japanese heritage.

Is the Gutai Manifesto still relevant today for Matsutani and his works?

Yes, very much so. As the founder of Gutai Jiro Yoshihara said in The Gutai Art Manifesto – "We have decided to pursue enthusiastically the possibilities of pure creativity. Gutai art does not change the material but brings it to life." We can still see these in Matsutani’s practice. The use of the Vinyl glue as central to a majority of his production has remained unsurpassed and innovative.

"Takesada Matsutani" will run until February 11 2021 at Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong

The post Hauser & Wirth’s Senior Director on Groundbreaking Japanese Artist Takesada Matsutani appeared first on Prestige Online - Hong Kong.

Dubbed the "gallery of the future", Hauser & Wirth’s newly launched research and innovation arm, ArtLab, has just announced that it will host its first ever virtual reality exhibition on 30 April. The group exhibition, titled Beside Itself, takes place in Hauser & Wirth’s future gallery space in Menorca, allowing visitors a first look at the art centre ahead of its opening in 2021.

ArtLab was birthed by Hauser & Wirth after intensive research in the summer of 2019 to create bespoke technology solutions for the most pressing issues in the art world, including greater accessibility and sustainability. The ArtLab team began exploring innovations that would allow audiences to fully experience exhibitions in different local contexts without traveling —a project that takes on greater meaning and urgency amid the coronavirus pandemic— while permitting artists, curators, and exhibition coordinators to better prepare shows using new technology. In addition, ArtLab will also host a digital residency program at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles for artists and their teams by invitation to enabling them to explore the full potential of this new technology. Using a bespoke technology-stack not found in any other industry and drawing from techniques applied in architecture, construction and video-game design, Artlab creates true-to-life scale and accuracy as well as the authentic look, feel and interactivity of Hauser & Wirth galleries. Building the virtual 3D space from the ground up at a pixel level rather than relying on combined photos, HWVR provides an unprecedented level of accuracy and flexibility.

[caption id="attachment_206409" align="alignnone" width="1454"] ArtLab, in software installation view of Ellen Gallagher’s ‘DeLuxe’, 2004-2005 and Mark Bradford’s ‘Chicago’, 2019 created in HWVR (Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth and the artists)[/caption]

Visitors will be able to experience the virtual reality exhibition through the gallery’s website. Taking its title from a wall piece by Lawrence Weiner, the exhibition brings together text-based works from the following artists: Louise Bourgeois, Mark Bradford, Charles Gaines, Ellen Gallagher, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Luchita Hurtado, Mike Kelley, Glenn Ligon, Damon McCarthy, Paul McCarthy, Bruce Nauman, Lorna Simpson and Lawrence Weiner. Spanning a period from the 1970’s to the present day, these works explore the intersection of text and the visual image from Bourgeois’s etching ‘Le Coeur Est La’ to Mark Bradford’s bold printed words in ‘New York City’.

Iwan Wirth, one of the founders, made the following statement regarding this new venture:

[inline-quote author="Iwan Wirth"]"Our primary goal was to create technology that would help our artists visualise the spaces where their exhibitions would be presented. We were equally motivated by a desire to plan exhibitions for our locations around the globe in a way that would reduce the amount of travel and transportation. Given the current situation, we feel this new approach to virtual reality exhibitions is especially relevant, will engage as many people as possible and bring them together while we’re all apart."[/inline-quote]

‘Beside Itself’ will open on 30 April 2020 and can be accessed by a computer, smart phone or using a VR headset such as google cardboard.

Preview the Virtual Reality exhibition space here:

The post Hauser & Wirth Presents its Latest Exhibition in Virtual Reality 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.