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Anoxia

Rental United: Die Young

 

This exhibition is like a redux movie in the way that it resurrects and expands on a series of previous site-specific and ephemeral performances, and repackages them in a physical form.

Refreshingly, the Rental United artists are not merely offering products for sale. The new artwork is both a reflection on the original performances and thoughtful pieces in their own right.

The collective is made up of three young artists - Stephanie Sin, Damon Tong and Timothy Zauhou - who have shared a studio since 2009 in the artists' enclave of Fotan.

Their two most visible long-duration performances were seen at Hong Kong ArtWalks 2012 and 2014, and are newly realised in this exhibition, with some other performances.

The new is an installation inspired by , a 2014 performance by trained reflexology professionals hired by the artists. The vestige of the earlier performance is an installation of disassembled chairs, cushions and video supported by the sounds of heavy breathing.

It is a completely different work and, as the artists explain, is "an opportunity to share our previous work through a transformation in a new time and space".

In 2012, saw the artists walking the streets of Central, ritually cleaning art galleries' windows. On completion, an invoice for their services was attached.

No gallery paid, but now a memory of that performance, an assemblage of cleaning-trolley, wipers and buckets, is presented in .

Anoxia is a condition when there is an absence of oxygen in the tissue of an organ. For these artists, with little commercial experience and waiting for the resuscitative breath of possible "success", it is a nice subversion.

These previously free performances become art objects (and not too expensive ones) for sale in a gallery.

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