Hong Kong “Quick-Fix”
Visual Arts
Description
Description
Hong Kong is a big city. There are millions of stories and topics I could have chosen as the subject of this exhibition and of all of them it is this most humble of phenomena, the quick-fix, that I have settled upon. Ugly, unwanted, petty and compromised, the quick-fix is both aesthetically and morally frowned upon. And yet quick-fixes are ubiquitous, they pop up almost everywhere, like mushrooms after the rain. Wherever there are people there are quick-fixes. They flourish in the back-stages of the city, they spread like wildfire across its in-between zones and, if you look carefully, you can even find them nestled amongst the shiny steel and glass facades of the modern city. How, then, has this bastard creativity come to occupy such a significant part of the city’s aesthetic unconscious?
I am from a family of military engineers, builders and miners. One thing all of these professions have in common, at least as they are practiced in the UK, is a preference for practicality over appearances. While I chose not to pursue any of these careers, one abiding thing these men did instill in me was a respect for practical creativity. From them I learnt that a good quick-fix can be a thing of beauty. This is not the beauty of free artistic expression upon a blank canvas, the quick-fix is usually made on the spot, out of necessity, with limited means and for a specific purpose. But at their best they are creative nonetheless.
Note：This event record is compiled from "Hong Kong Visual Arts Yearbook 2018" published by Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Info
Indoor