Date: 18 July - 13 August, 2015
Venue: Connecting Space Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Curator: Alice Wong
I was away for a while – an exhibition by Hong Kong artist Frank Tang Kai-yiu, presents the artist’s reflections and responses to his artistic residency in Zurich.
During the 6 months in Zurich, Tang lived as an urban observer, engaging in understanding, interacting with, and portraying the city. I was away for a while is a summary of the artist’s active participation in and fascination with city life. The exhibition at the same time displays a critical attitude towards the uniformity and speed of life in a modern city, calling into question the individual’s relationship with nature.
Before Tang managed to look at Zurich in person, he learned about the city by reading its map. Deeply impressed, he realized that reading such a map could quickly influence a visitor’s impression of a place. For his piece impression mapping, Tang recorded small details of things such as trees, lakes, and old buildings he encountered. To the artist, these tiny little things witnessed the history and the development of the city, and they together formed the artist’s experience in a city completely new to him.
In his paintings depicting the landscapes and trees, Tang tends to give prominence to the main subject, leaving the backgrounds entirely blank. The structural composition, method of expression, as well as the very absence of content, however, create rhythm and variety. This technique can be seen in the Clouds and Trees series, in which the variety and balance created is further enriched through the use of video projection, light tube and by the imagination of the viewers.
Apart from this, Tang has also employed an abstract style to describe his visual experience in the city. In his video work X:Y, Tang filmed the plain blue sky over Zurich, where planes leave their white lines in the air. The sky seems to lose its colour gradation and dimensions in the video. Viewers’ perceptions are also distorted by the juxtaposition of the video screens: one plane disappears on this screen, seems to appear on another screen.
Through the various traces of the cityscape shown in this exhibition, the artist wishes to reflect the relationship between humans and nature, a relationship that is no longer so present in our daily lives.
展覽「外出一會」是香港藝術家鄧啟耀對其在蘇黎世作藝術家駐留的回應及反思。
2014年3月初，鄧啟耀前往蘇黎世進行為期本年的藝術家駐留，期間他以觀察者的身份回應、了解並刻畫蘇黎世這個城市。展覽「外出一會」記錄了藝術家對這段生活的投入及迷戀，他以寫生和錄像紀錄他對蘇黎世的印象和當地的生活節奏，讓觀眾回溯個人於現代社會生活的公式化及速度，探索都市人與大自然之間的關係。
鄧氏對蘇黎世的第一印象源自一份份遊客地圖，他被這些記錄著這城市的景點和面貌吸引，同時發現地圖可以在短時間內影響遊客對一個地方的印象及感受。在《印象紀錄》作品中，鄧啟耀以畫筆記錄了城市中的樹木、湖泊及建築，對藝術家而言，這些東西見證了這個城市的歷史與發展，並構成了他對這座陌生城市的印象紀錄。
在描繪自然景觀及樹木的作品中，鄧氏傾向將背景留空，突出主體，作品的構圖、呈現方式以至內容的缺乏，卻恰巧構成各種旋律及變化。這種手法可見於《雲》與 《樹》系列中，此兩系列作品多樣的變化及微妙的平衡通過錄像投影、燈管的運用及觀眾的想像顯得更豐富。
除此以外，鄧氏亦以抽象方式表現他對蘇黎世的印象。錄像裝置作品《X:Y》記錄了蘇黎世一幕幕的蔚藍天空，清空之中隱若看見飛機在天空留下白色的痕跡，這些畫面在視覺上失去了空間和層次距離，錯置的擺放延展了觀眾想像的空間，飛機在這個螢幕上消失，又彷彿在另一螢幕中出現。 藝術家以繪畫和錄像記錄城市景觀和自然景觀，藉以思考生活於城市中的現代人早已跟自然失去的聯繫。
[exhibition catalogue]