THE WEATHER ON the day I meet up with artist Philippe Ramette: 25 to 29 degrees Celsius, humidity around 80 per cent, scattered clouds with sunny periods. In other words, a pretty nice spring day by Hong Kong's standards.
'It could be a little bit better,' Ramette says, as we look outside to Victoria Harbour from a Tsim Sha Tsui hotel. 'Let's hope it holds up.' There are good reasons for Ramette's concern with our unpredictable skies. For two mornings this week, he has placed himself at the mercy of the elements - and Hong Kong's marine traffic - for the sake of art.
His current project, The Balcony, is giving the elderly and the fishing crowd that hangs out around Tsim Sha Tsui's waterfront something to gawk at.
A large boat with a heavy crane hoists an oversized makeshift wooden balcony above the waters. Ramette, dressed in a stylish suit, steps inside the structure and the crane lowers him into the water.
The idea of the installation involves Ramette 'floating' in the wooden balcony in Victoria Harbour. Lying down in the structure facing the sky, it creates a puzzling illusion with Hong Kong's skyline as the backdrop.
The first of his The Balcony series was performed at the Bionnay Chateau in Paris, where Ramette built the same wooden balcony on the castle's lawn, and lay down staring at the sky. The resulting images quickly became important works in the contemporary art scene. Five years on, Ramette has chosen Hong Kong as the second location in his series. 'I came to Hong Kong two years ago and thought that Victoria Harbour provided a unique perspective. People take one look and they instantly know it's Hong Kong,' he says. 'This is going to be my only location in Asia.'
Hong Kong's installation has been considerably more tricky. Ramette got a contractor to build a plexiglass box to enable the balcony to float. When the crane lowers Ramette, along with the plexiglass-supported wooden balcony, into the water, he has just seconds to position himself for photographer Marc Domage. The currents were less than co-operative on the first morning and Ramette found himself treading water in our not-so-fragrant harbour.
