simonbirch

decemberist

2011-12-01T22:50:00.000-08:00

My last work before leaving yesterday, Foxglove, 150x150cm, oil on cnavas.

Recent interview with my thoughts on HK....

http://necescity.com/profiles/item/1770-simon-birch-–-hk’s-prodigious-son.html

Apologies for not blogging for a while, life gets in the way sometimes..

So I've left HK. It's been a rollercoaster.
OK, not leaving forever but at least long enough to gain some perspective.
It's odd how that perspective changes exponentially over the hours as one crosses the world to arrive here, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan Island. As HK recedes, my mind fills with ideas and clarity.
Anonymous and unfamiliar, with no schedule is quite refreshing for me. In HK life is frantic and the pace and urgency of it all can leave one unfocused, distracted.

It is cold here but the sun is out and bright blue skies take the edge off the chilly air. My mission here is simply to breath after an intense year of activity with the formation of Future Industries (thefutureindustries.com) the production of my solo show 'Laughing With a Mouth Full of Blood', the building of 'Hope and Glory' in Beijing, production of the 'Traces' exhibition for Stanley Wong, installation project with Lane Crawford and the production of a book of my work soon to be launched with Louis Vuitton and on and on.....

As if that wasn't enough I had to relocate as my apartment of ten years is set for demolition. I renovated my studio and that has become my temporary home. I won't get into my love life but needless to say it's been...colourful.

I plan to work here over the next month, will be interesting to see how the city seeps into my work. While I'm here my bro Daniel Wu is here with me making a movie, so I'm not all on my lonesome. I expect to be inspired by all that NYC has to offer, the galleries and museums being the priority of course.
I've sold a lot of work here recently, even in this awful economy, so will be interesting to see what's going on in reality.

Will go explore over next few days and report back!

SB
x

The things that keep me alive keep me alone.

2011-09-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Soil

2011-09-06T01:52:00.000-07:00

Feels like it's been the hottest summer in a while. Have been hiding away somewhat experimenting, planning and scheming.
I set up a little gallery/office in Square Street, Central, Hong Kong and there the Future Industries team have been strategizing and researching as we work towards a number of huge HK based projects. Always a challenge in HK to work outside of little white cubes.
I'm slowly sweating my way through ideas, making mistakes, bouncing between formality and abstraction...and doing a lot of drawings. These are all around 1.5m sq or bigger.

Cinder

2011-07-04T23:23:00.001-07:00

oil on canvas, 2011, 150x150cm

La Flama Blanca

2011-07-03T22:37:00.000-07:00

A week surfing in Mexico. I always think I'm a way better surfer than I probably am. I paddle out confidently and in my mind everyone around me is an amature, if I mess up it's never my fault. The truth is I'm pretty average but I enjoy it anyway and I got more than my fair share of waves. Perfect 3-6ft everyday.
I surfed almost every spot on the Baja peninsular from rocky beach breaks to endless right-handers on shallow reefs.

The weather is unseasonably cold, the water too. One day we hiked around the coast and find beaches carpeted with dead fish. Thousands and thousands. Everyone thinks it's a sign of course but then people always think everything is a sign.
There's a feeling that there's more bad weather, more earthquakes, more omens, global warming and whatever else. I think it's also likely that there are more people now, so more are affected when disasters happen and it's more thoroughly and intensely reported.

20 million were lost to famine in India in 1896. In1918 Spanish flu killed as many as 50million worldwide, pretty harsh after WW1 killed 9million. In 1923 over a hundred thousand killed by earthquake in Japan. In 1931 a flood in China killed over 2 million people.

In 1816 a volcano in Indonesia caused the world to have no summer, for a year the global temperature dropped and strange weather effects were reported as the ash filled the sky. This was just after the Napoleonic wars, Europe was recuperating. General fatality rates doubled worldwide. I imagine they thought this was the end of the world. Clearly it wasn't.

In 1908 a meteor hit Tunguska, an unpopulated area of Siberia. Over 2000 sq kilometres of forest was knocked down by the blast that was equal to a thousand atomic bombs. It broke windows hundreds of kilometres away.
It wasn't even investigated until 1921 and a proper exploration in 1927. The greater world didn't really hear about one of the largest meteor strikes in human history for over 15 years after it had happened.

Imagine that happening today. The world would know about it moments later and there would be panic. I imagine that there's nowhere in the world where such disasters might strike and affect no-one in the 21st century.

The more populated part of Baja is Cabo and we explore some other resorts and the neighborhood.
We meet local surf legend Mike Doyle. He was a surf champion back in the 50's and now runs the surf school at the local break. He's weathered and old but still surfs and kite boards. He's a bear of a man and has the most lovely and energetic wife. They invite us to a house party hosted by a wealthy industrialist.
Mike tells me stories of surfing in spots that are now overdeveloped and mobbed that in his day were desolate and lonely. He surfed the world before anyone knew what surf was. He surfed with Duke (Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola) Kahanamoku, the godfather of surfing. I ask him if it bothers him that those lonely breaks are now packed with surfers, he says you have to evolve or dissolve.

All the people at the party are old and burnt but good fun nonetheless. There's great food and a free bar and even entertainment from a bunch of dancers who spin fire sticks around like a minature cirque de soliel.
The owner of the multimillion dollar villa makes his money by installing systems that control toxic environments at quarries and factories, steel plants and mines. Business is clearly good. They go to church a lot, they are kind and generous.

I get talking to his friend Lance. He's a retired lawyer. Lance actually retired many years ago very comfortably but was convinced to come back for one last case. That case lasted for the the last 15 years and destroyed him.
An airline pilot friend came to him complaining of health issues that may have stemmed from an oil leak in the cockpit a year previously. On investigation the fluid was indeed toxic and they sue the airline for compensation. The airline claims the fluid was not toxic but the lawyer is persistent and proves otherwise. The airline has an enormous legal department and funds at it's disposal and keeps what should be a very open and shut case tied up for fifteen years, hoping the claimant will just run out of money. Lance has to put all his own money and his house in to keep fighting for justice. Miraculously he eventually wins against the mighty corporation but the settlement is tiny compared to the effort and investment in the fight.

He tells me before he took the case he had always been on the corporate side and he had always won. He had a confident perspective because of that and an idealism that was then crushed when he tried to take on a worthy battle against the very people that had made him rich and successful.

On another night I hang with Amanda from HK, Eva and Maggie (who has her own tv show called Nikita). She's about to start filming a second series. They've organized a private movie on the beach at the front of the resort they are staying at and we sit by the fire stuffing our faces in the dark watch Bonnie and Clyde, the 60s classic. The pace of it is just so different to contemporary film it's hard to be engaged. Everything seems cliche. But that's because we've seen inspired remakes of every scene in a thousand films since then.

On the plane back to civilization now and one foot into the airport and one is confronted by the usual painful experience. Masses of people being herded through the usual system of baggage inspection, security where people still haven't learned to take off all their metal shit and mobile phones, and inevitably the airline finds a way to screw more money out of you. Even though I paid over the top for my flight they get another $150 out of me for the surfboard, even though it was only $100 coming here, then Cathay get another $200 out of me for changing my flight time. Airlines just fuck you ever time. They are shameless about it. They know that any change or excess or whatever you present them with when you get on that flight is an opportunity to screw you for more money because, they have worked out very well, that you have no choice. Any change you make to your plans is for a reason so they know you will pay. They know your other option is don't get on the flight, don't take on that excess baggage.

The whole airport experience is clearly contrived to get money out of you. There's a glut of shops and restaurants and bars, there's an atmosphere of urgency of consumerism, as if airport shopping is more imperative than regular shopping and, of course, it's all overpriced because there's no choice. If you remember you need a power adapter, there's no chance to zip back to wanchai for a 10 dollar one, you'll just have to buy the airport 50 dollar one.

And try finding a water fountain. They hide them so you have no choice but to buy bottled water.

Waiting for the boarding I grab a cup of tea and I watch a teenage girl get a coffee and add 8 sachets of sugar into it. She tastes it then adds three more. Not surprisingly she's overweight. She has a t-shirt on that is from a country and western singer's tour. Some people are straight out of a movie.

On the plane my 2 hour flight, that cost me $500 plus $150 for the surfboard, doesn't come with lunch. If I want a sandwich or a beer you have to pay for that too.
I tell the stewardess that I'm dissapointed at having to pay for a beer after being fleeced for $650. She says she's been in the same position and it makes her upset too and she gives me a free sandwich. It actually makes me happy.

But of course, I should be grateful I have the freedom and resources to even get on a flight anywhere in the world, to be able to surf, to experience air travel at all. I guess the issue is that it's so inconsistent. That on one flight you get all you need and it's reasonably priced and on another its awful and you pay double. That the guy next to me paid $200 for his flight but I paid over double. It's such a scam.

In LA I make a new friend, her name is Gretchen Jones. She is a fashion designer and is articulate and driven and I'm engaged by her ideas and inspirations. She is working in NYC about to launch her new season. She seems to be doing well. She's from the middle of nowhere so I ask how she managed to make it NYC. She tells me she knew what she wanted, to get into the greater fashion world, but was no connected to it in any way, so she took the innovative step of applying for a reality show called Project runway. She not only made it on the show, she won it. It was a way in, a fast track, though she clearly works incredibly hard and has much talent. She found a way and is seizing the opportunity.

Now I'm getting on the flight to hk. Home sweet home. Fuck I always miss HK. Being away really puts the city into perspective and I just love the town.
I take a Xanax thinking that I'll wake up on the tarmac at hk at 6am ready for the day but somehow I'm up 5 hours too early and don't wanna take another because I just don't like taking too many of any kind of chemical. So I watch a documentary that follows troops in Afghanistan in the heaviest warzone, a dense valley where they have multiple firefights very day. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to return to civilized life after living in such an intense situation, having your brothers die in front of you, being close to death yourself or taking life. I imagine it would be like living in an aquarium. Looking through the glass at this other world that has different rules, concerns, dramas, perspective. And there you would be inside this fishtank, nobody understanding you except for other fish.

It reminded me of being sick for so many months and as I made my way daily to hospital, being driven by friends, I would look out of the windows as people went to work, or helped their kids on the school bus or bought coffee at Starbucks and how that world was now so different to mine. How my day would be so abstract compared to other peoples. How I felt like an observer of human beings but somehow I wasn't one of them anymore, I was this oddity with a different pace and set of concerns.
I think all people feel like this at sometime in their lives. Sometimes this is good but at other times it's scary and people desperately try to find a way to be included, to be connected.

Then I watch a movie called Garden State. A friend reminded me of it recently and I realize I hadn't watched it since it first appeared many years ago. It's lovely and sentimental and romantic and has a cute soundtrack. It makes me think about love of course....but that's a whole other story that I'm not going to reveal on a blog.

The girl that reminded me of the film told me she had seen it many times, it was very insightful as to who she was. Movie choices are often revealing. I recommended that she watched the Charlie Kaufmann film, Synecdoche. I wonder if she thinks it's an insight into me.

A Prophet
Blade Runner
Donnie Darko
There Will be Blood
Michael Clayton
Solaris
Happy Gilmore

There, now you know everything about me....

Sascha

2011-06-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

Managed to squeeze in all that LA had to offer, every cute store, gallery, beach and bar possible.
Of course, if you know LA, you'll know that half of ones time is spent in a car. It's tedious. The city is so spread out and only connected by multiple lane freeways that crawl along most of the time. Off the freeways you're in the stop/start grid system passing endless fast food restaurants, enormous pharmacies and car sales yards.
There is little public transport. A few high speed trains would transform LA but there is simply no infrastructure development because the entire state is broke. As is the rest of the country. In fact it seems the country is regressing, things break and don't get fixed.
There was a time when America led the way in development, huge architectural projects, bridges, tunnels, railways exploding all over the country but now it's at standstill. It's quite poignant, especially coming from HK and China where there are subways and bullet trains and highways appearing overnight. Sorry to be down on America, it's still a wonderful country even with it's recent downturn. Hong Kong has it's fair share of issues too.

On the upside, amazing restaurants, great people and the most amazing galleries and museums......The gallery with the skulls and the big pig is called Blum and Poe, the work by one of my favourite artists, Zhang Huan, who i had the pleasure of meeting in HK recently. Super nice guy.

It's summer but the coast has been unseasonaly grey and cold, the June gloom. the water is cold too but I managed to get a few good sessions at Malibu 3rd point, one of the best waves in LA on a good day.

Lunch at Chateau Monmart was lovely and typically surrounded by Hollywood people and a few celebrities but it's all very low key off peak. The rooftop at The Standard downtown was also a highlight, especially when the sun finally melted the haze and bought stunning blue skies and views of the streets of the city so familiar from so many movies. Richard Lewis sat next to me (from the show Curb your Enthusiasm) and I almost said hey what's up, because he is so familiar but then realized he would have no idea who I was. He looked old.

On the art side we checked out the LACMA, an amazing sprawling facility with a number of massive galleries showing everything from artifacts to contemporary art. They also had a show of Tim Burtons work which was pretty cool except that you weren't allowed to take photos which was fucking annoying because, inevitably when you exit the show there's a fucking gift shop stacked with books that have photos of all the works you just looked at in them. So, paying to see the show wasn't enough, if you want a photo of the stuff you just saw, you have to buy a book.

But that's America, you have to pay for everything. And then you have to tip everyone even though the service is shit. People just expect you to give them this money even though they do the absolute minimum to deserve it. Hong Kong is the opposite.

These following shots are from the LACMA. Amazing and slick facilities....

I sneaked in a couple of photos of Tim Burtons stuff, what a dick for not letting people take photos. The security staff were real nazi's about it too...

A more interesting part of the show was a selection of work picked by Tim Burton from the museums collection, work that inspired him. He didn't mind you taking photos of other peoples work .....

The following shots were all taken at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, a huge graffiti retrospective showing the whole history of the artform. Really well put together and fun. I'm not a huge fan of this stuff but found it very entertaining nonetheless. The Sex Pistols original artwork. Barry McGee and Mr Cartoon were the highlights for me, Banksy was without doubt the lowlight, am so over the novelty of his work. But that's what I love about the art world, you got heroes and villains, liars and saints, hype and integrity...keeps things colourful.

Before I leave I manage to have one wild night out. A friends awesome 80's themed birthday party full of hipsters all the way out in the OC. after we head on to Newport Beach where we get shitfaced at the local clubs (great names like Sharkeys and Woodies) with the whitest trashiest crowd I've seen in a while. The women look like future cougars and the men like guys that were on the water polo team who now work at a car dealership. It's a hedonistic, desperate scene with bad music, bad cocktails and bad tattoos, fake tits and obesity. Nonetheless we embrace, submit to the adventure, get into the spirit of it and make the most of it, so it ends up being a lot of fun. We all and end up at some random blurry house party with super nice people. I meet a girl who is the most awesome and prettiest that OC has to offer (she made me write that).

AKJZ

2011-06-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

New York was a whirlwind. With only 2 full days there was much to do. Straight off the plane I hooked up with a bunch of people old and new. Max and his entourage whisked us off in blacked out cars to 'The Standard', the latest hot spot hotel with a club called 'Le Bain' which features a massive hot tub in the middle of the club which the wasted inevitably tumble into. From there on to 'Madame Wong's' and from there after, the night was a blur.
I stayed at the Ace Hotel, the ultimate hipster hotel (so fucking sick of hipsters, fixed wheel bicycles, RayBan's and side partings and cliche retro tattoos). Still, the hotel was wonderful and from there, over a couple of days, I managed to squeeze in all the NYC had to offer. NYC is wonderful, the design of it, the details, the public space, the secrets, the architecture and on and on.

I didn't take many photos, have been to NYC so many times and taken so many photos over the last few years. Caught with almost everyone on my list including the wonderful Lee Burridge (an ex-HK resident now a superstar international DJ). We took a posse down to his event on a rooftop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 'all day I dream of'.

Also managed a lunch with Charles who picks up the tab and as usual reminds me I'm on the right trajectory. Just do your thing and do it well.
His magazine Artforum is such a shining example of the genuine, and his team are a family. It's how I hope Future Industries will develop, organically with integrity. It's not the most profitable route but it's the most enriching.

La Esquina, Central Park, Freemans, and on and on. The only disappointment was missing Alexander McQueen at the MET which we'd heard so much about, closed on Monday's (NYC is supposed to be the city that never sleeps but that's bullshit, all the shops close at 5.30 as do the museums and many have a day or two when they're closed. Hong kong, that's a city that doesn't sleep).
I'm not much of a fashion fan but I picked up the book of the McQueen show and was surprised to see similarities with some of the monsters I've produced (not to suggest I am anywhere near that amazing talent!!). Subliminally influenced I suppose, as it is with all work one produces. Made me want to do a runway show, maybe in another life...

Above are works by me and below the late great McQ....

bruise

2011-06-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

So here we go again, traveling at magnificent speed across the universe. It's mid-June of 2011 and there I was thinking it was only April.

I'm writing this in the air in a tiny little seat, flying to NYC after a very hectic few months. We opened Hope and Glory in Beijing, then 'Laughing with a Mouthful of Blood' a couple of weeks after and the Prodip show, Tribe of Many Colours'.

Beijing, Hope and Glory @ G-Dot Gallery

Hong Kong Museum of Medical Science

The two painting shows of my work and then prodips were successful in many ways. We pulled a great crowd at the openings and have seen a lot of traffic at the funny little medical museum hidden away amongst the skyscrapers around soho.

Both shows can be considered installations. My work, oil paintings of the human body, fits in conceptually with the building that has a hundred year medical science history. A building that served as a pathology lab, where bodies would have been rigorously studied, now filled with art that is all about the body. Much of my painting is layered using palate knives and, not surprisingly, I think of doctors using scalpel knives to open and examine bodies in the same space where my work carves and dissects flesh in a very different way.

Prodip's work, shown in the smaller annex space, connects beautifully with the space and it's history too, as they show a very different vision that involves science and art. Depictions of aliens and UFOs. One in particular shows a mutilated cow, the victim of an alien investigation.

That is the thread that joins it all, art and science.

It's been a thoroughly enjoyable experience for us all involved, there are around 10 of us involved in the project. The show had to be built, the museum doesn't normally have a clean white space inside so we built one temporarily. The show also had to be promoted, opening parties organized, people given tours, talks and lectures, posters stuck around town and on and on.

A huge amount of work went into building what may seem a tiny little exhibition. But that is HK unfortunately, it's difficult to make art here but the audience seems to understand that and people are very supportive and spread the word and drop by multiple times.

All of us have been hanging out at the space whether we need to or not because it's just the nicest place to hang out and we sit on the steps outside in the garden drinking beers and listening to the cicadas.

Before I got on the plane this morning I did a talk with a group of people connected to, or on the committee that manages, the museum. Most of them are retired older ladies and they are enthusiastic and ask many questions and we have a good chat. I worried that there might some awkwardness as the works show nudity and hint at violence and that the title of the show might seem horrific in someway. But then I realized much of the group were retired from medicine, so I was talking with pathologists, oncologists and haemotologists. Little old ladies who would have spent years living amongst blood and guts, births and deaths. Probably one of the most unshakable audiences I've ever spoken too.

I've done a few talks recently, they are always a bit nerve racking but it seems a worthwhile contribution, to share information with the community. I don't preach, I just kinda tell my story.

The work sold very well. Prodips sold out instantly. His first ever exhibition, the work was affordable and high quality. PD has been involved in graphic design, music and illustration for over 20 years so he's no amature.

It was all very encouraging, both HK and Beijing shows. Especially being the first 2 projects managed by 'Future Industries', the arts organization that now manages me, Prodip and others. Future Industries is like a gallery without a permanent space and there are a number of huge projects coming up that should really keep things interesting. The FI vision is to produce large and small exhibitions, by local and international artists, in interesting environments both here and abroad.

......

There's been some stuff in the papers about Hope and Glory and the government.

Hope and glory was a massive risk but succeeded in so many ways. Over 50000 people came to see the show even though it was stuck all the way out in Taikoo. It got an enormous amount of press here and abroad. It was given huge support of 'in kind' sponsorship. Not cash (that was supplied by myself from sales of paintings). Swire giving us the space for free (the normal rent would be nearly 5 million HK dollars) and high profile sponsors like Louis Vuitton, Diesel, Absolut Vodka and Shanghai Tang contributing much. Many HK artists and individuals contributed much time and effort to the project giving it a wonderful community spirit. Over 400 people worked on the project.

An incredible achievement on an unprecedented scale. Overwhelmingly challenging but a magical adventure for all involved.

The reason for doing the project was simply a continuation of where i'd been heading conceptually. I loved the idea of doing something massive, on the scale of international art museums as we don't have such venues here. And I loved that it would be non-profit, a gift to my community, free for all to enjoy, because it's so opposite to the HK norm of trying to profit in any way possible from anything possible, from every square inch of this city. An idealistic statement and the realisation of art i needed to make.

Sadly the one black cloud was the government. They originally promised the project HK$2 million cash support. They advertised this widely and turned up at the big opening event to get their photos taken with movie stars.

We had been waiting for the money from them for a year after they had paid us an initial HK$1million. Finally, this month, they decided they would only give us a further HK$300,000. Leaving me personally to find the extra HK$700,000.

The shocking thing is we got no explanation for the reduction of contribution, even after they advertised recently how successful their grant was, in supporting HK events, and again stated they gave us 2 million. Well, they didn't. It is finally only 1.3 million.

The worst thing is that much of that 1.3million was taken up by admin costs trying to meet the government criteria after they demanded more and more documentation to prove the project happened. Really!

When they offered us the money, and we only had about 24 hours to accept the grant after receiving the massive contract, we added work into the project we had been planning to cut as we'd run out of money but now that they have cut their contribution we are worse off than if we had never accepted the grant. Shocking. The contracts in retrospect have such an insanely complex criteria, it's as if they were written to ensure there was no way an applicant would every get the full grant. this has been the case with all the organizations that have applied. No one got full funding.

So the final bill is that we paid HK$3.3 million. The government paid only HK$1.3 million. And remember, $0 income.

Annoying because I have a feeling the government have a bit more spare cash than us. And even more annoying that the fund only used half it's budget over the period and has about 40 million dollars left which they don't know what to do with.

Oh well, I guess we learned a valuable lesson and a painful insight into the way our city is managed, and into bureaucracy, documentation, and project management. I'm sorry if it sounds like i'm whining, it is what it is. I could get into some David and Goliath lawsuit and try to fight for the money but honestly, i'm just too fucking busy and I'm really just very grateful i even got to make the project at all. It was my choice, and I'm well aware that choices have consequences, not all of them good.

Amazing how difficult it is in hk to contribute creatively. This is something all local artists understand. Just to find a small space and get people to see your work is such hard work. Well, one way we can all make it easier is just simply to show more unity, to share our information and offer one another support wherever we can.

Anyway, we are kinda over the whole thing now and just focused on the future and all very excited about the shows we have on now and the ones coming up in the next year. In some ways that drama has spurred us on to really prove what a small band of pirates can do to impact our community with creativity.

Here on the airplane the lights are out 4 hours in to a 15 hour flight. I wander down the corridor passing the huddled bodies wrapped in uniform blue shrouds, the blankets that are remarkably thin but warm nonetheless. There's such a divide between passengers and staff. There's a real system on planes that subtly controls the passengers. Keeps them in their seats and subdued. The food, the lighting, the announcements, there's some kind of fine tuned pshycological game afoot that manages the cabin environment and all inside it. This is not a bad thing, just an observation. Im quite happy that people aren't doing shots and rockin out in the corridors even though you probably could while everyone is asleep.

I have lots of ways to stay alive on the plane. I wander, sleep using pills, chat to the staff in the galleys, snack, write, watch movies and there are secret spots you can hang out. There are bigger bathrooms at the back and if they're clean they are a great place to chill alone for a moment. Or with a friend! In the darkness you can even get away with lounging on the floor in certain areas, in the darkness when everyone is asleep. All this turns the trip into a very pleasant one. Submit and make the most of it.

It's always odd when people are in uniform. It's dehumanizing because you perceive them as different to us, that they are to serve or have authority just based on their garments. And they adopt that persona too. Airport security are often the worst examples along with building security guards in Hong Kong. The ones around big residential or commercial buildings times square in Hong Kong are the biggest fucking assholes. Just try sitting on some steps and it can turn into a major drama. Walkie talkies kick off then more guards come and it's suddenly a thing just because granny needed to sit for a moment.

Rocky

One of our team, Rocky, is with me on the flight so I've been annoying him as much as possible. He's meeting his girl in NYC. Very romantic. I'm meeting art world people, checking out galleries and hanging out with old friends. I have a pcked schedule over three days after which I race to LA for more of the same and then down to Mexico for an actual holiday! The first in many many months.

When you're in the middle of it all, the maelstrom of ones life, it all feels so important and so difficult to take breath from but of course you have to almost force yourself to take time out so you can really digest and reflect and come back with clarity, so the next set of decisions is better informed, rather than perhaps blurred by the activity that can consume you. So it was hard to take a holiday, worried that I might be missing some vital move in my strategy for world domination but actually, receding and digesting is the right move right now.

Just to be clear, I am not actually planning to dominate the world. Just to make better art and share it with the world.

Something about being on the plane, with no Internet, no mobile phone and the commitment of leaving one place to cross the world to another. Theres always a rush of ideas, emotions, reflections. Somehow one let's go of the daily problem solving stuff, bills and relationships, perhaps because it gets more distant by the second. There's nothing I can do about the damp in the kitchen while I'm half way around the world.
So your mind is free somehow and flies, just as the plane does. I've never ceased to be amazed just looking out of the window at the clouds below, it never gets boring. The earth from the air is just spectacular. The infinite variety of clouds, their density, color, landscape. It's like your flying over another planet. And you only get experience that ever changing view for a few hours on most flights, maybe a days worth over a year.

This flight is darkness all the way however so, along with my wanderings and writing, I watch tv. There's a documentary about circus. It's really interesting and the people who work there have such diverse and interesting histories but they become a family under the big top. It reminded me much of my own conceptual circus and the experience of bonding we all went through.

So will I produce something like that again? Yes, even though the money is a huge issue, I realize in hk that where there is a will, there's a way. My next large scale project won't happen for another year yet but it is on a massive scale. Now hk's art momentum is building so rapidly, as is my exposure, it becomes more and more possible to achieve some pretty ambitious stuff.

I have 2 main projects ahead. One is a huge temporary sctrucutre made of massive sails, each serving, on it's interior surface, as a projection screen. On these screens plays hundreds of films produced by a hundred filmmakers from all over the world. The content is mixed together, just like I used to mix music as a dj, so the pace rises and falls, relaxes and intensifies. Standing inside the massive fortress should be an overwhelming and enveloping experience. The climax is a series of car crashes including the destruction of my recently purchased Ferrari. I intend to love it dearly for the next year until I drive it down a freeway at top speed and hit a ramp, corkscrew it through the air and crash into a fireball at the end.

This will al be filmed in beautiful slow motion and played back across dozens of massive screens.

I'm writing on the floor by the emergency exit. There's plenty of room. There's a man standing next to me wearing open toe sandals. He has the grossest toenails ever. He most know this. He must have seen other people toes and realized his are hideous. So why does he want the world to share in his freaky brown twisted nails? Ugh, I feel nauseous. Anyway, shall go back to a happy place and watch the Inbetweeners for a bit. Always makes me laugh.

The pill worked well, bought across the counter from a backstreet pharmacy in hk. I'm out for a straight 8 hours as if nothing happened. I wonder what happened during that time. Did I snore, cuddle the guy next to me. Nobody would ever tell you I suppose. I'm the opposite, I always stop a snorer. Baby screams I go for ear plugs plus noise canceling headphones. No problem. The only real problem is fat people bulging into your space but then I just move.

Touch down moments away. There's a flurry of activity as everyone rushes to the bathroom, pulls their crap outta the overheads while listening to the warnings from the department of homeland security. America has such stupid names for every conceivable institution. The announcement uses a certain language, words like compliance and mandatory. Words that you rarely say in real life.

The planes wheels have barely touched tarmac when a dozen people get to their feet and start trying to pull their luggage down, the stewardesses shouting down the aisles at them to sit back down. What's the rush? There's another half hour before they even unlock the doors. Then everyone stands when the seatbelt light goes off but there's still a good 20 minutes waiting before the line shuffles forward. The everyone bolts for immigration which is painfully slow again. It's this part, the prequel at check in and being dragged through the system until you have to wait again for your bags that adds a couple of hours of draining experience onto the journey. The flight is one of the better parts of the experience of travel. But before and after there's stress and pushing and noise and rules and drama. There's just too fucking many of us for it to be any other way.

For my part I just chill through it all. Take a breath and just cruise through the whole adventure and enjoy the time on my own and work a bunch of stuff out in my head and on this wonderful little iPad.

May 19th

2011-05-11T02:21:00.000-07:00

New exhibition of my paintings opens next Thursday, May 19th at the Museum of Medical Science on Caine Lane, just off Caine Road, in Soho, Central, Hong Kong. It's on for 5 weeks.

Cantankerous

2011-05-04T03:58:00.000-07:00

Forgive me blogspot for I have sinned. It's been 4 months since my last submission.

I have been extremely busy working on a number of projects all at once.

The first was the rebuilding of Hope and Glory in Beijing which opened to a very warm welcome May 2nd. It was a big deal to us all involved that it didn't end up in the trash and we were able to find a way to re-stage a streamlined version of the show in SongZhuan, or Eastern Art District.

G-Dot Art Space. Central Gallery Street, Eastern Art District Songzhuang, Tongzhou Beijing
101118 China tel: +86 1316 1533 351

http://www.g-dotartspace.com/

The massive work on the wall I painted on site over a few days, it's my biggest work to date at 8m by 3m. Very much inspired by trapeze artists and Chinese ink washes, hence the monotone brush work.

As with HK, some parts of the show were in very dark spaces, though the gallery is normally all white. This means that I can't show photos of all the parts as they are too dark to photograph, including the horror film, 'Khor Virap', and the above 3D horse film, 'Juggernaut', and a couple of other films showing in pods, one of trapeze artists and another of a tiger.

We even put a video installation in the bathroom.

Most people have heard of 798 but in the last year many artists have been heading out to the cheaper, quieter and more spacious new art district. The government has a hand to play in this as it offered free land to well known artists if they were prepared to move to the new district. The artists did not hesitate to take the opportunity to move to free land and have built amazing, huge art studios and there are already 5000 artists living and working in SongZhuan and 200 galleries in various states of construction! That's some serious art activity! The entire district is like one big construction site right now but in a couple of years it should be the main art district for the whole of China. It's incredible on many levels but incredible isn't always good. Time will tell. It's a bit out of the city but the government have obliged by building a direct underground line specifically to the centre of the art district.

Friends of ours from Hong Kong had built an enormous and beautiful space, naming it G Dot, and, though new to the art world, were enthusiastic and supportive in offering us the space and resources to make it happen. It was kind of a no-brainer.

Super nice people, the owners and their staff were so helpful and accommodating. We had the most fun there and were so well looked after. Valerie Doran, who played an important part on building Hope and Glory in Hong Kong, stepped up as curator and spent some time up in BJ re-configuring the project to work in the space (at 10000sqft, half the original show space in HK).

She decided to focus on particular parts of the show so it wasn't quite the same experience as HK but beautiful in a very different way, less intense for sure but peaceful, like an epilogue.

The show is on until July and open every day from 10-8. The opening was a great success, especially considering it's a bit of a trip to get there but especially because some of China's greatest art critics turned up and spent all night wandering around, it added real credibility to the night. Will be interesting to hear how the show is received over the coming months. The opening was sponsored by Absolut vodka who helped us out in HK too so we all got pleasantly shitfaced and had a great night.

We are all incredible grateful for the opportunity to have the show rebuilt in Beijing. A huge thanks to all involved.

China just barrels forward, such an unstoppable force. It's evident everywhere as you drive around through the sand blowing in from the desert which coats the entire city in a fine coat of dust. As we drove across to 798 from SongZhuan we passed a neighborhood of construction rental equipment. That non-stop journey took 20 minutes. Hundreds upon hundreds of yards stacked with cranes, cement mixers and trucks. China does things on such a ridiculous scale.

All taken in the studio of Cang Xin, a great artist and friend who contributed work to hope and Glory when it was in HK.

In 798 it's business as usual, busy with tourists wandering the vast, slick, exhibitions spaces. Another neighborhood with a different type of construction business. I caught up with artist friends and not surprisingly the talk was of Ai Wei Wei (and many others in this current wave of locking people up, human rights lawyers, artists and poets amongst them). People were not surprised the authorities finally took him in but all were fearlessly supportive. Many of the artists I know there have already served time in jail for their work and do not fear that possibility again. It's humbling to be amongst artists who's idea of risk, who's commitment to their vision is on a whole other level.

We should all be grateful to the freedoms we have in our city and we should all support those who don't have it so easy. There was a time when people here stood up for their rights, which is why we enjoy such a comfortable life today. I feel strongly we are obliged to do the same for others.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/china

A few shots from 798

Back in Hong Kong now and finishing up new works for the Hong Kong show, my second major project of the year. It's called 'Laughing with a Mouth Full of Blood' and will open May 19th at the Museum of Medical Science, a beautiful Edwardian heritage listed building in Central, kinda between Caine Road and Bridges street. Most people don't know of it but it's such a unique building with a fascinating history as it was built, originally on the site of the plague outbreak in the late 19th century, as a bacterialogical insitute. A Hong Kong doctor was one of the first scientists to see the virus through a microscope right there as the plague spread across Asia killing 17 million people.

http://www.hkmms.org.hk/

It's relevant now as we are in an age of a different kind of virus, the spread of information through social networks. This connectivity interests me as an artist. Hope and Glory discussed this a little and my next mega-project does this even more thoroughly but I'll tell you about that one later in the year....

My show is paintings of people, bodies, heads. Naked flesh that would have been the subject matter of the museum when it was first built. The body, it's fragility, it's vulnerability and the invisible forces at work on it and in it. As those doctors would have scrutinized the body, so I dissect and re-assemble with oils and canvas......

The HK show is just paintings, no crazy installation. Though I love that kind of stuff, my passion for painting never ends so I've been hiding away for the last year producing new works and I hope that you will all come and take a look. The show is on for 6 weeks.

The show has presented a number of problems. Normally I would show at the wonderful 10 Chancery Lane Gallery but this year the timing was a bit off and I was on the lookout for an alternative space to show work. The Museum is not quite a gallery so we've had to temporarily and very cautiously re-design the interior, produce all the PR material, invites and catalogues, manage the PR, opening parties and on and on. All a huge amount of work and cost which is normally taken care of by the gallery representing the artist but with no gallery for this show we have to start from scratch, temporarily become a gallery. When I say 'we' I mean my new company, Future Industries (www.thefutureindustries.com).

After the enormous difficulty in producing Hope and Glory I decided to try to structure things more professionally for the future, so, I managed to gather together some like minded people and form a new organisation that can manage me, my projects, support other artists, all kinds of art related events, unrestricted and energised. We take all the experience of Hope and Glory, dealing with corporate, government, construction, PR, etc and focus it on future art projects. We have a long term plan for many pop-up art projects both here and abroad.

The new painting exhibition is the first of these FI projects. It will be our first test to see if we can successfully present, produce and manage an art exhibition (on a very different scale to Hope and Glory). We got ourselves an awesome manager, Laura, an office space and a few staff (always looking for interns!) and we're hard at work on the current shows and planning some awesome stuff. Stay tuned....

Taylor and Rocky, Future Industries design team, worked their asses off in Beijing!

Taking time out of my usual day job to do a little painting in Beijing.

Dini.

2011-01-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

In no particular order.....2010

This was 2010. I am eternally gratefully for all who have supported me and especially to all that put some much love and energy into Hope and Glory. It's been a full year and a wonderful time.
2011 looks like it's going to be even better...!

Tuesday part 2.

2010-11-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

trump

2010-11-09T23:57:00.000-08:00

Some shots from my recent exhibition in Tokyo at the Museum of Contemporary Art. On until end of January next year.

These shots are from a show at the Mori museum, one of the best shows I've seen this year.

Tuesday.

2010-11-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

krypton

2010-10-24T19:57:00.000-07:00

.......

2010-10-11T18:36:00.000-07:00

rebel, with or without.

2010-10-01T22:08:00.000-07:00

A typical day in sunny Hong Kong. I hit the gym in the morning, plugged into my ipod listening to UKG (dubstep). The gym is clean and dull but something to keep the blood moving when there's no surf. There are short muscular guys looking intense who, hard as they try, will never be as tall as me.
When I was a kid the gym smelled awful with rusty steel plates and rotten carpets, now it's slick and clean with personal trainers, house music and a juice lounge.

Back in the day I lived in a part of town with burnt out cars and dogfights. Now I don't but I still have a fear that when I put my card in the ATM it'll once again reject me and say 'insufficient funds'.

One day in the gym back in the grimy Midlands of UK, when i was 18, my bro, an enormous wolf, got into a row with another bodybuilder who, full of steroids, went home, got his shotgun and pushed it straight into the wolfs chest later that day. The wolf didn't flinch and the other guy couldn't pull the trigger. He left town the next day.
I don't think I'm gonna see any of that action in the spin class any time soon.

From there through the usual pile of emails, the management of my life, and on to the studio where the sun is shining, the radio is on, tuned to BBC1extra, DJ Ras Kwame.

I paint from noon until whenever and check my email now and again and try to keep track of progress on some pretty wild ideas for upcoming art projects. Guns, punk rockers, raves in the wilderness and meteors colliding with the city.

II wander across to the next building, in this sheltered industrial area, where there is a cafe, amongst many floors of expensive furniture warehouse stores. I'm usually covered in paint, dressed in tattered old overalls and when I enter the lift, any passengers fall silent.

At dinner recently my friends were telling me about their kid and what a wonderful life he enjoys. The kid is 5, he likes to paint so he spends much time scrawling away, then he'll eat and take a nap, then he'll play with the girl next door and run around in the park and, if he has time, will finish the day off with some video games and a good story book.

I said that was a typical day for me too.

Lucky kids.

I met a guy at my exhibition called Stefan Sagmeister. He's a very accomplished graphic designer from NYC and much in demand. I bought his book after meeting him, it's awesome. His work is wonderfully creative and contains much human/social commentary. Every 7th year he takes the whole year off and travels without any real plan to see where it takes him. He feels it re-energises and re-inspires his work.

Some years ago I did something similar after reading Kurt Vonnegut's 'Cat's Cradle', a future shock book that has interesting fictions about connectivity. I thought about people that had impacted my life, plotted them on a map of the world. I bought a round the world ticket, swept a girl off her feet to join my adventure and traveled from continent to continent, photographing people that I had connected with over many years. This documenting resulted in a huge book of portrait photographs and interviews. It was just a fun private project, no-ones ever seen it. But it was an inspiring trip and I have a wonderful book that catalogues that time of my life. I repeated the experiment 2 years ago with a few additions and subtractions.

laughing with a mouth full of blood

2010-09-20T00:54:00.000-07:00

Interesting times. Births, deaths, weather.

I'm at work while a typhoon rages in the background. I'm painting large messy figurative works. The future crashing inevitably towards them. It's very satisfying. Life's good when I'm just making art.
SB
x

poon

2010-09-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

magnolia

2010-09-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

Just back from a round the world adventure. First up was London where I was exhibiting as part of a group show called 'Daydreaming With...'. The exhibition was loosely based around the artists connections with James Lavelle of the band UNKLE, and was held at the, now Christie's owned, 'Haunch of Venison' gallery on Picadilly in the heart of London. The building is part of the Royal Academy building, a stunning Victorian space.

Goodbye Hong Kong...

Hello London....

The venue, Haunch of Venison. Honestly one of my favourite galleries (not just saying that because I'm in the show!). A real honor to have been invited to show my work there.

The main hall.

Kai and Sunny.

Futura

A human sized Bearbrick version of James that we made for a show in Hong Kong some years ago. There were hundreds of tiny see-through versions too. The tattoos on the bear are the same as Lavelle's own.

The wonderful Futura 2000, the original graffiti artist, from NYC.

These paintings are by 3D, from the band Massive Attack.

Painting by David Nicholson.

Film by Oswaldo Macia

Paintings at the end by Ian Monroe.

Installation by Turner prize winner Nathan Coley.

Cool video games by NYC collective, Faile.

Stunning painting by Jonas Burgert. I managed to grab him for a beer after the opening part, super nice artist from Berlin. Very inspiring.

Fully working robot by John Nolan.

My installation was of a horse galloping in the darkness, in slow motion and in 3D. It's very difficult to get the impact of it across with photos but there was very positive feedback. We originally showed the film at Hope and Glory but with Florian's help, we dramatically re-edited it for the Haunch show. Terribly expensive thing to do as the rendering in 3D is slow, technically demanding and complicated.

One of the best works was a film by Jonathan Glazer but, unfortuntely, like my room, his was a film also showing in an extremely dark room which meant it was impossible to photograph.

Also impossible to shoot was the work of Assi Glasser, who's contribution was a scent that subtly floated throghout the exhibition.

My room with the lights on. A protected heritage room, hasn't changed since Victorian times.

Some photos from the opening here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=16892&id=109959399052989&ref=mf

Upstairs from my show was a great exhibition, a very Hope and Glory-ish installation by Joana Vasconcelos.

This amazing, and difficult to shoot, room was a maze of glow in the dark plastic plants. Stunning in real life, the photos don't do it justice.

Lovely work also upstairs by Polly Morgan, a young British artist that works with taxidermy.

Tea break at the Wolsely. A London classic.

Typical summer day in London.

The same day an hour later.

As a favour for a dear friend, I managed to squeeze in a photo shoot for her brand new fashion brand. It's called Eponine and I can honestly say I was stunned by her work. Great stuff modeled by the lovely Yvonne. Not available in shops but soon to be online.

These are some shots from the Saatchi Gallery. This is a private museum, free entrance, owned by a wealthy art collector, Charles Saatchi. He buys tons of art and then shares it with the world.

This is a sculpture, not real people.

Saatchi had his own TV show in UK recently where artists competed to be the next art star, not unlike our parody film 'The A Factor' but for real. This girl won with her installation of a fence with a bit of tree stuck on it.

The basement of the museum houses a room full of oil, a beautiful installation by Richard Long.

Back to the Haunch to take some more shots of the spectacular work by Joanna Vasconcelos and Polly Morgan.

Bodies dressed with cable ties....seems familiar....

Lots of small things put together to make one big thing.

This was one of my favourite works. Large ceramic dogs that hung from a rack. There was a button on the floor which, when pressed, caused the entire work to rotate which in turn caused the dogs to smash into each other.

White Cube.

The Wolsely.

Quick trip around East London, always fun...

Hanging in Los Angeles, you might notice Dan and Lisa from Hong Kong.

The ever charming Conan Hayes. Just back from Taihiti. Having not surfed professionally for ten years, Conan decided to go enter the Teahupoo big wave competition spontaneously. He didn't get a prize but it's more amazing that he didn't die and actually made a bunch of 15ft waves.

My whip while in LA, new Porsche Cayenne. Dope.

To be continued...

Lea

2010-08-01T01:58:00.000-07:00

Success is such a relative thing.
Here is my idea of success this week. Just this, roughly 1 sq foot of oil paint, was a leap forward for me.

And the last shot is the 20 odd blanks canvases all waiting to be filled. These are commissioned works waiting to be produced. Busy little modified monkey.

buckingham

2010-07-26T03:56:00.000-07:00

We've uploaded all the films from the Hope and Glory installation to YouTube. They don't quite have the same impact when not seen as part of the installation but so many people have asked to see them, this seemed an easy way of sharing....enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/user/blakjakblakjak

warhole

2010-07-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

The view from my studio, today, July 19th, 2010.

The weather is stunning in HK right now. Every day is a blue sky. We had a big weather system come through which gave us a couple of days of waves and scrubbed the sky clean.

I have had a very eventful couple of weeks back in the city but now things are settling and i'm back to painting daily. It's such a therapeutic pursuit, much needed. It's so challenging but so satisfying in it's directness. Just me and the paint. I'm compelled to paint nudes right now. They are women with their arms stretched in front of them as if in defense. The future barreling towards them, an unstoppable force.

Here's a little clip from CNN. I was in this little documentary. It made me think about Pollock and how being in the media was such a new thing in the 50's as an artist and how it's just normal now.

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/07/15/cnngo.b.hong.kong.cnn

Haunch

2010-07-06T20:14:00.001-07:00

I'll be showing a film as part of this group show at Haunch of Venison in London. Awesome space, great group of artists.

http://www.daydreamingwith.com/

tryst

2010-07-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

Feeling sorry for yourself is not the right thing; feeling sorry for everybody else is.

I’m writing this as I fly back from a few days break in the USA. For some reason on airplanes I always get sentimental. I think it’s because you’re alone with no phone or internet and you can think undisturbed. It also reminds one of previous adventures and romance, beginnings or conclusions.

I stopped in LA first for a night before heading to Mexico to surf. I’d never been there before. Warm water and cactus filled desert, we surfed the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific off the coast of Baja.

We partied in Cabo as we watched the LA Lakers beat the Boston Celtics in an apparently historic game, somewhat lost on my American sporting ignorance, but a long night, drunk with new found Mexican friends, turned into day and an early surf served as the hangover cure.
The town was full of burnt, fat drunk people with bad tattoos.

We moved on along the coast to Todos Santos, much more authentic and stayed at my buddy’s hotel, the Hotel California from the song of the same name. A much more relaxed experience except for the heavier wave. My friend is Brento who, since the last time we met, has a lovely new scar from his chest to his shorts. He was shot through the abdomen in a hold up in Rio. The golden bullet somehow passed straight through him missing every one of his vital organs. It clipped his intenstines so they opened him up and stitched them together. Though for a week he was in intensive care, he recovered 100% and now lives life with the most relaxed and positive outlook. When he was shot he was with my other friend Marco who sadly was shot in the head and died right there in the favela.

Back to LA and a catch up with Giant Robot/Kid Robot to finish up and interview and article written up by our boy Daniel Wu then on to dinner with old friend Amanda and new friend Maggie Q on Sunset Boulevard. Maggie is an actress and activist of sorts, well informed and energetic for her causes and happy to speak her mind. It’s refreshing in a country where so many are PC. Maggie has been in a couple of movies, Die Hard 4 being one of them. She played a villain and Bruce Willis killed her. She tells me she likes it in LA because people are used to seeing movie stars so she doesn’t get hassled. She tells me she hopes to make a documentary about Aung San Suu Kyi.

From there to NYC to walk the streets and soak in the summer heatwave. I stay with Gary Gunn (who did amazing music for much of Hope and glory) near Harlem and have work related meetings and a spontaneous lunch with HK friends. We all head out at night and I meet a ton of people including Eliot who is 25 but looks 40 and is named after the kid from E.T. He acts cool but soon gets drunk on martinis and confesses he’s been following my blog. Not so cool after all….ha.

The next day I lunch with a writer friend, who proudly shows me his unique offices with the friendliest staff of talented art writers. His 20th floor corner office faces onto 3 sides of NYC with spectacular views.
Over lunch we talk about artists and tragedies. He’s a natural mentor and gives me much insight into the US art world and famous artists that he knows. It’s mostly as I expected with heroes and villains, charlatans, womanisers and dilettantes.

From there I check out potential art spaces and then do the rounds of NYC tourist stuff, The New Museum, PS1, Chelsea art galleries. I see a lot of ready-made/found object art. Piles of rocks or string, or plastic bottles, or a film of a ball bouncing endlessly.

It reminds me of Cattelan, he makes this kind of ready made/found object art too but his work is actually funny and he’s been doing it a long time and he doesn’t pretend that it makes him an artist. Unless he’s pretending that too as part of the joke.

On the flight home I watch The Lovely Bones, surprisingly directed by Peter Jackson. It upsets me and gives me hope at the same time. It’s a good film. It’s shot like a fairytale but it’s a story about horror.
I watch a documentary about America after WW2, how President Truman did a pretty good job, how he lived up to his word in Korea, the battle only tainted by McArthur’s ambitions. Now Obama fights in Afghanistan but it’s such a world a way from the clear cut, idealistic momentum of the world war 65 years ago and the battles that followed until Vietnam.

A day in Hong Kong in the pouring rain and I’m off again. This time to the Maldives to spend a week on a boat for a pure surf trip. I’ve been here a few times before. It’s an incredibly pristine collection of islands and atolls with some of the richest sea-life I’ve ever seen. Pods of dolphins, large turtles are everywhere and huge blue fish follow under my feet as I race along the wave. The waves are huge, between 4 and 6ft. This measurement is not accurate as 4tf means it’s overhead when you’re on the face of the wave and double your head height at 6ft.

I’m tired, trying to recover from the jetlag but also from the last 6 months of sleepless nights that came with the job of building Hope and Glory.
I dream much but when I’m awake I think about painting.

Back in HK there's much to do. Many overdue commissioned works, tying up the loose ends of Hope and Glory (endless paperwork!!), the book launch, music video production, preparing for London and Tokyo shows, planning and scheming. But the main thing is to get some painting done for myself. Nice and direct.

heartland

2010-06-07T05:29:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday and I’m Taiwan. I spontaneously jumped on the plane to get a little weekend away. A had a friend I wanted to catch up with and to go check out the surf. I’d never surfed taiwan before but had heard good things.

Figured I’d go recon the deal-eo.

Super easy set up. The flight’s only and hour and a half and you can be in the water an hour after grabbing your luggage. So I guess you could catch the morning flight, surf by lunchtime and get the evening flight back and it would actually be an easier trip than going to dai long wan (big wave bay in sai kung).

I’m now in the business class lounge waiting for the final call. Not that I'm traveling business class, I just have a card that gets me access. Who pays for business class for an hour and a half flight? Always wait until the last minute to get on the flight, I never understood why people raced to the line up so they can be first to sit down an hour before the flight leaves? Why would you want to be in that shitty economy seat any longer than you absolutely have to?

The lounge is full of business people. Mostly men. They all look similar. Bad trousers, polo shirts and laptops. They grab handfuls of whatever is available at the buffet; grey, tiny sandwiches, tiny bowls of peanuts and glasses of coke. There’s a little 'it's free, go crazy' frenzy to it.

The guy behind me keeps coughing, he is a Chinese guy, 50, with a fat belly with his trousers pulled far too high by a black leather belt and a shiny buckle. He has a phone clipped to the belt and the plainest shoes I’ve ever seen. He chokes his way through another little bun and wanders across the room and stares revoltingly at the only woman in the lounge. She doesn’t notice this as she’s engrossed in her laptop.

Another guy wanders in and has the exact same outfit and look except a slightly different pattern on his polo shirt. It must be some secret salesman uniform.

Flying always makes me sentimental. Perhaps it’s the disconnect. You have to turn off your phone and laptop and suddenly you’re alone with your thoughts, sat with strangers, snorers and babies screaming.

I remember good things. Loves, adventures. I remember other flights, beginnings, trajectories. Flying is a commitment. A decision to follow a path. There's no way off half way through.

The seat is small and the food is awful (so I don't eat) but I never forget how wonderful it is to be in a little chair in the sky, flying from one country to another. I always enjoy the flight no matter how shitty the service is, or crappy the plane is, it’s still an absolute luxury to fly. Every take off I've ever experienced has been a wonder.

On the plane I'm sat next to the same girl that was leered at in the lounge. She asks me what I'm reading and we start to talk. The conversation lasts the entire flight. She's a Taiwanese girl who studied in Boston and is now working out what to do with her life. She wants to produce window displays. She tells me she's planning to go for an interview but she's worried they won't give her the job because she's small and they'll think she can't handle carrying the decorations around. I tell her not to make assumptions, that she may the perfect candidate because she is small as there's not much space in windows. She smiles broadly.

When I get back I have to go straight to work at the studio to carry on with overdue commissioned paintings. I also have to continue to deal with the aftermath of Hope and Glory. Endless accounting, quantification, collating and documenting. I also have a lot of people to thank, acknowledge and reward.

I read the paper, there’s an article about the artist Louise Bourgeois. She died last week. She talked about her work being psychoanalysis; that it was a way of coming to grips with her anxieties and fears, an attempt to be a better person.

I feel the same way. Through my work I can do something worthwhile, something meaningful. I can be a better person.

And.....

2010-05-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

So that was that.
What a beautiful ending to Hope and Glory!

We had such a lovely last day, thousands came through the space, many friends dropped by to say goodbye to the exhibition. It was a joy to watch. Hope and Glory is just so different to any exhibition I've ever seen.
I stood in the corner with Amanda watching as little kids ran around laughing, arty teenagers taking thousands of photos, little old ladies looking bemused and people generally clambering over sculptures, screaming from the horror movie and laughing at the lighter films in the show.
A really wonderful energy running through the space.
The nicest thing was people came up to me constantly yesterday for photos or autographs but also to shake my hand and to thank me for the show! This was really very touching for me. That people understood the endeavor of the exhibition and recognised it in a simple and direct communication. It's nice when people say thank you.
I talked to a really old guy that just couldn't stop smiling and expressing his amazement at the scale and scope of the work. Another guy told me he'd been to the show twice a week since it had opened.
All very sentimental i know but it really cheered me up and made me realise we did something good in this town. It was worth all the time and effort.

So what next?

With much interest expressed for overseas to move the show I took the leap and rented a warehouse and am today packing the entire exhibition and putting it into storage. I will then offer the show for free to any museum anywhere in the world that's interested.

But what's really more exciting, is the next project. I won't reveal what it is yet but this thing will make Hope and Glory look like a school art project.

Thank you to all the people of HK and overseas who have made this show an unprecedented success. With limited time and money, no advertising other than a few posters and emails, we got 62,000 people to drag themselves all the way to Taikoo Place.
Overwhelmingly the reviews from press and public have been incredibly positive.
We pretty much achieved everything we hoped to. We ran a series of lively forums, had endless school and university groups, corporate and art tours, parties and fun stuff. We developed cultural software (we now have a team that are capable of running an entire art museum!). We got press all over the world including NY Times, Wall Street Journal and International Herald Tribune and even a pick of the month from ArtForum.
We came in under budget and achieved the numbers we set out to get and, from the responses from people interviewed, we have made a genuine positive impact on Hong Kong culture. Not everyone loved the show I'm sure but at the very least we certainly got people talking, on a massive scale, about art in HK, and hopefully inspired other artists to follow our level of ambition.

And on top of that, one of the coolest things was that Anthony Gormley came to see the show too! He's a British artist who is referenced in a couple of the films in the show and I had the pleasure of showing him those works. Super nice guy.

Me and Anthony!

We will be doing a pop up show sometime soon to launch the book and some other product that never made it to the show in time. Toys, t-shirts and certain bits of the show like the neon signs, will all be for sale.

Onwards and upwards!!

sb
x

tonight....

2010-05-28T19:19:00.001-07:00

party tonight!

last day tomorrow!

machette

2010-05-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

I once had a girlfriend who would cry every time she had an orgasm. I know a statement like this is ripe for sarcasm but it was as if she was consumed by loss. That the moment of happiness had slipped away uncontrollably.
Maybe my life is a situation comedy, a series of anecdotes.
I had dinner with friends at the weekend and sat next to an old Italian guy. He was a chef and we small talked. A few days later I met a friend for coffee at the Mandarin and the Italian was sitting in the middle of the restaurant alone on a table with 2 empty chairs. We sat down as if we'd been expected and talked a little, swapping stories of our histories, discussing books and films. The Italian asked us if we were hungry and then got up, walked into the kitchen, where, we saw through the glass windows, the chefs made way for him and allowed him access to their supplies. He bought back the best risotto I've ever had in my life. It turns out the man was Antonio Carluccio, OBE. One of the most respected chefs in the world.
He was 72 and a very simple man, polite, funny and considerate. I really like him. I wonder if I'd liked the risotto more if I'd known this? I found out later that he 'accidentally' stabbed himself in the chest a couple of years back. If I'd known I would've wanted to see the scar. I would've shown him mine too.

chunk

2010-05-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.artforum.com/?pn=picks&section=world#picks25593

A great review from ArtForum. Thanks Charles. Thanks Claire.

We finally got a review in SCMP. They really liked the show too. And a nice write up in Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703691804575255541850674232.html

On the whole people enjoy the show. Even little kids love it and run around the giant playground. The show is accessible to the un-initiated but I don't think it would be if there weren't such depth behind the facade. Without the year long conceptualising it would just be disneyland on crack.

Meanwhile I gotta finish this triptych for ArtHK which starts next Wednesday. I strongly recommend you go. It's always packed full of awesome art from 150 international galleries. See you there.

SB

852

2010-05-16T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's Monday and only a couple of weeks left for the show.

My buddy Greg has been here to visit. He has been in China doing business. He told me that Europe will be to the Chinese what Venice is to the rest of the world, a once mighty city, now just a tourist trap. That China has moved beyond the West already and they will no longer need us other than for 'amusement'.

We had an amazing turnout for the exhibition with 62000 people coming to see the work. And the wonderful thing was 90% were local Hong Kong Chinese.
This was very satisfying to see as I'd always hoped there would be an impact on the local community so clearly the word of mouth has been working, as has the generous pushing by all involved. Dan Wu, Grace Huang , Race Wong, Prodip, Alivenotdead, our staff and many more have all been promoting the show on blogs and facebook pages.

People who come to the show take a lot of photos of the work. It's a ripple expanding from the splash we've made. Well, I know HK people will take photos of anything, mostly what they eat at restaurants, but still, it's all about sharing information and recording experiences, so it's all good. Someone asked me why I would allow people to take photos of the work as it wasn't the usual practice in art galleries and museums. I don't see what is negative about people taking photos of my work.

I've certainly made a few complaints over the weeks but I think I have to take some of it back. The government took a huge risk by giving us any money at all and it sends out a wonderfully positive message to the HK art community; that the opportunity is there for support.
As far as I know this is the biggest contribution they have ever made to a HK artist project and they must be applauded and respected for this support (as should Swire). So they may be a little bureaucratic about how the event works and how we spend the money, but then so would I be if I gave someone a million HK$.
So to all those at the HKSAR Mega Events Fund, thank you so much for giving us some funding. We are extremely grateful.

Hopefully this opens the door for more artists in the future.

Building Hope and Glory has been a tremendous learning experience for all involved. I now know how to run an art museum! From construction, to PR, to accounts, to admin and event management. And so do Gary, Ingrid, Lyn, Viola, Coco and all our other staff.
We've managed to develop a full on art organisation. We can deal with government, corporate, audience, education, celebrity, kids. disabled....and handle maintenance, technology, security, finance. construction.....and on and on.
We've genuinely developed cultural 'humanware'.

I'm not sure what happens to all that knowledge and experience after the show. Maybe we should build our own permanent space out on that wasteland at West Kowloon.....

I think we'll all start work on the next project and see where it takes us but in the meantime for any artists or organisations out there, we have a wealth of information which you are welcome to access. For artists of HK especially, my door is open, you can have all my contacts, government application forms, inside info, whatever you need. Even the grumpy 60s,70s and 80s HK artists who think the show is shit. All you need to do is reach out and I will give you whatever information you need for free. Email me direct at: monkeymodified@gmail.com

Amazing show. Amazing People. No complaints. Everybody wins.

faint mohawk

2010-05-15T20:42:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday and it's been a great week at Hope and Glory.
The numbers keep going up daily, yesterday around 1500 people came through. I dropped by in the afternoon and there was a great atmosphere in the space.
I was introduced to a guy called Carsten. I had a quick chat with him and he said he was an artist too working out of Europe doing big installations. He told me he didn't generate his own projects but was often invited to produce installations.
After he left I was told he was Carsten Holler. He's actually a very famous artist internationally and I realise I've seen his work before at the Tate Modern because he built this awesome sculpture in the main turbine hall that consisted of slides (like from a kids playground) that were a few stories tall that you could get in to slide down to the ground floor from the top of the museum.
I googled him when I got back to work in the afternoon and looked at some of his work. He has a lot of fairytale and fairground reference in his work. I wonder if when he walked around the show he thought I'd been inspired by him. Here's some of his work and some that's a bit like mine....

I guess it's normal that artist stumble across the same visual references and are inspired by the same stories and mythologies.

I wish I'd known his work better so when I met him we could've swapped stories, he probably could have taught me much. He shows work all over the world in great spaces.

We had a forum on Friday at the show where some local arts people talked about their projects around Hong Kong. One guy, Wallace Chang Ping-Hung, talked about the redevelopment of Kai Tak, really clever guy with lots of excellent ideas. Others, Ah Kok (Wong Chuck Kok) and Horace Tse, talked about the arts community out at San Po Kong. I didn't even know there was one!
It was re-assuring to know there are other people in HK just getting on with it, making art with whatever resources they have an that there are intelligent and thoughtful people trying to do positive cultural development in Hong Kong.

We were picked by Artforum as one of the best shows in the world right now, here's a quote from the review:

'But therein lies the show’s cleverness. Birch’s aim is not to mimic a museum or break new boundaries, but to craft “a metaphorical world, a conceptual circus” to entertain the masses and create new possibilities for art presentation in the city. When his work is taken on these terms, it’s hard to find fault.'

Not bad. Biggest art publication in the world gives us respect. And, if you didn't know, we had a half page amazing review in the International Herald Tribune with great photos too. So along with the NY Times article it's been a very good week for the show.

Meanwhile I need to get back to painting, managed to finish 2 huge ones over the last 2 weeks and am now on the next couple. Trying to get something nice ready for ArtHK as well as overdue commissioned work. Would rather be just hanging at hope and Glory all day though, it's just fun being there and talking with people.

Stuff in production at my studio. These 2 of Race Wong....

almost....

2010-05-13T01:36:00.000-07:00

time is running out for Hope and glory.

only 2 more weeks and the whole show is dismantled and recycled.

if you haven't already been, here's some shots of what you're missing.....

godzilla

2010-05-10T20:34:00.001-07:00

some behind the scenes stuff and story of the making of....
enjoy!

sb
x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjXUn42ByM4

jeep

2010-05-08T00:59:00.000-07:00

Feel free to print this out and stick it on you office noticeboard!

reveal

2010-05-07T03:24:00.000-07:00

2 part brief explanation of the exhibition and what it all means....

part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJgg7RLz7kc

part two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdbqUjWsEeg

Jet

2010-05-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

A lot of people came through the show today, I gave a little tour to them. They seemed genuinely engaged and amazed. It was lovely to see, it really picked me up. I got talking to a few people after and I was whining on about no support and the daily dramas. They were very sympathetic and keen to help by spreading the word. I caught myself acting like a little bitch.

Then i spent a few hours chatting with Lyn and Roy, going through the accounts. Strangely it cheered me up!
Because as I turned the pages of receipts and invoices, from lighting bills, to carpentry, to neons, to film production... i realised just what a wealth of productivity the whole adventure has been. All these hundreds of people going about their various tasks on dozens of pieces of art that make up this mammoth exhibition. All that energy stored up in steel and lightbulbs and harddrives. Quite extraordinary. We really did build the impossible.

OK, it's not perfect but can you tell me anyone or anywhere you've seen anything on this scale built anywhere in the world for this little money, with this level of quality and content? And in 3D!

Only 3 weeks left. Make the most of it!

sb
x

flammable

2010-05-03T03:41:00.000-07:00

Here's some info on the upcoming forum, you are welcome to join in:

HOPE & GLORY研討會

Fri 07 May 2010 . Forum 1 'Art as Place'

Dates: 7 May, 2010

Venue:
HOPE & GLORY
ArtisTree
1/F Cornwall House
Island East
Hong Kong
(MTR: Quarry bay, Exit A)

Time: 7 – 9 pm

The HOPE & GLORY project seeks to move beyond the idea of the art object to explore the idea of art as a place of transformative experience, a ‘third space' of deeper experience in our daily lives. The ‘Art as Place' forum invites a diverse group of Hong Kong arts activists from both the visual and performing arts fields who will share their experiences in creating positive interventions through art in the Hong Kong social landscape. The forum will open with an improvisational, interactive performance within the installation by the Symbiotic Dance Troupe.

HOPE & GLORY研討會

Fri 14 May 2010 . Forum 2 'Re-Generation, De-Generation'

Dates: 14 May, 2010

Venue:
HOPE & GLORY
ArtisTree
1/F Cornwall House
Island East
Hong Kong
(MTR: Quarry bay, Exit A)

Time: 7 – 9 pm

Hosted by the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, in conjunction with the
International Academy for Cultural Leadership at the University of Hong Kong.
Today, East Asia is experiencing rapid and unprecedented urbanization. Art is
increasingly being viewed as a ‘creative industry' indispensable to tourism and the
economy. Within this context, many governments and metropolitan authorities are seeking to promote the Arts and to ‘regenerate' urban spaces.
In Re-Generation, De-Generation artists, performers and cultural critics explore the
relationship between art, cities and community. In particular, they consider the deep-rooted assumptions that underlie the concept of ‘regeneration': namely, that urban spaces are prone to decay and therefore require a counter-process of continual revival. But is this true? What are the implications of cultural interventions in the name of renewal? And what would happen if - in the spirit of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities - Hong Kong was imagined as a multitude of possible cities which art could help to make visible?

HOPE & GLORY研討會

Fri 28 May 2010 . Forum 3 'HOPE & GLORY : The Making'

Dates: 28 May, 2010

Venue:
HOPE & GLORY
ArtisTree
1/F Cornwall House
Island East
Hong Kong
(MTR: Quarry bay, Exit A)

Time: 7 – 9 pm

The installation project HOPE & GLORY was made possible by the participation of many individuals: in Hong Kong, China – and across the globe. In HOPE & GLORY:The Making, artist Simon Birch discusses the collaborative nature of contemporary art-making with friends - fellow artists, designers and others - who helped to realize the project. The forum is at once a celebration of art-making as a communal, interactive and participatory process, and a critical reflection on the challenges of making large-scale art.

* The HOPE & GLORY forums are free admission, but please note that places are limited and pre-registration is required. To register please email Maria Sin at chm1@hku.hk. Registration will be on a first come first served basis.

*The HOPE & GLORY forums and related educational programmes are generously
supported by a grant from Louis Vuitton.
Co-organiser: Centre for Humanities and Medicine, University of Hong Kong

iron

2010-05-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

after watching Iron Man 2 and being re-energised, we'll start this week by rolling out new posters that hopefully appeal to a broader demographic.

TV

2010-05-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

http://programme.rthk.org.hk/rthk/tv/programme.php?name=tv/theworks&d=2010-04-20&p=2453&e=107509&m=episode

http://www.asiatatler.com/hk/top_stories.php?id=4931

http://www.cforculture.tv/home/tv_play.php?id=29&pid=13&lang=zh

saliva

2010-05-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

Today I met some people at the exhibition to talk to them on the work and I caught myself telling them that I'm not sure building the show was worthwhile.
That's not like me at all normally, I'm usually very positive about it all. But I've been over-hassled all week with contractors threatening us, Swire giving me a $60k bill for cigarette burns in the carpet where people had been smoking at the opening party, contractors refusing to change broken lightbulbs unless we pay them more and on and on....

When I started the ball rolling on this whole thing it was with such a spirit of adventure and courage. I felt a wave of idealism and that this monster of an art project would only have positive repercussions...and not for me, more for Hong Kong, it's artists and cultural environment. And many people shared and collaborated in that energy, it felt like a crusade.

I guess the story of the show really has matched the concept of the show, the hero-myth, triumph over adversity. The story isn't over yet so we still have hurdles to cross, enemies to vanquish and victories to achieve. I'm sure in retrospect this will all add up to be a fascinating journey. And as with any other hero-myth, you have to go through the dark stuff to get to the good stuff. Bizarrely we actually have real villains on our story.

The reaction to the show from the audience has been amazing. People seem genuinely moved and engaged by it all.

SB

cloud

2010-04-29T04:33:00.000-07:00

Raining heavily in Hong Kong today. Always a beautiful thing. Keeps the pollution down as it scrubs the air and, at night, turns the neon filled streets into a scene from Blade Runner.

Conan Hayes came to town last night. He's one of my closest brothers and rolled through for 24 hours. Conan was a world champion surfer in competition with people like Kelly Slater and Shane Dorian. He famously crushed Teahupoo in Taihiti back in the day, a life threatening wave, massive, over razor sharp reef. He then quit the world tour and set up his own clothing company called RVCA, which means I get an endless supply of free t-shirts. He also trains MMA and his brand sponsors BJ Penn, a UFC legend.

We had an enormous night last night, I think I maybe got an hour sleep. We toured HK nightlife and met some really nice people on the way. A model with a gritty history who understood the world and another who had traveled the world and suprised me by pulling out her iphone and insisting i look at her drawings which were really not bad at all. Beautiful and talented, just like me!

I'm painting with great fury as I race to meet deadlines. Sometimes that pressure is a good thing but I'm so burnt out from the show I'm not sure where these new ones are going. Nonetheless, getting the job done and it feels good to have paint stained fingers.

I had to zip over to City University to talk to a class of 20 year old new media students. I always dread having to talk to groups of people, I'd always rather be making art but I feel this social obligation or responsibility to contributing to these kind of things when I'm asked nicely. I'm no teacher but I just try to be frank and direct about my world and try not to swear too much. Inevitably though I always end up enjoying these things once it gets warmed up.

I guess I really just like attention less and less these days but also, I always feel like a fraud because I had little education and for all the inspiration, insight i try to communicate, of creation and production, i'm from such a broken place myself, that i have experienced such violence and loss and have made so many mistakes. And you can't tell people anything, they have to work it out for themselves.

These students had been to the show and one girl said that, afterwards, she had changed. She felt she should make the most of each day, that the days would be more precious to her after the experience of the exhibition. It was a very touching comment, to have learned a gratitude. It made me feel I had succeeded in connecting. She explained it in broken english but she, clearly, had understood and connected with the show. Subconsciously my feelings about time must have bled through the work. It's always a good feeling when you're reminded of how we are all so similar. Often we feel so isolated but actually we've all shared the same hopes and dreams, loves and fears. We come to the world with nothing, and leave with nothing but love.

Whenever I stand at the edge of a tall building or cliff, I always have the urge to jump. I used to think that was just me but it's universal.

Another guy said he was very emotional after watching the film where people talked about the death of their artist friend. He said he would have liked to have known this dead artist and he could see that the artsit was loved by them. He had no idea they were talking about me! I felt quite guilty explaining that it was fake as they were talking about me and that i didn't die.

Someone else said they felt after walking through the show that I was loved. I said, you reap what you sow.

Anyway, maybe the rain has made me sentimental today.

Just another day at the beach for Conan....

oil

2010-04-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday and I finally took a day off after 3 months. I hit Big Wave Bay and surfed my ass off. Lucky to have waves as it's been flat for months here. But what an amazing city that you can be in the seething metropolis one minute and in 20 minutes on a lovely little beach.

I managed to do normal stuff today. Went grocery shopping, read the paper (Sunday Post who once again haven't listed the show! annoying!), rented a couple of movies, tidied up my apartment and stared at the pile of unopened bills that has been growing for months. I flicked through blogs and websites and news sites to see what was going on in the world.

I caught Spike Jonze new video for LCD Soundsystem, dope. Then I caught a bit of Solaris on TV which made me feel lost, read an interview with Tilda Swinton that made me feel connected. Catching things like this just fires my imagination. I messed around on Facebook which had the opposite effect because nothing happens on Facebook, it's cold. This was such a useful tool in spreading the word on the exhibition but otherwise it's a bit of a waste of energy but interesting how people reveal themselves to the world, that they're happy or hungry or what they just did or said. I think if I need to share my thoughts I'll just tell a friend directly. The blog is different I guess because it has more purpose and you don't splash it on random people, they come to the blog by choice.

We had our Louis Vuitton event on Friday which was hugely successful. More low key than the Diesel event with a very limited guest list but was very enjoyable. I talked to the whole audience about the show and walked them through from piece to piece. Many of the collaborators came along and it was great to be able to introduce them to the guests and allow them the opportunity to talk about their involvement. Simon Yin and co, Race and Rosie, Grace, Laura...it made me feel extremely lucky to have had so many people contribute their time and energy to the project. It makes the space, the exhibition, feel so much more loved, and made from a place of love.

I started painting again a couple of days ago. I'm so broke from all this I gotta get some income so am very lucky to have people waiting for new works.

Painting feels good because it's so direct. Just me and the paint. Hope and Glory is such a team effort and often the cash and technology limits your vision. I'm glad I'm able to do it all though, only in HK can you get such opportunity. People often ask if I get writers block and can't paint but I have the opposite problem, too many ideas. It's hard to contain it all.

Amanda wrote to me today to say how she felt safe inside Hope and Glory, that she felt respite. It made me very happy. I've heard this from many people now that they go in and just want to stay because it calms them. Because it's an escape. I love that it has that affect on people, that they feel peace. People seem to go again and again to further absorb it. This is a real measure of success from my point of view. That is has an impact, that it benefits people. It makes me feel that I've given a gift to the audience, like some abstract energy transfer from my heart to yours.

Many people have asked the same questions about the show. Why do it? Compulsion, an unstoppable force inside me. Where did you get the inspiration? From everything. How long did it take to build? 40 years.

19771983

1987

1992

1995

1999

2002

2004

2006

20082010

the endless

2010-04-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

ok, we're almost done with chinese translations. very tricky stuff.
tomorrow, (friday 23rd) is the Louis Vuitton event. This is kinda private VIP gig but I owe LV because they've supported me here in HK for many years so am quite happy to give them whatever they need.
it'll be a low profile thing, i'll give a talk and show people around the exhibition. should be fun.

still trying to fine tune the show and one weak point we feel is the hologram so last night we worked through the night re-shooting monsters to try and get some good quality content for that particular part of the show.
it was tough going. myself, alvina, AJ, laura, eric were all there and we've all put so much energy into the project now we're all a bit burnt out. Alvina is always an angel, she gives so much energy and support but never asks anything in return. quite the antithesis of other people who haven't given much but make quite aggressive demands. amanda came to help too, beautiful and generous as always

the publisher for ArtForum (big international art magazine) dropped by the show yesterday and said he thought the show was awesome. he was a really nice guy too. i don't know many people in the greater art world but this guy seemed pretty switched on and genuine. he really liked the A Factor film (he actually knows Ai Wei Wei and said he'd show him the film). that's pretty cool because i'm really impressed by Ai Wei Wei's work so it would be nice to know that he saw the film he's in (you gotta see the film to know what i'm talking about).

I saw Terence tonight (he's in the A Factor film in the exhibition) and took great pleasure in telling him that people really liked the film. He's such a good guy. As are Simon, Derek and Vince who helped me make it. Art is so much fun when it's shared.

we had a lot of press come over the last few days. Cang Xin (who contributed a wonderful piece of worm) was here all the way from Beijing, one of the most inspiring artists i know of.

Anyway, here's some shots from last night....

To do list.

2010-04-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

The shows up and running but still much fine tuning to do. It feels like we've built a temporary contemporary art museum, which you might normally take years to build but we did it in 10 days!
So, apologies for it not being absolutely perfect yet but we'll continue to improve things over the coming weeks.

This week I will:

1: Add Chinese subtitles on all the films.
So many of the films were finished very last minute so couldn't be translated until last week. I've spent the last few days working on this with Florian and we're almost finished.
2: Improve the 3D edit.
It's still a bit off here and there, can do better.
3: Improve trapeze edit.
Ugh, this is a tough one. Trying to get the slow motion parts sharper.
4: hologram re-shoot.
The content is not good enough so we're gonna re-shoot on Wednesday and should be up by the weekend.
5: Fix broken neons.
The skaters ran into one and some drunk chick smashed another so they're in the shop now being fixed.
6: The book!
We will launch a book of the show but we couldn't do this until the show was up and running so we could photograph it. When it's ready maybe we'll do another party.
7: retail.
We're gonna do a little shop with some merchandise, toys and the book and t-shirts.
8:Secret films.
I've installed a few of these already but there are more to come. Tiny TV's that play quick loops of odd thing. They're like paint splashes.
9:Skate ramp fix up.
It's so trashed. But we encourage people to come skate it whenever you like. 10am-8pm everyday.
10: Prodips paintings.
They're a bit hidden, need to light better, my own paintings need the same. Lighting is extremely difficult to install at the space. We had no idea about this until we were onsite building. very limited what we can do unfortunately.

Phew, that's a lot! And I got like 20 people waiting for paintings too! Anyone have any other comments do let me know.

Funny thing at the opening, people left their beers all over the sculptures! I've never seen that at an art exhibition before. People using hugely expensive and precious pieces of art to leave their beers on. And people seem to have no problem here touching the works. People all week have been jumping on the stage to get their photo taken squeezing the monster sculptures.
One guy tried to climb one of the big letters! Un-fucking believable.
Only in Hong Kong....!

Woah!

2010-04-16T03:03:00.000-07:00

2000 people showed up to the Hope and Glory opening last night.
I don't think I've ever seen so many people at the opening of an art exhibition in HK before. So on behlaf of the many many people who have put this thing together over the last year, than you all very much for you support.
It sends a very positive message out there to government and other institutions that have the power to support and fund future artists and cultural events. It can only have positive repercussions as it feels like HK is really starting to get into art and that can only be good for us all.

If you were there last night and you got drunk for free, just as I did, you all now owe us a favour. Please come back and check out the show over the next 7 weeks and bring as many people with you, as we really have to prove to the people that backed the show and all those that put in time and energy, that it was a worthwhile endeavor.

I am extremely grateful to all of those artists, designers, architects, filmmakers, musicians, etc who put so much time and effort into making this work. A truly exceptional team effort.

Anyway, I got an insane hangover and I was so drunk that when I got up on stage to make a thank you speech, not only did I forget everyone because I wrote the names on my arm and couldn't read it in the low light (sorry Amanda!) but I also sang 'tonight's gonna be a good night' so now everyone thinks I'm a cock.

Nothing new there.

So thanks again to all involved, you can't imagine what a big deal it is for me to have survived the last couple of years and to have built this thing.

With love.

SB

x

Here we go....

2010-04-14T03:31:00.000-07:00

Walked around for the 2 spare minutes i had today and ...Wow. It's just an incredible sight.
You can really feel the energy of the many many people involved in the show.

I still worry about the details but that's me. But really, the show is just incredible. It's so overwhelming and such an experience.

I encourage you to take some time to walk around and absorb it all, watch the films, don't rush to get the full Hope and Glory experience.

It's just amazing to me that we pulled it together. I still remember the moment almost 2 years ago when i first saw the space and thought 'hey, i could do something in here'. And here it is. All dark and shiny and full of love.

How I'm every going to repay the support and contribution of so many I really don't know but hopefully being part of the spectacular creation is reward enough for all.

Considering I should be dead by now, it's just fucking AWESOME!

SB

hard day at the office

2010-04-12T05:58:00.000-07:00

man, this has been a tough one today. so many little details that still not right with the show. i doubt the public notice as the show is fully functioning and looks insane as you can see from the photos.
but i see little details, some of which can't be fixed, like the lighting which turns out to be impossible to fix because of very limited power and access in the space.

anyway, we'll see what we can throw together in the next 24 hours to improve things. except we can't afford anything so I'm trying to do it all myself lo fi.
also the horse 3D is not as amazing as i hoped so i'm ripping the whole lot out tomorrow and replacing it over night with a big new system. lucky i can do a barter deal with the tech company so it won't cost.

anyway, a few bits of fine tuning but by the time the party rolls on thursday, it should be perfect. then maybe by the weekend i can finally sleep for more than 5 hours....

Thursday party!

2010-04-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

In case you don't already know, this coming Thursday is the big one. The huge opening party fpor Hope and Glory.

The whole thing is to be run by Diesel the fashion brand who have been incredibly supportive.

Entertainment for the night, apart from the show itself, will be live music performed by Gary Gunn who will be playing with his band, tracks from his Destroying Beauty album.
Also Hong Kong favourites Chochukmo who I recently designed their album cover where I painted them all naked. Gross.

It all kicks off at 8.30 and I suggest you get there early as space is very limited. Feel free to hit me up if you want in on the guest list.
If you're reading my blog then you're ok with me!

monkeymodified@gmail.com

SB

http://www.garygunnmusic.com/

http://chochukmo.com/