Arts preview: Conceptual Walk Through

CONCEPTUAL WALK THROUGH
Espace Louis Vuitton

The new exhibition at Espace Louis Vuitton, a collection of recent works by Hong Kong artist Kingsley Ng Siu-king and mainland artist Gao Weigang, displays a preference for artworks with golden or glittering surfaces.

When I ask the duo and their curator, William Zhao, whether that’s a conscious decision, something comical happens: seated at either end of a coffee table, Gao says “yes”, while Zhao says “no”.

Joking aside, this readiness for contradiction sits well with “Conceptual Walk Through”, an exhibition that has no overriding theme apart from a generalised notion of conceptual art.

Zhao explains that the showcase is meant to expand the venue’s exhibition profile from that of predominantly figurative art to conceptual art. “The common link between the two artists’ works is that they’re both very open [to interpretation],” says Zhao. “Each work tells a diversity of stories.

“Contemporary art is interesting in that different people will perceive different things in the works when they’re in different states of mind,” Zhao says.

Gao is a self-proclaimed sceptic. His work reveals an ironic attitude toward traditional beliefs, from a decorative sculpture in the shape of a unicorn’s skull to a set of fake antique marble structures based on standard geometric forms that were defined after their purported “ancient” origin.

“I like to cast doubt on the credibility of established wisdom,” says the artist, who cites his Poison 2, an installation of books and bookshelves on which Gao has painted a reading woman, to illustrate his point.

“A bookshelf is a collection of the human experience, but if you read too much, what you learn from reading is also going to cloud your judgment. Our ability to assess the future is affected by past knowledge.”

For Ng, who works with large-scale installations that require tightly controlled environments to accurately portray their sonic and visual elements, picking the right artworks for this instore gallery was a challenge in itself. In Spring: Homage to Liang Quan, for example, the artist seeks to replicate the daylight conditions of the sources of a variety of mineral water brands.

The artist thinks the exhibition is an opportunity to compare and contrast the conceptual approaches of mainland and Hong Kong artists.

“Many of the works I’ve chosen for this show are related to Hong Kong,” Ng says. His bronze and glass installation Penjing references local history of class and ethnic privilege through the traditional Chinese art of miniature landscape, while the digital print, Solitary Light, imagines a Hong Kong Island minus the lights from its architectural structures.

“It may be a bit corny to put it this way, but we both explore how Western and Eastern ideas can complement each other,” says Ng of the joint show.

“When you study conceptual art in school, it’s usually about an art history approach based around the 1960s.

But even the haiku poetry in Japanese culture is very conceptually oriented.

Conceptual art actually covers a much wider context than some would think.”

edmund.lee@scmp.com

Espace Louis Vuitton, Louis Vuitton Maison, 5 Canton Road, TST, daily 10am-10pm. Ends January 31, 2014. Inquiries: 8100 1182