Mosaics for Jackie!

Lately, Jackie and I have been talking mosaics, conversations I've been longing to have for some time.

Apart from a handful of close friends and gardening, the thing I most miss living in HK is doing mosaics and also conversations with other mosaic-kers about doing mosaics.

I'm actually wanting to mosaic so badly, I'm dreaming about projects and have some pretty amazing ideas I really want to get working on.

You can do mosaics here in HK. Chameleon Workshop runs classes but they're only introductory level, however there was a project burning so fiercely in my head - a mirror surrounded by that sunset and bridge from Munch's "The Scream" ...

 The Scream!

... and I wanted to act on it so badly, I signed up, really just to use their equipment.

MISTAKE!!!  "What are you doing?" said Elly, genuinely shocked.

 "Isn't it obvious?"

"You're meant to be making the one in the plans in front of you."

"No, I want to make this one." I told her ... and after that she kinda hated me A LOT!

I haven't been back since!

So here I am, thinking about a project I desperately want to do, and thus trying to find another place to do it.

Our apartment is far too small, but lately our roof has come into focus - thanks to Andrew, Pete and that photo shoot - and there's so much space up there, I'm wondering ...

Anyway, that's been my mission lately, trying to find someplace that stocks mosaic tiles and equipment.  It's been fun, prowling around the other end of Lockhart Road, among the interior design shops and suppliers and discovering that HK goes more for bling-bling and shiny while I vastly prefer matt.

But what's been most funny is that I've been getting very strange looks indeed. "You want to do this YOURSELF?" is the usual response.  It's like it's unthinkable to anyone here that you wouldn't hire someone to do it for you.

But Yo Yo at "Glamour" (160 Lockhart Road) was just gorgeous.  She actually got it. "Like an artist!" she said.  Nonetheless she steered me towards the designs they get made up for you, and some of them are just so amazing I so want them.  Let me show you a few:

Don't they just make you ache. Especially for those Arabic-style "floor mats".

Anyway, even though "Glamour" may not really understand the urge to personally create an object, they certainly know their mosaics ... and haven't these images got your creative juices flowing.

And that roof up there is certainly looking good at the moment.  It's just a pity that I get these urges in the summertime!

Eating Smoke!

Blacksmith's new book "Eating Smoke" is supposed to be a fabulous and exciting read, but that's not why I'm showing it to you. Check out this cover shot and tell me if you know where photo's taken? 

Yup, the correct answer is "OMG!!! What the hell is Andrew doing on your roof!"

You Want?

Aussie Christine has decided to sell her wonderful village house at Pui-O Beach in Lantau.

If you're interested, here's the site: http://7hamtinsantsuen.yolasite.com/

We've done lots of posts on Pui-O Beach in the past so you know how lovely this "practically private" beach is. And I can tell you that Aussie Christine's place is amazing - all done out in Chinese antiques - and that the house scrubs up really well, and that she was always very happy here, threw lots of good parties, but is now ready to move on.

So, all the details etc, etc, etc are on that link, so do take a look.

My Favourite! Their Favourite!

While still on the theme of HK Asian Art Exhibition, let's do the good stuff.  My good stuff and their good stuff.

You will recall that the piece that won last year was an old Remington typewriter with a roll of aluminum foil stuck in the doodad with a Chinglish message on the wall behind inviting you to type something!  Among all last year's amazing art this win was a true "Say wot?" moment.

However this year's big winner was:

 

The Ultimate Winner!

OK, so it's no old typewriter with a roll of aluminum foil stuck in the doodad, but it's definitely up there.  If you double-click you can see it's a drawing of a tiger-skin stuck onto silk in the manner of a Chinese wall scroll.  Though the standard of the art wasn't so high this year, it's still an odd choice for this year's winner.

What was especially strange was that last year's win was given on the grounds that the installation "invited interaction" ... and if that was their criteria for judging, on those same grounds it was this piece that should have won this year:

 

This amazing piece invited you you scribble on it and so everyone did.

But really, doesn't every piece of Art invite you to interact with it? 

Like, let me show you what I mean:

 Yawn interaction!

 Play interaction!

This was cute! I photographed this nice stranger as she walked past this fractured metal sculpture so she started play-posing for me, and then she snapped photos of me posing in front of it, then after we'd finished playing, we noticed other people lining up so they could play next.  So, really how isn't this shiny refractive surface not "an invitation to interact."

More play posing!

This likely lad was photographing his thumb 

as part of the sequence in this Iraqi installation.

Pointing too is interaction!

 

And even deliberately NOT looking at a painting

is interacting!

So last year's criteria was surely a piece of silliness. And Heaven only knows what the judges' criteria was this year so that this tiger-skin scroll was given first prize: "most inappropriate representation of an endangered species"?

But let's look at stuff I really liked; stuff I found clever and new and exciting:

The Nose Knows!

I thought this one was great. I've also noticed that everyone I know who's already snuck photos of this Exhibition all have it and all include it among their favourite pieces.

Say wot?

This piece was only really a still life of cloth and vase, but images were projected onto it. Wouldn't buy it myself, but I still thought it was cute ... in a creepy sort of way.

And here's another interactive piece that I didn't quite love - paintings with bits that came alive - but which I found so funny because of the way the viewers reacted. In fact, I was so cross that I missed a perfect shot that I lurked in front of it for a while, waiting to take another of the same. Wasn't long at all. Here's most representative shot:

 

You'll have to double-click 

to see the humour in this!

You may recall I said earlier in an earlier post that there were hardly any works from Mainland China, but here were the few.  Just look at how good the craftsmanship is in comparison with what's currently been done in the rest of the world:

These last two photos are paintings by

an artist who so impressed me,

I took a record of his name for 

purposes of finding out more.

And here's a Mainland painting that leapt out at me because, well, I thought "Ahhhh! He's read my script!" This is exactly the scene I wrote in "Gh/lost!" only without the thunderstorm, so it was like seeing an image out of my own head out there:

I was also impressed with the Iraqi sculptors, but I only took a few photos because my camera was saying "Your battery is low. Your battery is low."  (I can't help feeling if that bloody voice didn't tell me that, my battery would last a lot longer.)

"The Beard"

I knew it had to be an important message, 

so I asked the artist.

It's about the failure of Marxism 

in the Islamic Context.

That's Marx, then a famous Iraqi Marxist 

who turned terrorist

and then some abstract representation 

of Marxism in Islama-world.

And I loved the tiny miniature portraits by this Russian artist:

 About four inches by four inches in size.

And I loved the way these two paintings 'popped'!

And I can't say I loved this artist's sculptures but it was still pretty impressive in scale alone.

 

And The Steam-Punk Movement I've been finding exciting for many months, and there were a few representative pieces:

Other stuff that impressed me? 

Well, I couldn't help being impressed with the cheek of these lovely folk selling this book-bag and book.  Inside the door it was HK$450.00, but go through those doors and it was HK$150.00

And this sculpture below impressed me because I thought it was entirely revolting till I caught a whiff of the smell. Mmm, chocolate!  Yup, it was one of a whole series of art pieces made out of chocolate.  Hideous art, fabulous smell!

But my all time favourite art piece in this entire Exhibition would have to have been one by the artist who'd done a series of really bent - a la Botero - copies of famous portraits of Spanish explorers.  They were all shocking with their grim, dark combination of cute and creepy and it took me a long while of just staring at them before deciding that I really really liked them ...

... but it was only later, when I was thinking about everything I'd seen, that I realised the piece that remained most vividly in my head, and which I actually loved most in the entire Exhibition  was THIS ONE

My favourite of them all!

The Pacific Through Asian Eyes!

I liked these paintings, although I'm not sure how to take them.

A Maori by Indonesian artist 

Chatchai Puipia.

And I've lost my record of who this artist is, but I really like his/her style ...

... although not so sure of his/her vision of us!  Very Mardi Gras, yeah?

But this latter artist I do remember from last year, not because of the power of his/her artistic vision but because s/he makes such amazing picture frames:

 

Brooches stuck into fimo?

Actually, I adore picture frames.  Back when I was a kid, my parents took us to The Louvre.  I found all those endless corridors of paintings of sickly-looking white skin really quite repugnant ... so I checked out the pictures frames instead.  They really are stunning, you know.

But then ... whoops, shouldn't really tell you this - think of it as a confession - I noticed that amazing shiny parquetry flooring and decided it would give you a really good ride.  So, with a good running start, I was off, flinging myself onto the ground and, yes, it indeed gave me the ride of my life.

And I have to say that it's totally the best way to view the paintings at the Louvre, zooming past at a rapid pace, especially after all those elderly, doddering guards start chasing you.

Yee ha! How I do love Art!

Asian Art Exhibition - 2011!

I wish I could say it was good. I really do.

Moreso, I wish I could say that last year's Exhibition 2010 was so brilliant it set the benchmark far too high, so whatever was shown this year would naturally disappoint.

But I can't say that either. Yes, last year's HK Asian Art Exhibition was indeed brilliant; all those endless acres of the most astonishing paintings, sculpture, objects and wonders, most all down from Mainland China, and all so knuckle-biting and awe-inspiring and beyond anything I had ever seen before - I tell you, these Mainland artists are the Saviours of Modern Art!  - so, yes, this year's Exhibition would indeed be hard-pressed to top it ... but I think something has gone very wrong because, this year, to me it looked like no one actually tried to top it. In fact, it even looked to me like, with the odd exception here and there, no one had tried to put together a decent showcase at all.

I don't want to say this, but I will: taken in total, with only the odd exception, I think The Asian Art Exhibition of 2011 is bad; like truly, truly bad!

Full disclosure: I'm no expert! I know very little about art, however I have done several undergraduate courses on "Deconstructing Art" where we were assessed on our ability to take an assigned piece of garbage and veil it in words to make it seem like an important, valuable and significant piece of Art.

I was very good at it, and can still do it to anything, which means I certainly can notice when others are also doing it, which means - 100% - I can also spot when a certain Asian Art Exhibition has been co-opted by Outsiders dumping their sad detritus from dozens of failed shows onto an innocent public, because I stalked through those halls getting crosser by the minute, thinking "That's twaddle! That's twaddle! That's twaddle!  And that's not twaddle; it's tosh! Twaddle! Twaddle! Twaddle! Tosh! More tosh! More twaddle!" and so on and so forth.

And where was Mainland China in among all this unmitigated tosh and twaddle?  Well, eventually I found some pieces down the back, waaayyyy down near "The Empty Carton" Exhibition Hall ...

I wasn't the only one who had to be told that

this wasn't part of the Art Exhibition.

And, to be frank, this would have been far superior

to a lot of what was in "the real exhibition"!

... but although this Chinese art was better than most of the rest of what was shown, most of it was recycled from last year and what was new to me wasn't enough to remove that sour feeling that "There's HK$250.00 that would have been better spent elsewhere."

I think the problems really all started with the start, as horrible things usually do.  You'll recall last year's wonderful entrance, right? 

If you don't, here it is:

 Well, this was this year's:

Check it out: those are the guards telling us we weren't important enough to come through the main entrance, and so sending us out to wander wayyyy down the lobby looking for the tiny little doors we mere mortals were allowed to go through.  Like, you have to pay HK$250.00 to be told you're simply not important enough to enter the regular way?  Since when did Art Exhibitions have Door Bitches?

So you're already feeling sour and cross before you go in ... and then you're immediately confronted by endless acres of ...

It could be just my opinion but a lot of these had me cringing!  Maybe you agree, maybe you don't! 

But, sincerely, if I see even one more Artist Installation ...

 ... someone is gonna get slapped reaaalll hard!

Look, please tell every artist you've ever known that if they have to explain their art ... they've FAILED!!!

I can only, after five hours of exploring, conclude that went so terribly, terribly wrong with this year's HK Asian Art Exhibition.

And no doubt it will have something to do with ...

 ... and a bit of ...

 See you shortly!

Later:  Just heard the news that Mainland Chinese artists boycotted this year.  Seems that we haven't been hearing about it, but ever since Ai Wei Wei was arrested, the Red Guard has been going around China smashing up artists' studios, burning them down and destroying their work. Lots of arrests and imprisonment too.

But that's not why they're boycotting HK this year. From what I've been told, it's because the vultures in the Western Art World don't seem to recognise what's happening up there in China and so are still demanding these artists get new work to them, and get angry when these artists say they don't have anything left to show ... so the ones who still do have work are deliberately withholding it to punish these Foreign Devil Dealers for their insensitivity to the very real dangers Chinese artists are currently facing.

Mmmm, the vultures in the Western Art World.  I'm so very very pleased someone is actually saying it.

They are vile. I've been thinking so for years. Have you ever had any dealings with them? Especially when they're gathered in large herds?  Horrible! All those ghastly chunky blond American women with their mean mouths, or else with collagen-pumped lips trying to mask that they're really nasty, cruel, character-exposing, avaricious slash.

And those ghastly American men who try to look and sound like men who got Art History degrees from Prestigious Universities yet don't quite pull it off.

Oooh, and I've discovered a new species in the Art Vulture World who can only be likened to some sort of horrible disease; one of those diseases like typhoid or dysentery that arises from ignorance and lack of knowledge about the fundamentals. Have you met any yet?

THE AUSTRALIAN ART DEALER!!!!

Man, I'm shuddering even more thinking about these foul dysentery-like people; all these ghastly men who try to look and sound like the men who try to look and sound like the men who got Art History degrees from Prestigious Universities ... and can't even quite pull it off.

And their voices?  Oh man! Please, if you know any of these guys please tell them to STOP that awful camp, condescending "I'm so much better than you!" way of speaking ... or to just shut up.   They're really not fooling anyone - we can all see it's masking ignorance and lack of knowledge about the fundamentals - and faking up that "I'm so much better than you!" attitude really only makes one think of dysentery!

SHUDDER!!!!

However, the sheer vileness of these people all fits in with the theory I've slowly been evolving for the past few decades: that out there somewhere are the REAL art dealers - the men and women who actually did get Art History degrees from prestigious universities - but they never deal with folks like us since they are the preserve of The Establishment.

No, all we ordinary mortals get to deal with are these Art Dealer Vultures, who are really all charlatans and frauds, and who do what they do in order to mask a seriously sinister purpose: to make invisible to us that the Art World we regularly get to see is all sleight-of-hand and "smoke and mirrors". Yup, they're all hiding the fact that The Modern Art World is ONE GIGANTIC HOAX!!!!

The way I see it is that semi-mythical beast known as The Establishment thinks that too many of The Wrong Sort of People have too much money, so they put all these razzledazzle seriously-expensive Worlds out there for The Wrong Sort of People to shop at ... with the aim to soak up that money and leave them, at the end, nothing to show for it.

Baaaaahhaaaa hahahhhaaaa!  And with a mustache-twirl thrown in for good measure!

So that's what we're seeing here at HK Asian Art Exhibition.  Without the presence of Mainland Chinese artists, all of whom have proper serious fundamental skills, masterful craftsmanship and genuine artistry,  most all we're seeing this year is the twaddle and tosh that Art Dealer Vultures of the Western Art World sell to mere mortals at enormous prices to soak up our wealth and leave us empty-handed down the track.

So don't be ashamed to say it:  HK Art Exhibition 2011 is simply bad.

In the interests of fairness, you may like to read a different review: from HK Magazine!

But for me, I can only conclude by saying loudly "The Emperor has no clothes!"