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FRAME OF REFERENCE

A LIFE-SIZED, anime-style cartoon girl jumps out of a hologram of Beijing's Tiananmen Gate and threatens to kick me in the head. She is the creation of Taiwanese artist Hung Tung-li, who cleverly layered laser prints in a light box to make an image that moves to stalk me, no matter where I'm standing. This is also the first piece of art you encounter when you walk into Hanart TZ, Hong Kong's oldest contemporary Chinese art gallery.

Owner Johnson Chang Tsong-zung, 53, is scurrying, dressed in a loose grey Chinese pyjama suit and black leather kung fu shoes, with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair.

If one had to find a person to encapsulate Hong Kong's unique old-meets-new, east-meets-west character, Chang would be it. On the one hand he has great respect for ancient Chinese scholarship and insists his two young sons learn traditional Chinese calligraphy. 'Modern simplified Chinese characters are barbaric,' he says. On the other, he's a savvy jet-setting businessman who peddles some of the most controversial Chinese art on the market.

Chang is a walking contradiction. In one pocket is a black notebook filled with perfect vertical columns of handwritten Chinese characters - this traditionalist's answer to the Palm Pilot. In his other pocket is a mobile that never stops ringing, with calls from China, Europe and the Guggenheim in New York, where Chang acts as Asian art consultant.

The calls are even more intense than usual today because Chang is trying to organise the city's largest gathering of contemporary Chinese artists, in celebration of his gallery's 20th anniversary. 'So far I have up to 70 Chinese artists showing, with 50 flying in from New York, Paris, Hamburg, San Francisco, London, Taipei and all over China,' he says excitedly. 'I was originally going to invite only three or four curators, but now there are 10. These artists and curators have probably never been in the same place at once, so it will be like an experiment.'

The experiment will take place at the Hong Kong Arts Centre next Friday night, when 70 major art pieces will be unveiled. 'I think we're getting a DJ and an erhu player. I'm not sure how they'll jam, but it will be interesting,' Chang says. Afterwards they will move to the China Club, where 'David [Tang] will throw a party till the small hours of the morning. After that will be a brunch at the Asia Art Archive.'

Perhaps with lunch in mind, Chang moves the interview to the China Club across the street. It could be said this is Chang's unofficial second gallery, as he was the one who sourced the 100-plus original artworks adorning the three-storey private club. 'That one is probably worth $1.5 to $2 million,' he says, pointing to a large oil in the stairwell, before stopping by a small balcony to check on a Zhan Wang steel rock sculpture. Another 30 or so pieces hang in the main dining room, where all the waiters call Chang by name and serve him an old-fashioned Cantonese meal that includes thick black bo lei (pu'er) tea and pungent stewed pomelo skin.

Whether he intended it or not, Chang's art career started more than 30 years ago when he studied philosophy at Williams College, an elite liberal arts school in the US. 'Do you know about the Williams mafia?' he asks. 'Williams alumni are now very influential in the art world. Many are in major posts.'

Chang refers to a recent New York Times story, 'One College's Long Shadow: Looking Back at the Williams Mafia', about the stream of important art figures from this small institution. As the curator of international exhibitions from Beijing to Paris to New York, he can now count himself among them.

Back in Hong Kong after college, he worked as an independent curator, doing shows at the Hong Kong Arts Centre and local museums, while co-founding a gallery that sold traditional paintings and calligraphy.

But it wasn't until a relative stepped in that Chang could afford to do what he really wanted. 'I was given this huge space in Kowloon by my uncle who rented it to me at negligible rent, which is how I could afford to concentrate on contemporary Chinese art, because the market was very small back then. I remember we only opened two or three days a week,' he says.

'Because of this almost-free space, I didn't have to play to the commercial market. I could also write about art and emphasise art's critical aspect.'

Contemporary Chinese art might be all over Hollywood Road these days; but in the pre-SoHo era, it was more a curiosity than anything else. For Chang, it was a field set to take off. 'In Hong Kong in the 70s and 80s, Chinese artists were really just beginning to work on forming a distinct cultural identity, which is why I was interested in introducing other art forms, rather than just traditional ink painting,' he says.

'I remember our first show featured Luis Chan with some Taiwanese artists. Luis Chan was my hero. Still is. I think he was one of the greatest figures of 20th-century Chinese art and is still underrated,' he says of the eccentric genius known as the pioneer of modern Hong Kong painting.

In 1992, Chang moved to the old Bank of China building under the China Club. After the handover, he shifted again to the Henley Building next door. But he claims his focus was never on his own business but on promoting Chinese art overseas.

Ironically, considering he organises a major museum show every year in other cities, Chang's 20th anniversary bash is the first exhibition of this scale he's done in his home town. 'Hanart TZ is so famous we don't need it. No, just kidding,' he says. 'A major exhibition is expensive to do in Hong Kong and my biggest challenge was never the gallery itself but my efforts to put Chinese art on the map internationally.'

Chang has worked hard to bring contemporary Chinese art to new places. He started by curating museum shows in Southeast Asia, moving to Europe, then America. 'Back then, it was practically impossible for non-western artists to get a platform for their art in the west. Now it's impossible for any self-respecting curator to organise an international show without a Chinese artist.'

In the 80s, hardly any contemporary Chinese art was shown in France. So he can consider his 'Paris-Pekin' exhibit at the Espace Cardin in Paris something of a coup. The month-long show in October 2002 included 140 pieces of original Chinese contemporary art and a glossy 290-page trilingual catalogue produced by Hong Kong's Asia Art Archive.

The fact that Chinese art has become more recognised is only a part of this major shift, though. 'When art changes, it's not just a matter of prominence but also of style and sensibility. It changes in focus, and in what sort of problems it's trying to address and solve,' says Chang.

In broad terms, the 70s and 80s were a time of wild experimentation as Chinese artists worked to break out of the mould of traditional art forms. In the 90s, artists began to find a balance between old and new, and started reverting to traditional Chinese history, literature and art for inspiration. There was another shift: whereas earlier contemporary art commented on the insane politics of the time (explaining the equally insane number of Mao figures used), more recent art criticises China's rapid and often unthinking surge towards western-styled industrialisation.

'I was always painfully aware of the break with tradition that happened during Mao's revolution,' says Chang. 'But the younger Chinese generation did not realise this, did not realise that part of their culture was lost, or that it was under threat. Since the revolution, the Chinese have been less in touch with their history than, say, the Europeans.'

It took China's economic boom to make mainland artists realise what they were missing out on. 'Change happened in the mid-90s, when artists began seeing rapid modernisation and major shifts in land development, when they saw entire villages and towns being wiped out by 'progress'. It was only with the onslaught of urban redevelopment that Chinese artists became aware of this severe break with their indigenous culture,' says Chang.

Take a quick look through Chang's many art catalogues and you will see two dominant themes. There is harsh criticism of a vapid, modern China that has forgotten its history and is obsessed with western name brands. Examples include He An's Adidas series, in which a weeping child and a homeless man are superimposed on ads for athletic equipment; or Hu Jieming's Raft of the Medusa, a doctored photo of hip urban Chinese youth floating to their doom on a raft made of Coke cans and Pepsi bottles. But there are also more elements of the traditional Chinese arts - calligraphy, landscapes, Chinese ink and ceramics - albeit used in modern ways.

Chang uses a recent trip to the art academy in Hangzhou, considered the capital of new Chinese art, as an example. 'I was there recently and what pleased me was that the director of the academy hired a 30-year-old kid whose level of Chinese classic literacy was astonishing,' he says. 'I saw his collection of poetry, which was dense with literary anecdotes. It gave me hope that, however marginalised traditional Chinese culture is, however dangerously fine the thread is that links it to the youth of modern-day China, that thread is still there.'

But how can Chang reconcile his respect for the traditional with art that is often vulgar, sexually explicit and blatantly disrespectful - calligraphy that makes no sense, for example, or traditional Chinese ceramic bowls that feature beheaded women in cheongsams - in essence, art that would repulse any Chinese traditional art purist? 'Healthy change,' he concludes, 'would be a renewed interest in Chinese history and culture, which would be reflected in Chinese contemporary art that is well-rounded and truly unique to the Chinese experience.'

Celebrating 20 Years of Hanart TZ Gallery, 4/F-5/F HK Arts Centre, 2 Harbour Rd, Wan Chai, Friday, May 2. Luis Chan 99, until May 5 at Hanart TZ Gallery, 2/F Henley Bldg, 5 Queen's Rd, Central, tel: 2526 9019

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