Art Review: X+Y: Duo Solo Exhibition of Phoebe Hui and Tung Wing Hong
Discover Self-exploration through Mechanical Art — Briefly skipping through the exhibition outline, I remembered only two things — “Art” and “Technology”.
That pictures a spacious white-wall hall with a bit scary machines drawing a histogram or construct a sculpture while you spectate. The venue — New World Tower — could easily be a place for such an event, and I was ready for an overcrowded space with queues to the long explanations for each piece.
An elevator went up to a cozy little room with no windows, dark grey walls and lack of light. It feels neat and empty a bit, here are only few spinning A4-sized screens and a complicated construction in the corner. The screens show hands, legs and head moving in the paper bits and through the landscapes.
The artists themselves presented their work in both Chinese and English, explaining all the mechanisms involved. The screens, work of the Tung Wing Hong, show the ancient parable of the giant, who grew up so big that he couldn’t stand on the ground anymore — he lay down and his body was spread all over the world. Fingers appear to be in the grass and forest, torso became mounts and hills.
Only him being calm and caring gives every single animal life, because any move — and ground will break. The artwork speaks of the worldwide harmony, silence and balance — being it at the same time.
The elegant full-height construction is copied from a Medieval instrument, constructed from two pendulums connected with a beam. One pendulum fixes the “hand” with a pencil, another holds a notebook. When the music plays, the pendulum works as a metronome, counting the beat of the composition. As it sways, the pencil draws a picture.
The artist Phoebe Hui paraphrased the ancient metronome to a construction with people involved. Here are two seesaws, one for standing and one for sitting, between those is a flat wooden box with some water in it. Each seesaw has a mechanism activated by the movement, so when you sit or stand on one of them, the music — bass or piano plays from The Sleeping Beauty plays.
You can play only one party, if sway one of the parts, but the middle water-box moves differently depending on strength and amplitude of each seesaw. Water, the mediator, shows the “picture” of sounds playing, moving faster of stronger notes and hence wider sway amplitude. The mechanism calls to show the interrelation of sound and vision, person and instrument, calm water and strong sounds.
All this was attentively told to the audience by artists themselves who dearly asked each visitor to try the seesaw and walked them through the screen concept. The atmosphere was so cozy and meditative, that I was surprised that the curators preferred to emphasise the Technology in the exposition, not the peaceful attention to the details and world around you.
About As Far As Near
As Far As Near is a project launched by the K11 Art Foundation (KAF) to further incubate Hong Kong’s emerging and promising artists and curators. The project consists of four consecutive and individually themed exhibitions and will be on view successively at the chi art space in Central from June to December 2016. These distinctive exhibitions, including solo and joint exhibitions, have the objective of setting off artists’ explosive creativity in their own specialized areas. KAF’s vision in this series of exhibitions is to increase the recognition for Hong Kong’s local talents, artists and curators among local audience and boost their interest in local art.
The Exhibition was held in chi art space, 8/F New World Tower 2, 18 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong, produced by the K-11 Art Foundation
This article is co-written with Maria Fleutman
Born and raised in Russia, Maria is a Masters student in Global Communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Back in Russia, most of the works of Maria’s were devoted to disability integration and employment, social media projects on disability facilitation of public spaces, and raising the public awareness on financially-oriented religious organizations in Russia. Now, Maria writes on art events and exhibitions in Hong Kong and plans on to go for a PhD in Neuroscience.
