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Chow Chun Fai: “I Have Nothing To Say” 周俊輝:《無話可說》

Exhibition details

Opening / Event Date:
20 August, 2015
Time:
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Closing / End Date:
12 September, 2015
Event Category:
藝術家出席酒會 2015年8月20日(週四)下午6到8時
Artist’s Reception Thursday, 20 August 2015, 6 to 8pm
   
展期 2015年8月20日至9月12日
Exhibition Period 20 August – 12 September 2015

 

漢雅軒
香港 中環 畢打街十二號 畢打行四零一室

Hanart TZ Gallery
401 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong

+852 2526 9019   [email protected]

 

策展引言


無聲的觀照:周俊輝的《無話可說》

任卓華

 

周俊輝個展《無話可說》訂於2015年8月20日(週四)晚上6-8時在畢打行漢雅軒開幕。

周俊輝的最新個展《無話可說》對香港近年來的實況幽了一默。他持續關注那千變萬化的生存環境,包括網絡世界中的虛擬現實。或許大眾對周俊輝的「電影繪畫」及「攝影裝置」已相當熟識。他目光敏銳,抱著玩味十足的心態,一方面從電影中尋找一些能啓發觀者思考當下境遇的隱藏信息,另一方面又從古典藝術中吸取靈感,參考創作方法。在本次展覽,他把目光延伸到日常在智能手機上的所見所聞,從WhatsApp、面書到微信上收集圖像創作出一系列以手機截屏為素材的速寫。

周俊輝的創作可說是對「香港身份」的形態學研究,包括已過去的、正在變化的以及將來不確定的「身份」。他從電影中挑選故事片段及相配的中英字幕,再以輕鬆有活力的筆觸,把那些素材處理成極具意味的架上繪畫。他經過細心分析,挑選出讓觀者聯想翩翩的場景和對白,意圖揭示其個人當下的心理狀態,或切入其生存環境,即香港的時局。過去一年,香港的文化及政治環境在不同層面上都經歷著激烈的動盪,充滿紛爭。同時,社會上充斥著種種讓人憂心的「造假」現象:電話騙案、人造雞蛋、滿口謊言的政客及假新聞等等,無奇不有。

在這個紛亂的時局中或許我們已無法停留在立場判斷或身份認同的思考層面上,因為恐怕我們連立足之地都快堅守不住了。本展覽中一幅大型「電影繪畫」尤其引人注目,周俊輝以柔和透亮的色彩繪製出電影《細路祥》(陳果執導,2000年上映)的一幕經典場景。該片段畫面的設置是在1997年香港回歸之前,三個小孩騎在一輛單車上,在尖沙嘴海濱眺望港島的天際。當「細路祥」指著對岸並告知其玩伴該處是添馬艦時,另一位女孩(來自大陸的無證兒童)卻說:「我知道,那裡將來是解放軍的」。

而在另一組「電影繪畫」《讓子彈飛》系列中,周俊輝則運用較暗的色調來繪畫該齣電影(姜文執導,2010年上映)的經典情節。那部黑色喜劇以上世紀二十年代的中國為背景,講述一群政客、軍閥與土匪之間的混戰角力與身份轉換的荒唐故事。

《手機截圖》系列則讓我們更深刻地見識到「造假」現象的嚴重程度。例如大陸媒體以《星球大戰》的電影截圖來宣稱中國擁有保護南海的重型武器,或者是北韓媒體宣稱官方已經成功派國民登陸太陽,又或者是關於安徽省某男子按照其偶像雷鋒的長相來整容的報道等等 (實際上雷鋒是一個文革時期虛構出來的模範人物),這些「造假」無一不令人咋舌。它們原本是作為「真新聞」被傳媒報道,只是後來都被網民拆穿並在網絡上貼文討論。同樣在「造假」,值得注意另外兩件展覽中的「攝影裝置」。周俊輝在《舟上的金正恩》中扮演北韓最高領導人,把自己的形象植入一幅最近被國際熱烈討論的一幅北韓政治宣傳圖像。之後,他再運用同一組拍攝道具來製作出《最後審判米高安哲奴的船》,以其進一步強化身份轉換的創作觀念。

總的來講,周俊輝的《無話可說》揭露了一個隱藏的生存實況,當中充斥著造假、荒誕與失實。他身處其中並無聲觀照。套用約翰˙凱奇的一句名言,可以說:「周俊輝無話可說,可他正在說。」

 (中文翻譯: 林昶汶)


 

Curatorial Statement

 

Silent Witness: Chow Chun Fai’s I Have Nothing to Say

Valerie C. Doran

 

Hanart TZ Gallery is pleased to announce Chow Chun Fai’s new solo exhibition I Have Nothing To Say, which opens on 20 August 2015, from 6-8pm.

In I Have Nothing to Say, Chow Chun Fai adds a sardonic chapter to his lively, ongoing chronicle of contemporary Hong Kong realities—both virtual and actual. Chow is known for his evocative ‘film paintings’ and photo montage ‘representations’, revealing through his incisive but playful gaze certain pertinent messages for our time contained within popular Hong Kong film narratives on the one hand and the classical canons of art history on the other. In his new exhibition, Chow extends his gaze to include the virtual worlds of WhatsApp, Facebook and WeChat, adding quirky sketches of actual screen captures from his mobile phone to his chronicle.

Many of Chow’s works examine what one might term the morphology of Hong Kong identity—as it was in the past, as it is changing in the present, and the projected uncertainty of its future. In his celebrated film paintings, Chow depicts scenes from popular Hong Kong films (complete with the original bilingual subtitles) and renders them in moody canvases whose casually energetic brushwork camouflages the careful consideration that goes into each work. Chow researches meticulously, choosing scenes and dialogue that both point to and signify a critical psychological moment in his personal existence as well as in the unfolding reality of the time and place in which he lives—in other words, of Hong Kong itself. As of 2015, the Hong Kong landscape (both literal and metaphorical) has undergone radical challenges on many levels and navigated rough storms of conflicting narratives and whole new levels of fabrication and deception—from phone scams and fake eggs to deceitful politicians and fabricated news.

Under such tumultuous conditions, it is less a question of standing firm and reflecting on Hong Kong identity, as of having no firm ground to stand on at all. In one of the key paintings in I Have Nothing to Say, the artist telescopes back in time and picks out a scene from Fruit Chan’s film Little Cheung (2000), set in 1997. Executed in a gentle, luminous palette, the painting depicts three children perched on a bicycle and looking out at the Victoria Harbour skyline on the eve of the Handover. The boy, Little Cheung, points out the Tamar site—at the time the headquarters of the British Army—and one of the little girls (who are both illegal immigrants from the Mainland), proudly says: ‘I know, it will belong to the People’s Liberation Army’.

In his Let the Bullets Fly painting series Chow chooses a darker, more brooding palette to recreate telling moments from Jiang Wen’s immensely popular 2010 film, a dark comedy set in the 1920s about corrupt politicians, warlords and bandits who switch identities back and forth and engage in endless games of double-cross. Chow’s Captured from my mobile phone series enhances the sense of fabrication and deception, especially as the absurd Internet postings Chow depicts were originally disseminated as ‘real news’: A mainland newspaper claims that robots from a Star Wars film are actually military cyborgs used to protect the South China Sea, while North Korean media announces they have landed a man on the sun, and a young man in Anhui province has cosmetic surgery to turn his face into that of his ‘idol’ Lei Feng—a fabrication of a (Cultural Revolution) fabrication. Following along this trajectory are Chow’s performative, photographic, mixed-media installations KIM Jong-un on Boat and Last Judgement Michelangelo’s Boat. Chow here projects himself into a famous North Korean propaganda poster, impersonating the Supreme Leader himself. Expanding on the theme of crossed identities, the companion installation reconstructs a section of Michelangelo’s mythical masterpiece from the same props as those used for Kim’s.

In I Have Nothing to Say, it is the ‘ungrounded’ state of living amidst fabrications, absurdities and untruths that Chow is exposing, and to which he is (silently) bearing witness. To borrow a phrase, Chow Chun Fai has nothing to say, and he is saying it.

  

創作感言

 

《無話可說》 

「無話可說」的原因,一是對現實無奈的反應,二是需要假借寓言寄託不能直言的,三是因為寄語一個有距離的側面,能更準確描繪眼前的。 展覽分為三個部份:第一部份描繪的是來自手提電話 WhatsApp、Facebook、WeChat等傳來的圖像。這些從媒體或社交平台收集的圖像數量很多,我決定以紙本繪畫。而選取的故事大都是關於欺騙與被騙。第二部份是我較為人熟悉的「電影繪畫」系列。這次從電影選取一些暗示今天社會政治的畫面與對白,如電影《讓子彈飛》原本就充滿象徵性的場景,觀眾不停猜測其中的隱喻意義。如第一部份作品,故事同樣多關於欺騙與被騙。 第三部份我想借用北韓金正恩的形象來造一件混合媒材的作品。全球流傳著他的圖像和視頻,那些百姓情緒高漲的哭臉、奔向偶像的肢體動作,在我來說這些畫面甚至具有文藝復興宗教繪畫的意味。

周俊輝
2015年 8月

 

Artist’s Statement  

 

‘I Have Nothing To Say’ 

When I say ‘I have nothing to say’, it’s for one of three reasons: either because of my intense frustration with the way things are, or because I have to use metaphors or fables to stand in for the things I’m unable to talk about directly, or because I find that it’s only by taking a more distant, oblique approach that I can accurately portray the things I see happening in front of me.

This exhibition can be divided into three sections:

The first is comprised of images I have captured from my mobile phone of postings from electronic media/ social platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and WeChat. Some of these postings are from actual newspaper articles or other media reports, others are clearly political propaganda: but what they all have in common is that they are either deceptive information or outright lies, of the kind we encounter on a daily basis. From the huge amount of data I collected, I have made a selection of 49 of these capture images and turned them into drawings on paper.

The second section can be described as a new installment of my ‘film paintings’ series.  This time, however, I selected specific scenes and dialogue from films such as Jiang Wen’s Let the Bullets Fly, which are full of ambiguity and leave the audience constantly guessing what the real truth of the situation is. Each of these scenarios has a kind of symbolic significance related to our current socio-political situation—and once again, the main theme is about lies and deception.

For the third section of the exhibition, I have created a performative mixed-media work using appropriated images of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. In these images, which North Korea has broadcast to the world, Kim is shown surrounded by his devoted followers, many of whom reach out towards their idol with passionate, energetic gestures and with their faces contorted with emotion and even streaming with tears. To me these propagandistic images of Kim have the constructed pathos of Renaissance-period religious paintings, and it is this quality that I want to capture in this work.

Chow Chun Fai

August 2015

 

簡歷

 

周俊輝(1980年生)

香港土生土長,周俊輝的概念繪畫及攝影裝置最為人耳熟能詳。於香港中文大學藝術系先後取得藝術學士(BA)及藝術碩士(MFA)。周氏以藝術家身份積極介入社會政治,除任「伙炭」藝術村董事會主席外,更曾於2012年參與立法會「體育、演藝、文化及出版」功能組別選舉。雖未能晉身議事堂,卻成功引起各界對香港文化藝術之關注。近期曾參與展覽包括:《威尼斯集合點》(My Art Guide 主辦,2015年威尼斯雙年展期間)、《香港眼》(2012年英國薩奇畫廊)、利物浦雙年展(2012年)。曾獲獎項包括「香港藝術中心三十週年大獎」、「Sovereign傑出亞洲藝術獎」等。

 

Artist Biography

 

CHOW Chun Fai (b. 1980)

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Chow Chun Fai is known for his conceptually fuelled paintings and photographic installations. Chow holds a BA and MFA from the Fine Arts Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He takes an activist role as an artist: Chow serves as Chairman of the Fotanian Artist Village and in 2012 he ran in the Hong Kong Legislative Council elections, for the Sports, Performing Arts, Culture and Publication constituency. Although his election bid was unsuccessful, it drew wide attention to grassroots issues related to art and culture in Hong Kong. Most recently his work has been featured in the exhibitions Venice Meeting Point at the Arsenale, Venice Biennale 2015; The Past Continuing at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum (2015); Hong Kong Eye at the Saatchi Gallery, London and the Liverpool Biennial (both UK, 2012). Chow is a recipient of the Grand Prize of the Hong Kong Arts Centre 30th Anniversary Awards, and the Sovereign Asian Art Prize.

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