Wong Wai-yin

HK Magazine: In your series “Hong Kong Artist Museum,” you created paintings of museums dedicated to different artists in Hong Kong. Are you interested in how artists get chosen to be exhibited?
Wong Wai-yin: I’m much more concerned about how history is constructed, rather than who is being shown. In the painting series “Hong Kong Artist Museum,” I made the first one of Kwan Sheung-chi, who is my husband, and I made his museum very emotional. It contained my own expectations and imaginings of him. It’s impossible for Hong Kong to have a museum [dedicated to just one artist.] But because of this impossibility, I started making paintings of them. The first 25 of them are artists I really like, but I started doing more research, and later on [I found] artists that… I don’t think they have really good works, but I think they have contributed to the [art] scene, so I chose them. During the showing of the series, the audience’s response to it was very funny. Some of my friends said “why does this not include me?” and some of them asked “why include such crappy artists?”

HK: Can you tell us more about your interest in history?
WWY: I’m not a historian or a history expert, but I have some personal opinions. Before, I didn’t think that history was really a big deal—just that someone once wrote about it and it was passed on. Now sometimes I think we need to put more effort in it. Just like the Hong Kong issue with its museums—you’re not just passing on history; you’re passing on the idea of Hong Kong art and its developments. In Hong Kong we much more often experience the absence of history, so we think of it as the absence of Hong Kong art.

HK: Do you think that Hong Kong people don’t care about preserving history?
WWY: I think they want to erase it. It’s not just Hong Kong—it’s quite common in many post-colonial cities. [The people] want to forget the past. I was in Okinawa for a residency before. People in Okinawa are experiencing the same situation as in Hong Kong. They are even more complex, because now they have a US army base there. They have a much stronger desire to erase. Maybe this is common among Asians—they prefer to think that their [own] art is rubbish and that the art from the West is much better or more original.

HK: Do you think the Hong Kong government is helping to develop the local arts scene?
WWY: I think they’re doing a lot, but in the wrong direction! They buy some factories—the whole factory—and then ask all artists to move in. This kind of policy just doesn’t work. I really don’t want to move into that factory to continue my production, because the government may think, “we’re not just providing you with space, we want you to interact with the public.” But when I make works I don’t want to interact with the public, right? Just like in JCCAC [the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre], the studios are transparent. How can you work in a transparent studio? I really can’t do it.

HK: What do you think they should be doing instead?
WWY: I don’t always want to keep coming back to education, but it’s true that Hong Kong’s art education is a really messy system. Suddenly [schools] push kids to learn art history, but you have to have some basic knowledge before learning about Monet. I was teaching in a high school a few years ago and the kids said “why are you talking about a guy called Monet? It’s none of my business!”

Check out Wong Wai-yin’s exhibit before it closes on Dec. 10. Selected artworks will be available for sale and for private viewing at no additional cost after the exhibit closes.