Mars

Day dreamt.

Me and Cyrcle @ Daydreaming With...

I haven't blogged for ages, been far too busy. Here in Hong Kong they say that being busy is a good thing but I think I'd rather have slightly more relaxed pace of life so I had more time to read, write and whatever else. Quality not quantity.
Over the last few months we (me and Laura and Robert and Coco and Leo of Future Industries) have presented the exhibition 'Daydreaming With.....' Over only 3 months we selected, shipped, unpacked and installed the work of 30 artists into the 20,000 sq ft Artistree space in Taikoo. It is the biggest private space for cultural use in HK. It's the same place we held Hope and Glory a couple of years ago.

Futura 2000 and Massive Attack's 3D.

The show is a wonderful mix of artists from all over the world from very different backgrounds, all connected through myself and co-curator, the wonderful James Lavelle of the band UNKLE, all housed in this dark and massive environment.

Li Wei

It was quite a challenge, as is any art activity in HK outside of the more commercial stuff going on here. There's a lot of attention on HK art scene these days it seems. Sotheby's and Christies, ArtHK and big brand galleries like Gagosian, White Cube and Perrotin, have all been bringing HK much attention by their activity here. Along with the governments continued efforts to get the WKCD up and running with the M+ modern art museum, it seems like HK is rocking. But this commercial and institutional activity is only one part of the cultural landscape and it feels to me there's still a lot missing on a more local level. Hopefully myself and Future Industries can provide part of that missing ingredient.

Doug foster

From our experience with Hope and Glory and now DaydreamingWith..,  I can see why there isn't more. After 15 years here it is still a struggle to produce projects that don't bring a financial return. Sponsors don't want to support anything unless there is a clear quantifiable return and they often don't fully understand art and it's potential impact long term. Of course this doesn't stop me and we are lucky to have had at least some support. Swire have let us use their space for the second time (after Hope and Glory they were nervous because of the rather unorthodox nature of that project). But they took the risk and helped finance this project, I'm quite sure it's the most generous support ever of a HK artist's exhibition ever in this town. So that sends a positive message that things are really getting interesting here. You really can make stuff happen here if you are driven enough, there are opportunities if you work hard for it.

Nathan Coley

I've never heard of an artist being given the money and the space, over a million dollars, in HK before. Grateful as I am, it wasn't enough money though, so we went to every bank and brand that would see us but we were unsuccessful (much sponsorship went to the art fair so perhaps we missed out). So we filled in the gaps and cut a few of the more costly artists (video installations can be vastly expensive). Originally there were 40 artists, finally there were 30. A little heartbreaking innovation and we got there in the end.

Warren and Nick

We managed to get the whole thing together though and even with the compromises in content and layout because of budget, we really do have a fucking awesome exhibition!! And that's not me saying that alone, overwhelmingly people have loved the show and it's had all around positive critical review.

Me, Doug and Emma Richardson

It's an unusual show as it mixes artists from all kinds of odd backgrounds, some of whom really blur the distinction between art, design, music, film, etc. But they all work together very well in the space whether it's 3D's work (from the band Massive Attack) or Huang Rui (leading political contemporary artist from Beijing). There's a beautiful rhythm from piece to piece. Hopefully James Lavelle and I did a good job of curating as we are certainly not from a professional background in such things. We curated from our hearts as much as anything else.

Clarke and Reilly

Ten's of thousands of people have been to see the show, it's very encouraging. especially as we had little money for PR and none for advertising. Thankfully, Sinclair Communications stepped in and did a ton of work for that little money and went far over and above their budget in effort and energy. Their example is typical of how things really get done with these kinds of projects. People who actually want to support at no profit, who help out for love. We're always so grateful when people step in in this way, so a big thanks to them and so many others, K+K, Peroni, AXA insurance, of course Swire Properties, AJ Halkes, all our interns, Vicky and Jackie, East Hotel and Royale the shipping company, and the FI team Maggie, Coco, Laura, Leo, Robert, Chris and Peter. Everyone working round the clock for months for little or no money and the Daydreaming guys James and Shiobhan who had to put up with us all being very stressed out! These things are just such a huge team effort. A really positive result, and a show we are very proud of, definitely worth the struggle.

Huang Rui with Polly Borland and Jamie Shovlin in the background

Our boy Prodip Leung

On the back of this project I'm now off to LA to pursue a secret project there. Then I have a solo show in Singapore at a great little gallery called Reiss. Then we are planning for the big one. Future Industries have acquired a permanent space. 10,000sq ft in the middle of Central, which we will slowly renovate to be HK's first actual contemporary art museum, ahead of the government and anyone else having a go. It's not huge but it's voice will be loud and as we don't have to answer to a boardroom full of civil servants, you can expect it to be a place of risk and adventure, and not without a good deal of controversy.

brainstorming on my chalk board at work for a new project

Like many of our larger projects it will be non-profit but we will have an amazing concept store/cafe run by the people behind the brilliant Yardbird, surely one of HK's finest restaurant. This income, along with renting the space out for events, will make the place sustainable so we won't need to beg for support as we normally do! Unless we face an impossible hurdle, we should be open as a rough space early next year with a summer renovation and the proper launch around October 2013.
Interesting that we, with no money or power, may be able to bring HK it's first art museum in a year or so when the government have already been fucking around for 15 years and still it won't be done for at least another 5 years. Fingers crossed and touch wood that we can make it happen....

I wanted to call the museum 700k, as this is the amount the government owes me for my last exhibition (they cut Hope and Glory's funding from 2 million to 1.3million after we had paid all the bills which almost bankrupt us. With no money for a lawyer we couldn't fight them). But the other Future Industries guys decided on my other idea, more positive, calling it 'Kong'. This of course relates to Hong Kong (in English 'fragrant harbour'). The word Kong, or 'harbour', gives a wonderful multi-layered meaning.

Meanwhile I've been developing my paintings with new enthusiasm. After a number of trips to Beijing. I've been working with some well known artists there, photographing them as part of a series of new paintings. It's not so much a series of paintings of artists but of men of a certain attitude, in balance to other works that are of women falling, explosively, through the air.

Yang Zhichao in action for my new painting project

What's exciting though is the experience of spending time with my brother artists across the border. I've never felt so embraced amongst an energetic, open and relaxed community. Hanging out there, being dragged along to dinners, getting drunk, rolling through artists studios, it's all a lot of fun and very inspiring. The artists there take me seriously and allow me generous access to their spaces, to their lives. I am now planning a number of collaborations with some of these great people.

In HK our art community is more insecure, spread out and less unified and communicative. There's an odd spirit of isolation here. It's hard to get artists to hang out and rare that they come to your exhibition. For Daydreaming With.. I invited about a dozen different HK artists to contribute to Daydreaming. Only 2 came through, Prodip and Wing Shya. Every Chinese or Japanese artist that i invited said yes. I'm sure all had good reason not to get involved but it's a shame nonetheless. Daydreaming was a great opportunity for me as an artist to show my work side by side with some very credible international artists, I had hoped I could help promote other local talent at the same time.

So the summer is approaching and I desperately need a break. Daydreaming has been amazing but so much work. The art fair happened too recently which was an odd experience. I enjoyed getting drunk at the opening and hanging out with my friends at the opening but I don't remember any of the art. I remember feeling that i wouldn't want to see my work hanging amongst thousands of others in the vast trade fair environment but i also felt jealous that i wasn't in it at all! Odd...

It will be good if the art fair under it's new ownership tries to benefit satellite non-commercial projects like ours in the future. We wanted to hand out flyers to promote our project but they said no! Apparently you can't promote your thing unless you're a gallery renting a booth and we can't afford that because we're non-profit.

Anyway, all good. Onwards and upwards to the next art adventure.....

Shu

Castlefield

Oil on canvas, 140x140cm.

Why are there no Chinese science fiction movies?

So I am back in HK after a very educational trip to NYC.

I had to move out of my lovely apartment of the last ten years, a huge space in the middle of HK, a 70 year old building, on of the last low rises on my street. It of course, such a cliche, got knocked down to be tuned into a massive tasteless residential block. This is the HK way. So I got evicted and threw a goodbye party which quickly turned into an out of control riot as hundreds of gatecrashers turned up and trashed the place. Which was fine because they are tearing it down anyway but left me a bit sad to see my home with all the memories, abused. It was of course my idea in the first place to trash it. Seemed like a good one at the time. Twat.

Now I'm basically homeless, sofa surfing and deciding whether to bother getting a new place or just to keep traveling. The world is supposed to end this year so maybe I'll go see it one more time.

My lovely apartment after the last party. Now it's a pile of rubble. Progress....

My last day in HK before I left was a fun one, a friend took the lovely Cleo and I for a spin around HK and New Territories in his own helicopter. Dope!

Ok, so NYC....

An immensely positive experience. I don't know the city that well so being there for an extended period really allowed me to see it all from street level, the good, the bad and the hipsters.

I was staying in Lower East Side, Alphabet City, which years ago woulda been pretty ghetto but now, as with much of Manhattan, it's losing it's edge and has become as clean and safe, gentrified, as the rest of the ex-Dutch, ex-British colony, ex-native american land. Now it belongs to money of course. But then, don't we all.

There's still a little grime here and there, I've never seen so many homeless and crazies. I'm not sure if they come from all over USA to congregate in NYC or they come to the city normal and it turns them crazy. Maybe be a bit of both. If I was homeless I'd get to Florida asap, a lot warmer.

On my first night I walked down to the local bar to meet a friend and passed a sweet little old man who looked like part of the neighborhood, i gave him a polite nod, he said 'go fuck yourself'. Nice. Welcome to the jungle.

I spent most days walking the streets, something that is remarkably hard to do in HK. It was a pleasure to daily stroll many miles without an incline in sight. Every street offers up a cool cafe or bar or bookshop or gallery an overwhelming cultural energy. From street level and grass roots stores to the many museums and parks and venues. Just a wonderful city.

I spent much time walking the galleries. There are many in Lower East Side that are tiny but exciting and raw. (Joe Sola at Blackstone gallery was a good one. His work was a video of the artist in his studio. He would invite critics or gallerists to see meet him and when they walked into the room he would run and leap straight through the glass window, jackass style). The glut of big player galleries are in Chelsea which are rigid and commercial on a whole other level. In LOE the staff are often the owners and are friendly and engaging and easy to communicate with. In Chelsea the people are often cold and exclusive. But that's just some of the people that work there, it doesn't take away from the truth of the work which, uptown or downtown, is wonderful or awful in varying degrees. LOE can be awful but at least risky and surprising, as is Brooklyn, whereas, in Chelsea, there are no surprises, everything is geared to cover their expensive rents. Nonetheless, some of the work is fantastic and humbling. Joan Mitchell at Cheim and Read being one of them, Peter Liversidge at Sean Kelly was great, and Michael Borremans at David Zwirner being another.

Peter Liversidge, a little known young British artist. It looks like a pile of junk but was actually a really well thought out and fascinating exhibition.

Joan Mitchell's work was amazing hung together, works from the last few years of her life. Wouldn't have had the same impact at an art fair.....

Michael Borremans wonderful oil paintings. I asked how much it was, US$800,000. I said I'd be interested at 10% off. They said no.

It all gives one perspective on ones own work as an artist and ones level of activity. It made me feel better about my work but also made me realise I still have a long way to go. 

The institutions are all packed. Every museum was incredibly well attended, I found that very exciting. So many people pouring through the museums. The MOMA had a DeKooning retrospective which was amazing, Guggenheim had Cattelan which was really fun but one of the highlights was the Museum of Natural History which really makes you feel like being a kid again.

Above from the Museum of Natural History

Cattelan at the Guggenheim, very entertaining.

Below is work by Carston Holler at the New Museum. His work is a bit circusy, not unlike some of my installation work. I actually met him a while back. He came to my exhibition Hope and Glory. I didn't know who he was when i was introduced to him or what his work was, this seemed to upset him. He was unfriendly. It was a short conversation. I asked him if he wanted to grab a beer. He said he was busy. 

Birds in cages, must have ripped that idea offa Dragon-I.

I had a go on the slide that snaked through the buildings floors. It felt sad. 

All this art activity of course makes me, a Hong Kong artist, very jealous as we have nowhere to show our work or any of the platform that is so apparent in NYC, and our city is just so conservative and has little of that edge or individuality. But at the same time, it means we can invent ourselves here and don't have to fit into any existing structure to make our way up the ranks. You define yourself without rules and the only thing to stop you is the limit of your passion. In NYC there is a lot of attention and criticism and competition. None of that here so artists can develop with perhaps a different mindset, unhindered by expectation or market requirements. Of course both cities have pros and cons and this is a complicated discussion but I guess, one has to believe that, as HK is our city, it can be the best place for us to be artists. Otherwise we might as well fuck off to New York and slowly climb our way up their art world ladder. It's not necessary, NYC isn't the be all and end all anymore, the art world is now polycentric.

HK offers us artists the opportunity to really make a mark, to be a pioneer and part of some huge cultural developments in a brand new, yet defined, arena.
The only thing holding us back is ourselves. I think our identity is one of the issues. We really should just embrace our unique and multi-cultural past and present. That's a whole other chapter....

I was welcomed by friends, and friends of friends, which was lovely but it's not as welcoming as HK. Here we are a smaller community and we are more open to outsiders, we all are exactly that. So we cling together and are always looking for new friends. In NYC they are more insecure and there is a feeling that you're not accepted until you live here and put a few years in and start paying taxes. Until then you're just a tourist so you're not that welcome. In the art world with which I hoped to engage, I was ignored often, people wouldn't make time for me, or brushed me off, which is good for my enormous ego. People in brooklyn were much nicer. And just regular people all over NYC are really very lovely.

So I made a couple of great new friends, J, A and N in particular, and they showed me everything the city had to offer, along with old friend Max who always comes through. 

A highlight was the drive to Montauk, beyond the Hamptons a beautiful little surf town. Also, in the city, a walk along the Highline, such a stunningly simple and positive project, a renovated, elevated, subway line, turned into a park. Wish we had that kind of open space feature in HK. We just keep filling in every gap in the skyline.

Montauk. Deserted beaches and plenty of surf.

I met some lovely artists who had lived in HK, had a great catch up with my art magazine publisher friend Charles (who did his best to put me off being and artist in NYC), met all kinds of gallery people who were generally awful, tried to meet artists and curators with little success. I met a few, like urban artists Faile, but none seemed keen to hang out. I met a super nice guy with a great gallery of South American photography called 1500 and i met a lady from a well known London gallery, Lazarides, who I managed to get into a fight with about whether people should take an exam before they are allowed to have children.
Had a great time hanging with Daniel Wu who was making a movie in Williamsburg. I got to hang out on set which was really cool. It's an international movie with a great cast, all set on a space ship. Got to chat to many people on set including the art director who designed the movie Pan's Labyrinth.
This inspired me much, so myself and new friend Nicole got together and wrote a screenplay, which led to some fascinating research missions including talking to a number of veteran soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.

On the set with Daniel Wu. He plays the captain of the spaceship.

On the plane back i was sitting watching a movie, minding my own business in business. Used my points to upgrade. Sweet. Cathay business rocks. Anyway, in the darkness half way through the flight, a person walked past my seat and threw a bit of rubbish on me. It seemed on purpose but they went by so quickly i wasn't quite sure. I picked the crumpled piece of paper up and unravelled it. It said 'Wanna play? 17A'.

I got up to show the stewardess and ask who was sitting there. She laughed and said a nice chubby Asian dude. Ha! I went round to 17A and there he was, a young guy with a big smile. I said, 'i'm flattered but unfortunately, I play for the other team'. Everyone was laughing, him me and the staff, and his boyfriend.

I had a quick trip down to Singapore for the art fair there which was very disappointing, but Singapore is great. I know we all dig at it because it's so square and the people have funny accents but there's so much going on there. They kinda put HK to shame culturally. I mean, the government there supports music festivals like Zoukout which are awesome. HK would never allow that kind of thing here, it's such a shame. We have these great places where we could do such thing, look at HK stadium, but the government won't let concerts happen there because a few residents complained about the noise.
Such a lost opportunity. Instead the herd us out to the airport to that shitty expo hall. Shameful.
It's always embarrassing to explain to people coming through HK that there is no art museum, no rock concerts in the city, no dance music festivals, etc. Amazing that if you want any of that you have to go to Singapore. And the air is clean there too! Our government is just way more conservative and rigid than sterile Singapore. Anyway.....

Now back in HK I'm newly inspired by my adventure and working on a large installation project as well as a new set of paintings. Am also developing a permanent space for HK but that will take some time. Though the world economy is in trouble, I don't need much to survive, just enough to pay for food and paint, so I think it's gonna be a great year ahead. Will make good art. Will contribute what I can. Will push but not too desperately, and see what happens.

My first project is 'Daydreaming With....'

This is a project created by old friend James Lavelle. James has a band called UNKLE and has collaborated with all kinds of interesting people over the year in arts, music and fashion. Radiohead, Massive Attack, Beastie Boys, Bathing Ape, Maharishi, Futura 2000, Jonathan Glazer...and on and on.

Daydreaming at Haunch of Venison, London last year. Photo doesn't really do it justice as there were lots of dark little rooms and corridors filled with art, hard to photograph.

He invited all these people to contribute to an art exhibition a year ago in London. He invited me too. The show was a huge success and very different to your average institutional exhibition so we discussed the idea of bringing the project to HK and expanding on it.

Of course, as usual, finding any space or money for this proved impossible until suddenly last week, Swire Properties saved the project by giving us the space (Artistree, where we held Hope and Glory) and some funding to get the thing moving.

So we are in business. We are pencilled in  to open this 40 artist group show May 3rd. So we got a heck of a lot of work to do to get it designed, built, shipped, created, PR'd, etc in just a few months. But hey, I like a challenge.

Video piece by Doug Foster that we'll be showing in HK.

We're just confirming the line up as i write this but it looks pretty awesome with all kinds of artists, big, small, contemporary, film, installation, urban and on and on. Will be so much fun. We're trying to work in a pop up restaurant too to give it even more of a twist. 

The show is on while the ArtHK art fair is on too. So it's good timing. It'll be a non-profit project again but we'll have a shop selling books and stuff to help with the costs.

We won't be getting any money or involvement from the government as they fucked us over on Hope an Glory. The project will remain independent, by the people for the people!

Anyway, it's very generous of Swire to support us again. They were so generous to us when we staged Hope and Glory at the same space a year or so ago.

In the meantime I'm painting my latest favourite model. Shu Qi is a Taiwanese actress who has been in a ton of movies and built a great award winning career. Super nice girl now staring in new paintings by me! She's a very good actress and is able to look scared and upset on command!

2012, here we come...!

SB

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