A challenge to the white cube
Artist and theorist Patrick Ireland's seminal essay Inside the White Cube was recently cited by a number of local exhibitions, after much use and abuse by the international art world.
First came Outside the White Cube, launched by the Arts Centre as part of the Arts Festival programme.
With this show, artists created works outside the gallery walls and into the streets and public spaces. It was unfortunate that little attempt was made to explain the reference in the title to a general audience. The clear fact is, whether it is inside or outside the 'white cube' (the gallery), Hong Kong offers little of such pristine art environment or ideology.
Visually, the artists' run Para-site gallery in Western is as different from a 'white cube' as you would expect. Site-seeing is the last of the trio of installations on show in the old, rustic former shopfront. Both Sarah Wong and Phoebe Man have created works which address the local community. Wong salvaged used hoardings and fragments of old posters and handbills to make a shelter over a chiselled hole in the floor. The hole is shaped not unlike an abstract geographical mapping of Hong Kong, which has been filled with blue water. A small fan and a television screen of static sandwiched in the layers of boards cast an eerie finality.
Similarly, Man recycled industrial debris and constructed an industrial landscape with her piece. Sharp, angular mirror pieces jut out of the concrete mass, reflecting images cast from a slide projector. Man photographed the local cityscapes, in many cases with her hand reached out, obstructing the central view. The show successfully forms a linkage between the outside and the inside to challenge our perception of existence.
The Collectors As Curators show at Hanart TZ is curated by collectors Paul Serfaty and David Tang, though I only found references by Serfaty through his essay. The pre-publicity supposedly offers the viewer the chance to view small works selected by the curators set in a domestic setting, where the nature of the white cube is challenged.
Serfaty incorporated pieces of furniture like a side-table and couch into the space, but it is practically impossible to determine that they have been positioned there for a specific purpose as they blend into the semi-domestic decor of Hanart.
After much analysis, I eventually settled on looking at the three long-wilted tulips juxtaposed with Ju Ming's ceramic fish, and the pink taffeta covered frame of Yu Peng and Luis Chan's cardboard mats covered in crisp cellophane. Many of the works are unidentified and only carry the artist's names and their prices on dot stickers.
My favourite in the gallery is an unnamed Chinese propaganda-realist style ink-painting I Love Electronic Keyboard from 1975. However, since it is impossible to deduce where this show starts and ends in the space, I deduce that this large work is not actually in the show.
Serfaty's essay is eloquent and thoughtful but as a curatorial undertaking, the execution is slight and uninspiring.
Site-seeing, Para-site; Collectors as Curators, Hanart TZ
