Belgian artist Francis Alÿs confronts us-and-them mentality in Hong Kong exhibition that focuses on migration
- Mexico-based artist’s enduring interest in sites of conflict brings him to Hong Kong – after Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon – ‘to understand what is happening’
- Disturbing video of children re-enacting artist’s failed project to line up boats to form a bridge from Africa to Europe is the centrepiece of show at Tai Kwun
It wasn’t just the rarity of an overseas artist’s visit amid the coronavirus pandemic that made Francis Alÿs’ arrival so hotly anticipated in Hong Kong. His three decades of making humanist, absurdist art from his home in Mexico City and in other places outside the mainstream, developed art centres have informed the work of two generations of Hong Kong conceptual artists.
These include Tozer Pak Sheung-chuen, now in his forties, who participated in a 2010 international exhibition called “I‘m Not Here. An Exhibition Without Francis Alÿs”, and millennials such as Ice Wong Kei-suet – last month, the 25-year-old made There’s no beginning. There’s no end. almost entirely from candyfloss, recalling Alÿs’ ephemeral Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing (1997), in which he pushed a block of ice through the streets until it melted.
To the Belgian-born, 33-year Mexico resident, his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong was definitely worth quarantining for (especially since his 14 days of isolation were spent in a flat on Lamma Island with a glorious view). He tends to create art on the spot when he tours, so in the 90 hours he had left in Hong Kong after his quarantine, he went to various neighbourhoods to film children at play.
Alÿs, 61, has been to Hong Kong before, but the filming reflects an enduring interest in sites of conflict that has taken him to Afghanistan, to a refugee camp in Iraq, and to Beirut.
They are so much more patient than children I have seen in other places. Here, their capacity of adaptation is also more visible
The edited footage will be added to his continuing series, called “Children’s Games” – one of the projects included in his exhibition, “Wet Feet __ Dry Feet: Borders and Games”, at Tai Kwun in Central district.