年輕的藝術家剛進入複雜又現實的社會，難免會感到挫折、焦慮和不安。七位香港藝術家的群展《大風吹》聚焦年輕藝術新生代的心路歷程。
Showcasing works by seven of Hong Kong’s up-and-coming artists, Big Wind Blows centres on the frustration, anxiety and uncertainty that the city’s young art practitioners face today.
展覽的名稱來自於童年的遊戲–大風吹，其中扮鬼的人制定遊戲規則，不能遵守或是符合遊戲規則的玩家就會被淘汰，用遊戲中的術語說，就是“被大風吹走了”。由此反觀今日的年輕藝術家們，藝術世界中的種種即成規則和“潮流”是讓他們心生不安的重要來源之一。要選擇自己獨有的創作手法和風格，而不盲從跟風 –“被風吹走”。
The title of the exhibition is inspired by the eponymous children’s game in which one player, the ‘ghost’, establishes a rule that the other players must follow. Those who do not follow it are eliminated, or ‘blown away by the big wind’. Similarly, these artists are navigating the trends, or ‘rules’, set by today’s art world, the main source of their uneasiness. Yet they chose not to blindly follow them, risking instead to be swept away by the ‘big wind’.
藝術家文美桃（生於1990年）在她的藝術實踐中研究著人的身體和城市環境之間的互動關係。《乾旱的泥土與水重聚一刻》（2019）正是這樣的一件作品。藝術家從馬屎埔採集當地的泥土，製成泥球，將其曬乾之後整齊地擺放在金屬碟上。與此同時，文美桃錄下了給泥土補水時的聲音（用水充滿泥土縫隙時發出的聲音營造出森林的氛圍）。促使觀眾在有限的空間裡貼近土地，聆聽它的聲音。
Also investigating the urban environ is Man Meito (b. 1990), who has continuously dealt with issues surrounding ‘the body’ and ‘the city’ through understanding how the body interfaces with its surrounding environment. Being patient again (2019) consists of mud balls, which the artist collected from the area of Ma Shi Po, completely dried out and arranged in an orderly manner on a metal plate. Accompanying the display is a
soundscape she recorded when she rehydrated them. (As the water filled up the pores, it produced tones similar to the ambient sounds of a forest.) The installation asks the audience to listen closely to the land and the sounds that are produced by a given terroir.
鄭哈雷 （生於1986年）在創作中探索著人性的脆弱和香港少數群體的生存狀態。在三聯畫《選美比賽》（2020）中，鄭哈雷描繪了參加選美的菲律賓家傭，衣著鮮亮。畫面中現實和理想的並存對於多數懷抱理想的人都會產生強烈的共鳴。多數家傭首次抵港最不可或缺的必需品之一就是移動電話儲值卡，鄭哈雷收集這些電話卡，拼貼到畫作中，這些卡片儲存著記憶、秘密和生活中的偶遇，是移民身份飄忽不定的見證。
Halley Cheng (b. 1986) explores the fragility of the human condition and the inconvenient, often unvalidated existence of the marginalised and the minority communities of Hong Kong. In his triptych Pageant (2020), Cheng depicts lavishly dressed Filipina housekeepers taking part in a beauty pageant. The poignant and anomalous juxtaposition of fantasy and reality in the spectacle is familiar to all who dream of a different existence. The artist also blends prepaid SIM cards into the work, a nod to a modern necessity known to almost every domestic worker who arrives in the city. The cards later turn into a repository of memories, secrets and treasured encounters that mark a worker’s days of unsettled status.
楊媛茵（生於1994年）在作品《雅景存在嗎？》（2015）和《河狸之家》（2016）中試圖重建在97年亞洲金融危機前自己曾經的“完美家庭”。家庭相冊中保留著藝術家童年時的相片，父母常常懷念那時過往的種種，而藝術家自己由於當時年幼，並不記得父母口中的往事。在《雅景存在嗎？》中，楊媛茵用現成和自己手工製作的模型重構了一張老照片中的生日場景，她把自己描繪成一個來去自由、幽靈般的存在。 《河狸之家》講述地是其父母的玩具店。玩具店櫥窗的中心位置擺放的是店裏的明星玩具森林家族，它是記憶中完美家庭的代表。玩具店後來因為舖租上漲，無奈結業，森林家族變成了童年記憶中童話般理想生活的回憶。
In the mixed-media works of Wind Yeung (b. 1994), Does Fortune Exist? (2015) and Beaver’s Family (2016), the artist seeks to reconstruct her ‘perfect family days’ before the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Fascinated by the recollections embalmed in family albums, Yeung provides viewers with a means to relive a past she was too little to remember, but that her parents
constantly, nostalgically recount. In Does Fortune Exist? she reenacts a birthday scene from an old family photo, complete with specially crafted models depicting herself travelling in and out of the scene as a ghostly presence. Beaver’s Family, on the other hand, portrays her family’s toy shop before it was shut down due to rising rent. Named after the toy that was once the centrepiece in the shop’s window display, Beaver’s Family
mirrors the ideal family in a fairy-tale-like world that the artist’s childhood evokes.
同樣內觀自身的是Sharu Sikdar （生於1994年）。在其新作《Growing Myself》（2019-20）和《Plant Myself for Better or Worse》（2020）中，Sikdar把自然界中的元素–樹枝、樹皮和葉子–和自身的元素相結合。正如樹的年輪紀錄著植物的健康歷史，在作品《Growing Myself》中藝術家在六個月的時間裡用自己的頭髮編織成年輪，以紀錄自己的身心健康狀態。《Plant Myself for Better or Worse》直面藝術家的焦慮、懷疑和恐懼。Sikdar將自己的頭髮縫在象徵著吉祥的竹子上，寓意成長、好運和力量。
Also looking inwardly towards her own history is Sharu Sikdar(b. 1994). In her latest works, Growing Myself (2019–20) and Plant Myself for Better or Worse (2020), the artist utilises elements found in nature – branches, bark and leaves – in combination with those of her own, which in this case include her hair. Deriving inspiration from how a tree’s rings document
its wellness, Growing Myself offers a six-month daily record of the artist’s mental health in the form of tree rings, sewn together with strands of her own hair. Plant Myself for Better or Worse takes the idea a step further to confront the artist’s doubts, anxieties and fears. In it, Sikdar sewed her hair by hand onto a fabric structure made to look like lucky bamboo, a
common element in Chinese feng shui, to symbolise growth, luck and strength.
王鎮海（生於1990年）不滿於當下混合媒介作品中精細繁複的呈現方式和實際創作中暗箱操作的強烈對比。其作品《勤力電路》（2015）正是對講簡單事情複雜化的嘲諷。他用不計其數的電線和開關交織成錯綜複雜的電路，與上世紀初發明的戈德堡機械類似，其目的僅僅是為了打開一盞LED燈。這種過量的無用性在另一件作品《終極有用系統#0 – 衣架》（2016）中得到了更深入的表現。
Dissatisfied with the stark contrast between the intricate presentation and the total black-boxing of internal mechanisms in many mixed-media artworks today, Wong Chun Hoi (b.1990) takes a satirical look at self-inflicted complications in order to make simple things unapproachable. Hardworking Circuit (2015) is made up of an excessive network of cables
built with relay switches. The convoluted circuit system resembles a Rube Goldberg machine, an early-20th-century invention that was intentionally designed to undertake simple actions, such as turning on an LED light, in an overly complex way. Wong takes the futility of such attempts one step further with Extremely Useful System #0 – Hanger (2016).
莫頌靈（生於1984年）自2011年開始在世界各地參加了一系列的駐地計畫，在她回到香港之後，開始運用錄像、電影和攝影作為創作的主要媒介。作品《Happiness Hill》（2016）中靜謐的花園是藝術家在福岡亞洲藝術館駐地期間拍攝的眾多影片片段剪輯拼接而成。“我們在影片中看到的是編造出來的景觀”，莫頌靈解釋道，“作品中的每個片段都是來自於連續四個星期每天都在同一個地點拍攝的影像紀錄”。
Returning to Hong Kong after a series of residencies since 2011, Jolene Mok (b. 1984) delves into video, film and photography as her major creative mediums. Her video work Happiness Hill (2016) concludes the exhibition with a fabricated landscape born from the copious amount of extra footage that she produced in 2015 amongst other projects as part of her
residency at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan. In the video, viewers are greeted with the image of a serene hillside garden that is seamlessly put together. ‘What we see here is a fabricated landscape’, says Mok. ‘This video concludes the act of returning to the same spot with a camera and a tripod on weekdays for four consecutive weeks in the autumn’.
《大風吹》Big Wind Blows｜Group Exhibition of Young Hong Kong Artists
Date:
2020.8.8- 9.15
Time:
Saturdays 15:00- 18:00
Venue:
香港香港仔業發街6號益年工業大廈3C室 ROSSI & ROSSI GALLERY, 3/F Yally Industrial Building, 6 Yip Fat Street