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Norman Ford

Power Plays

Para/Site Art Space

Reviewed: September 15

Relationships between the individual and class, gender, economics, law  and politics - in other words, public and private discourses of power -  have been a vital aspect of much contemporary art  of the past 30 years.

Power Plays, curated by Para/Site's Tobias Berger, presents 11 videos, most of which are public performances, considering issues  from the personal/political body and urban culture to the metaphorical and humorous.

The show  uses stacks of  timber palettes piled unevenly on the floor, filling more than half the space and supporting  TVs and projections. This  both complements the work  and  provides a place for viewers to sit.

A  single-channel video show is always difficult to pull off, especially when the work might not be  accessible to a broader audience. Although  this  reinforces an elitist trend in contemporary art, in this case, choosing to engage more deeply will reveal great subtlety,  humour and critical thought - well  worth the effort.

Many of the videos are  straight-forward performance documentations, but others are more lyrical or  stylised, such as Francis Alys' Patriotic Stories, with multiplying sheep circling a pillar in the  centre of Mexico City, or the ridiculous and funny, sepia-toned courtroom documentation of Zhao Bandi's intellectual property lawsuit.

Each video plays out a different kind of power relationship. Although the show lacks detailed documentation,  its broad internationalism, with artists from the mainland, Hong Kong, Europe and Latin America, provides an engaging overview of a crucial aspect  of contemporary art. And this is  sorely needed in, and distinctly relevant to, Hong Kong at the moment.



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Power Plays