David Zwirner’s Hong Kong gallery put on a solo exhibition of Wolfgang Tillmans in The Point Is Matter from 25 March to 11 May, 2024.
From soft atmospheric moments, intimate still lifes and portraits to abstract studio videos. Spanning two floors, the photographer and artist presents his work as if in conversation with each other, meticulously planned to get the most out of the white-walled space. Tillmans’ universal perspective comes through in new and old works originating from his travels to Addis Ababa, Berlin, Lagos, and Mongolia, alongside those rooted in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, forging a link to local sensibilities.
“Hong Kong as a subject matter, is infinitely interesting, fascinating because it is such an international place with, obviously, Chinese culture and its own culture. I mean, I’ve felt moved here every time by the incredible energy, resilience, and joy,” says Tillmans. The pivotal figure of contemporary art took our photographers on a tour of the Hong Kong show, look on through their eyes and in his words…
Wolfgang Tilmans pictured.
“This installation is the result of a long evolving conversation or thinking about this space. Yesterday I saw [another] photography exhibition, which was very traditional, which showed one photograph next to the other frame. And it just reminded me of 1992, when I developed my style of installation, I mean, it was a natural reaction. For me, I couldn’t do anything else because why would I show everything in a line when I’m actually in the space? Since a young age, I have loved churches, I loved museums, I love the spatial experience of art. And that is the privilege that we have in these laboratories,” says Tillmans during the tour.
“This is not like a time-lapse. This is how fast the Earth rotates. And then the moon slips through the view of the camera and all the videos are set to songs that are part of an album that will be released next month. The piece is set to pictures that are filmed during the printing process of my book, abstract pictures in a giant printing press for colour offset printing press, and I like to go to the press to see the exact colours of the printing. And then, of course, when the run goes to the machine, you have nothing to do, and I just love the sound of the machines, just peeking through all the holes and different ways of where the ink is replenished on top. What was being printed were my abstract pictures. The subject matter was so well suited to this abstract composition. The whole thing with this kind of work is paint in liquid ink.”
“These works in these spaces relate to my thinking about the world that surrounds me. Even though my thoughts are so often occupied with the past and the future, with thoughts, concepts, spirituality, and emotions, all of that is ultimately round and around matter. The very how things feel and how things work. And some could say what is he talking about? The most basic truism, everything matters. But I hope some people can sense this sense of being in the now, being respectful of your environment, trying to understand things. Also being constantly open to look at things from different perspectives and be open to change.” says Tillmans.
Art Basel has redefined global art culture, and its international outposts in Hong Kong, Paris, and São Paulo are setting new standards for high-end art curation. Explore the shift towards art tourism, exclusive VIP previews, and the billion-dollar deals happening behind closed gallery doors.
Luxury art fairs have evolved from single-city events into globe-trotting cultural extravaganzas. High-net-worth collectors now hop between Art Basel 2025 editions and other international fairs as if following a fashion week circuit, turning each event into a lavish “art weekend.” What began in Basel and Miami has expanded to global art weekends in Paris, Hong Kong, and São Paulo – a shift that is redefining cultural tourism and the art world’s social calendar. Billionaires, museum patrons, and design-forward jet-setters descend on these destinations for VIP art previews, multimillion-dollar deals, and indulgent afterparties. It’s a new era where business, culture, and pleasure meet against exotic backdrops.
Paris+ Par Art Basel: The European Jewel
Paris has re-emerged as the jewel of the global art circuit. Launched in 2022, Paris+ par Art Basel quickly became a magnet for the international art elite. Art Newspaper reports the 2023 VIP preview was “heaving, and with a lot of Americans,” one dealer observed, standing by a $40 million Rothko on display. In fact, there were more American collectors at Paris+ than at Frieze London the week prior, and galleries clinched eight-figure sales in hours – David Zwirner’s gallery alone moved a $6 million Kerry James Marshall painting on opening day. Beyond the fair itself, the city amplifies the experience: luxury maisons host private dinners in gilded salons, five-star hotels brim with VIPs and celebrities, and exclusive previews at the Louvre or Fondation Louis Vuitton make the city’s art weekend a bold blend of culture. The result is a cultural tourism boom, with Paris harnessing Art Basel’s glamour to reinforce its status as an apex destination for art and luxury travel.
Hong Kong: Gateway to Asia’s Art Elite
If Paris offers Old World grandeur, Hong Kong delivers high-octane cosmopolitan flair. Art Basel Hong Kong has become the gateway to Asia’s art elite, where Eastern and Western collectors converge amid skyscraper views and Michelin-star dining. The nights leading up to the fair are packed with underground parties and gallery soirées, as top collectors often jet out soon after the first VIP day. In 2025, one art insider’s itinerary included an elegant Cantonese banquet hosted by a gallery at Mott 32 and a posh afterparty thrown by Gagosian at the Mandarin Oriental – all before the fair even opened. When the doors opened on March 26, the VIP preview drew throngs of prominent collectors and curators seeking early access to coveted works. Attendees noted a measured approach to buying, yet the atmosphere stayed buoyant. Beyond the convention center, Hong Kong itself becomes an art playground: think curated museum nights, gallery hops in Central, and city-sponsored pop-ups. In one novel twist, the Hong Kong Tourism Board installed a traditional Cha Chaan Teng café inside Art Basel Paris to entice global visitors to experience Hong Kong’s culture. The city’s luxury hotels like the Rosewood and Peninsula are fully booked with VIPs, and private jet charters between Hong Kong and other art capitals spike during the fair. In short, Art Basel Hong Kong has cemented itself as an unmissable stop on the luxury art fairs circuit, blending cutting-edge art with the dynamism of Asia’s world city.
Photo courtesy of SP-Arte
São Paulo: Latin America’s Turn in the Spotlight
In São Paulo, Brazil’s financial hub, an Art Basel-like atmosphere is thriving at the annual SP–Arte fair. The 2025 edition of SP–Arte – Latin America’s largest fair – saw nearly triple the number of foreign collectors and curators compared to recent years. An influx of international collectors, from New York and London to Doha and beyond, signals a renewed appetite for Latin American art on the world stage. Indeed, São Paulo’s edition offers a refreshing complement to the frenetic pace of Basel or Hong Kong. Collectors spend afternoons browsing modernist Niemeyer-designed pavilions and evenings at gallery dinners in Jardim Europa or rooftop caipirinha receptions overlooking Ibirapuera Park. The city’s renowned restaurants and hotels join in, crafting bespoke experiences for the art crowd – think chef-curated menus at D.O.M. for visiting patrons or after-hours parties set to bossa nova beats. By embracing global art weekends, São Paulo has positioned itself as Latin America’s cultural capital, proving that the art-market jet set will happily add a South American stop to their annual grand tour.
Basel 2024. Photo Courtesy of Art Basel
From VIP Previews to Private Jets: The New Art World Itinerary
Welcome to an art world where VIP art previews are just the beginning of a luxe weekend itinerary. At each global art fair, invitation-only preview days see the “cream of the art world” queue up amid bustling aisles and bottomless champagne flutes. These first-look events are as much about networking and scene-making as they are about buying art. VIP programs offer concierge service and exclusive access that blur the line between commerce and leisure – one could start the day with a private collection visit or an artist’s studio tour, enjoy a catered lunch in the VIP lounge, then head to a VIP art preview at the fair. Evenings bring glitzy afterparties at iconic venues, where collectors, artists, and celebrities mingle. In Miami Beach, this might mean dancing under the stars at a seaside villa; in Paris, a midnight fête at a Palais; in Hong Kong, business deals sealed over late-night M+ parties. By the time the weekend wraps, billions of dollars in art have traded hands globally – total art sales topped $57.5 billion in 2024– and countless new connections have been forged over cocktails and canvases.
What’s clear is that global art weekends have transformed art fairs into destination events that transcend geography. From Paris and Hong Kong to São Paulo, Art Basel and its peers are redefining cultural tourism by marrying high art with high living. And as the art caravan moves from one glamorous city to the next, the art weekend has become the ultimate luxury escape, proving that in the 21st-century art world, business class and culture now share the same itinerary.
We Don’t Dance for Nothing is about Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong, their struggles, dreams, and communal expression through dance. The main character “H,” played by Miles Sible, raises the children of two busy Chinese parents. This is a common arrangement in Hong Kong, where roughly 200,000 Filipinx women have left their homes to raise the children of their employers. They experience abuse, live under constant threat of deportation, and have no path to permanent residency. But they’ve also created a thriving dance culture in the city center on Sundays, where they gather. This is where director Stefanos Tai saw an opportunity to create a multi-dimensional story highlighting these workers’ talents.
The film was shot on 16mm, using almost entirely still images to convey a sense of the main character feeling stuck within her circumstances. It combines real events, remembered personal narratives, and staged dances with hundreds of domestic workers. Production took place in 2020, during Hong Kong’s social unrest and the pandemic lockdowns.
Director Stefanos Tai pictured
This interview by Conor Provenzano with Stefanos Tai was conducted one month after the world premiere of the film “We Don’t Dance for Nothing” at DOXA Film Festival in Vancouver BC on 10 May 2022.
Conor Provenzano: I want to ask you about the writing process. I’m curious what it was like for you to go out and meet women on Sunday and then develop relationships and access.
Stefanos Tai: I fell into the community pretty quickly. They were hospitable to me, they invited me to things – barbecues, birthday parties, and dances. They were surprised that this foreigner wanted to hang out with them, and I told them every Sunday I was making a project. Most didn’t take it seriously, and many didn’t care, or were too exhausted from their workweek to care, so I had to meet them where they were.
CP: Did you write the script from transcribed interviews?
ST: We had so many conversations, but most of them were not transcribed. At that point I didn’t know what form the project would take, I was just inspired. But eventually, I started to keep notes and read books. I researched in-depth, watched documentaries, we danced more together, and I came to realize that no one in the media was framing them through their talents. Everyone was only talking about their struggles. I could see they wanted to be known for more than just their professions, as we all do. So from there I wrote an outline myself and started to model characters based on the people I’d met.
Film still
CP: Did you go over outlines together?
ST: Always in a very loose way. We didn’t say, “Everyone! Let’s meet on Sunday and we’ll go over the latest draft.” That couldn’t have worked, and I was always respectful of their time since they were often exhausted. Sunday was their only day off, so I’d just try to listen. And I heard trends of what they were dealing with; not enough food was shockingly common.
From there I wrote a script in English. And the actors, I would say, did a lot of writing as well. A) to convert the narrative into Tagalog, but also B) to point out anything that wouldn’t ring true to actual members of their community. I gave them enormous agency, but I reminded them that we’re not making propaganda. Of course we’re painting these women with warmth, but we wouldn’t ignore anything, or sanitize their rougher edges. Sometimes these women would make jokes about the Chinese folks and, you know, is it benign? Is it racist? I’m not sure. It’s a small way they can feel some power over their situation, for a moment. But I felt we needed to show all sides of their personalities, including these moments, even if they elicit mixed reactions from an audience.
CP: Right, that’s a good example of a multi-dimensional representation.
ST: We tried to be fair, and re-writing took place until the end of post. We could change anything because we shot mainly in still images. We recorded the location sound on set but it wasn’t synced. So in the sound studio later, we’d play the location dialogue, and the actors would say, “Oh, it would be funnier if I said it like this”. They were redesigning lines and I was furiously writing notes trying to catch up. Enormous credit goes to our cast.
CP: Did you feel any doubts as an outsider?
ST: Definitely, mostly stemming from the fact that I don’t speak Tagalog. Sometimes I get the oddest questions on this topic. People ask me, “Did you ever consider doing it in English”? And the answer is no, because they don’t speak to each other in English.
CP: It’s a basic matter of representation, and maybe de-centering this whole English obsession.
ST: The other question, perhaps even more ridiculous is: “What was behind the decision to cast Filipino talent to play Filipinos?”
CP: Wow. That indicates the need for this film, actually.
ST: And many more as well, right? But I definitely had doubts. I think the key was meeting with Filipino folks, not only domestic workers but friends of ours, friends of our actors, early in the script stage. I would annoy them: “You need to tell me: does this line make sense? Tear it apart, please! Because the worst thing that could happen is to have viewers say, ‘that doesn’t make sense in Tagalog! Who wrote this?’” I’m still worried someone will see the film and catch something that we never did (so far nothing major has happened).
It was also important for us to hold work-in-progress screenings. Our friends and actors brought their parents and grandparents. I needed to see if the cut could work for them all. And they did point out many things to change, remove, or fix.
CP: Let’s talk a little bit about the dance element. Do you have a history of dance, or a dance background?
ST: My parents were dancers. I think dance is the highest form of art. It’s the most beautiful thing to watch in person, or on-screen. It’s also the most beautiful thing you create with someone. It’s like music, it’s beyond words. So I’ve always had an appreciation for it, but seeing the domestic workers dancing expanded my whole view on dance. I saw literally hundreds of women in the middle of the city— which, by the way, is not embellished, and actually does happen every Sunday. People never believe me, but I say, “Go to Hong Kong and see for yourself.” COVID has reduced its scale, but still it’s there.
So while at first, I saw their street dancing as fun, and visually interesting, it was once I looked closer that I discovered how profound dance was to them. It’s not all happy faces. Despite their high level of skill, you can sense that many are dancing to shed something, trying to release something. It’s an act of survival, and they weren’t dancing for nothing, hence the film’s title. And when I asked them about this, I heard things like “it’s the only way we can forget. In dance, I can feel like I’m not here anymore.” Or, “by moving my body, I can escape that house that I’m working in, 24 hours a day.”
Film still
CP: You said in a panel I watched recently that they’re “dancing through their struggles,” which indicates a serious need for embodiment, to return to the body. Of course, it’s true for everyone, but these women have such a demanding schedule and only one day for self-care.
ST: Absolutely. I’ve started to believe recently that art needs something to push back against, and they certainly have no shortage. They’re dancing with their pain. And that’s how I view the film, as a dance-filled romance between H and her circumstances. She’s constantly wrestling to figure out her life. But again, on a simpler level, the talent of these domestic workers was unbelievable. I couldn’t imagine that they’re not practicing their routines daily, and it often seemed unbelievable that they could do strenuous housework all week long, and summon such energy on Sundays.
CP: Yes I agree. [SPOILER ALERT] And then there’s the intimacy of the duet sequences between the two leads, H and Sampa. And they never kiss! Can you talk a little bit about that choice?
ST: It might sound strange, but I believe that in general, kissing is shown too much in films. I like the Bollywood approach – kissing is almost obscene. You don’t need it, and often the moment is stronger with only its implication, or the tension… There’s a Danish director I like, Nicolas Winding Refn. He says violence in films is like sex: it’s about the build-up. And I think romance is the same. A kiss always feels like the climax of a romantic buildup, but I feel it’s usually so poorly done in films, and it takes me out. I begin thinking of these two actors, who are clearly not in love, and how they must be feeling during the take. To me, some things just can’t be faked.
CP: Chemistry, you know…
ST: So in this film, we take viewers right up to that point, without actually showing a kiss. It essentially accomplishes the same thing, but we don’t need to see it. Of course, kissing is not actually obscene, I guess I just believe it’s often creatively stronger to imply than show. And I mean that for men and women, women and women, men and men. It’s a general proclivity I have.
CP: Thank you for that. We don’t actually know if the two characters H and Sampa ever explore each other sexually, and what if they don’t?
ST: Right.
CP: They have a real connection that is vulnerable. But it couldn’t possibly come across that you view sexuality as obscene, because there is so much tension in the dance sequences as they are. The body-dancing and so on.
ST: I hope so.
CP: Was that how it appeared to you in person?
ST: Absolutely. You would see a lot of relationships that seemed romantic, but you couldn’t be sure. Nobody was talking about it, and it wasn’t my place to ask directly. But I also found these relationships beautiful, because Hong Kong, despite its glitz, is a conservative place, and there are still many folks against two women being together. And domestic workers usually can’t afford to risk losing their jobs, so I wanted to show that it’s not Berlin, or New York City. Hong Kong is a different place, and it’s a more closed society that they’re navigating.
CP: The performances were so moving and so real to me. And yet, the film consists mainly of still images. Xyza and Miles (who play H and Sampa) said that they couldn’t use footage from WDDFN in their reel. This was shocking to me. And you responded to that by saying that industry people showered praise on their performances.
ST: I think what they meant— which I understand— is that it’s hard for them to show still-image performances to get moving-image acting jobs. And I’d be lying if I said I knew with certainty that their performances – or any actors performances – would be heightened by stills. I felt strongly stills could carry weight emotionally, but it was always a risk. A worthwhile one .
CP: It’s also the nature of moving images that there are gaps in between the frames. Our eyes and our brains put it together.
ST: True.
CP: Actually I found this film to be more immersive than traditional 24-frames-per-second. There’s a lot of movement, it’s dynamic. [SPOILER ALERT] And it all builds toward a scene at the beach, the one-take dance, which was shot in 24fps. It took two days, four takes, and an unbelievable performance by Miles— the music and display of emotion through movement was so intense for me, it was so effective. Miles could use that for her reel, right?
ST: She can definitely use that one for her reel! But if we’d shown the dances in stills as well, the actors would have killed me (laughs). And this gets to the heart of the watchability question. I always wanted to meet viewers halfway. We can and should ask people to watch something different, but we’ve got to reward them for their effort. I intended for viewers to be a bit uncomfortable in the beginning, but tried to structure the film such that if they put in a bit of extra work, there would be something to be gained, a transcendence of the medium itself… And the dances are the key to this— nobody dislikes watching dance on-screen. And ours are peppered in throughout the film, so if viewers start to tire of the static stills-treatment, there’s always a high-octane dance right around the corner, to grab you with a more familiar experience, more easily “watchable.”
CP: I felt it was a breeze to watch. The still images are never held for too long. Not as long as La Jetée, which you cite as one of the influences. Have you had any complaints about the stills?
ST: Oh yeah (he laughs). Of course.
CP: A lot?
ST: Not a lot. I think it’s about expectations. I do find that if we’re sending it to people and they’re watching it on a small screen (or their phone), and they have no idea that it’s not a traditional film, I end up hearing “is my Wi-Fi broken? What’s going on?” And that’s a tough place to come back from within a 90-minute film. But several people have also said they grew to love our cinematic experiment. Overall, we’ve seen everything from standing ovations to walkouts.
CP: That’s hard, knowing it didn’t work for some people. But there’s also the issue of lack of viewer openness. We shouldn’t write things off so quickly. I myself have been historically bad at this, walking out of films and so on. Then later, facing heavy criticism of my own work, I start remembering the way certain friends seem to appreciate and learn from everything they see. Sometimes our criticisms say more about us.
CP: Let’s talk about photo-montage. This is the correct term, right? “Photo-montage”?
ST: I suppose so (laughs). If there is one.
CP: From the financial side, was it difficult to pitch this film? “La Jeteé” is only 28 minutes, and here you have an 86-minute film.
ST: It was difficult. Many producers we spoke to didn’t understand why we even cared about this topic, why this needed to be a movie. I’d say, “aren’t you inspired when you see these women dancing?”, but we’d get blank looks, and responses like “yeah, but who cares… why do you want to make a film about maids. We already know about them.” And I think that’s a result of some people in Hong Kong having grown up around domestic workers. They don’t see these women as special, as anything more than their cleaners and cooks. And another sad truth… was that box office revenue was the first, last, and only concern of so many people in the industry. Or wanting to shoot sexier topics with celebrities to build their clout… And let me be clear, there’s nothing wrong with making money with a celebrity-driven film, but I quietly thought to myself, “isn’t there something you want to say with your films? I’m trying to help someone, somehow. Whether I succeed or not, I am trying. How about you?” But despite living amongst hundreds of thousands of Filipino workers, they somehow seemed not to care about Filipinos at all.
CP: Filipino women specifically, if we want to name that.
ST: Definitely… Now, about financing such a wildly different kind of film (a photo-montage), funders would say “it sounds interesting, do you have an example?” And we’d say, “Well… there’s La Jetée,” and you’d be surprised how many people have never heard of “La Jetée.”
CP: I’m not surprised I guess, because it’s mostly shown in Universities these days.
ST: But it’s also on the IMDb “Top 250 Films of All Time” I believe. In the film world it’s iconic, right?
CP: True, true.
ST: I love Chris Marker’s work. But even now, some people tell me, “don’t mention ‘La Jetée’ cause you can never sell your film. You’re trying to sell your movie, don’t mention a movie that’s unsellable!” (laughs)
CP: So you mention “La La Land” as well [in the pitch], which was really smart, I thought.
Film still
ST: Certainly, that’s a very profitable film.
CP: Brilliant marketing move.
ST: Well, let’s see if it works. No one’s bought the film yet! But we’re happy just to have finished it. When I look back, I see how steep our hill was. So many potential funders asked, “have you made a feature?” —“No I haven’t” —“Oh, well do you have name talent attached?” —“No we don’t.” —“And you want to do some sort of photo-movie project that you can’t show us references for?” I could have shown them La Jetée, but I’d have to say “we’re not shooting black and white, it’s not sci-fi, it won’t feel slow, there will be dialogue. Oh, and it’s something of a dance-musical as well.” It’s no wonder people couldn’t visualize that – and fair enough, right? It was hard enough for me to visualize…
CP: How did you reach producers in the beginning? Can you describe that process a little more?
ST: We attended Hong Kong Film Art. We cold-talked to as many producers as possible and… it’s funny how these industry events work. We didn’t have a script yet, but had a one pager, a 15-second read. We attended meetings and I’d hand over the one-pager, and I would see them take the paper, not read any of it, put it down and say, “You know, Stefanos, I think your idea is strong, but I think you need to go back to the drawing board and make sure it has this, that and the other…” It was ridiculous, but today, some of those very people have seen our finished film and reached back out to congratulate us. I think people don’t expect you to actually make a movie when you say you will. And now that I’ve crossed that first finish line with this project, they view me as an entirely new filmmaker, which is odd considering that I’m still the same artist, interested in the same stories. The reason I make films is the same.
CP: Well, your film got made, you’re showing it, and you have, to me, a lot of grounded confidence in speaking about it. But at that time, when you had no backing, it must have been hard on your confidence. How did you deal with that?
ST: I’m fortunate that older and more accomplished directors had told me it was the same for them. And also thanks to the internet, you can find any master filmmaker’s advice on YouTube, and they echo the same struggles. The industry has high walls, and you’ve got to find a way over them while it’s raining ‘no’s. Of course you’re helped by amazing friends, but you really do hear ninety-nine ‘no’s for every ‘yes.’ Especially if you’re doing something entirely new.
And to be fair, I didn’t make it easy on myself. I knew making a photo-montage feature was crazy, but I thought, “If I can pull this off, with the right team, and make something entertaining out of a shooting style most people wouldn’t touch, nobody else will be in that space. We’ll be truly original, which counts for a lot in today’s world of commodified, derivative filmmaking. But along the way, so many naysayers told us bluntly we were working with a bad idea, or trying too hard to be different. But I tuned them out, because they never bothered to boil the idea down to its fundamentals. They never could answer: Why can’t a photo-montage work? Exactly, why? Prove it. So I knew that if we afforded ourselves this level of intense curiosity, and never made assumptions about what could or couldn’t work until we tried— if we started there, and created anything of interest, we’d get attention. And, we’d attract the perfect future collaborators: people willing to take risks and forge new ground.
CP: That’s right… I wish you all the best with this amazing work of art that amplifies the experiences of domestic workers in Hong Kong. Right up until the end, it was so tender and sad and beautiful. I had a lot of tears for this character H.
ST: That’s really nice to hear, thank you for saying that. And thank you for being willing to amplify, it helps a lot.
CP: I felt a responsibility to do so, because it touched me deeply. Thank you for letting me into your process.
In collaboration with Movies Move Us on film making with social impact.
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HONG KONG. For decades Western cinema – Hollywood – has dominated the international movie scene. Thanks to martial arts master Bruce Lee the 70s gave ‘the West’ its first peek into Asian culture, and recent years have seen an encouraging new wave of Asian cinema and Asian-inspired Western cinema coming into play from blockbusters like Pixar’s Turning Red, Marvel’s Shang Chi, and Crazy Rich Asians. But where is this cultural shift in film representation stemming from?
The answer is right in front of our eyes. As the largest population in the world, Asia will inevitably continue to make waves in different sectors with creativity and entrepreneurialism at the forefront. Some of the best filmmakers are based in Asia and with Parasite (Bong Joonho, Korea) and Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong) impressing the likes of big names like Quentin Tarantino, foreign directors are setting the stage.
Collaborations between Western and Eastern filmmakers will be one of the most prolific cinematic movements and the literary scene is taking note – writers and multi-disciplinary creatives are one of the most sought-after talents in Asia right now. Zooming out from the era of Asian cinema and tapping into this near future, Nury Vittachi a Hong Kong-based journalist, author, and founder of Asia Literary Review and Hong Kong International Literary Festival, speaks with us on Asia’s creative scene, and the books and films leading the wave.
Paradigm Haus: Can you tell us about Asia’s creative scene?
Nury Vittachi: Basically, there’s a huge anomaly. Until recently, most of the creative material in English books was from the West. What’s Asia’s contribution to culture in the terms of books, stories, and screenplays? Almost nothing.
Anomalies are quite good because they normally fix themselves, which will lead to growth in Asia. That’s why publishers have offices in Hong Kong looking for the next great trend. It’s also why all the movies we watch today have Asian characters in it including Jet Li and recently Michelle Yeoh. The market is recognizing this change and has accelerated. In fact, China retained the top spot at the box office with US$7.9 billion in 2021.
Chinese cinema and the rest of the Asian movie market is overtaking globally. So publishers are saying that is going to happen in books as well. We need to find the next Harry Potter and the next JK Rowling, who will likely be Asian!
PH: How has the Asian creative market entered the West so quickly and effectively?
NV: It’s partly numbers. The population is larger and we produce a lot – some good, some not so good. But if 1% of Asian material is fantastic, then it adds up. The market is on our side because most of the consumers in the world are Asian. Eventually getting fed up with the likes of Harry Potter – they want their own material. The other thing is that Asian culture has not been exploited in the way that Western culture has been exploited. For example, you’ve seen a million movies or books about witches and wizards – that’s classic Western culture. But have you seen a million movies and books about ancient Asian folklore? Do you think language is a barrier? Well, people are finding a way around it. All the big publishing companies now have scouts who look at Asian language publications – and these writers are making it on the Booker Prize List. A Hong Kong filmmaker recently made it on the Oscars list, Derek Tsang. Tsang was on the shortlist for foreign language movies, the first Hong Kong filmmaker on it for years.
The other change is that movies these days are made with less dialogue, and more visuals. For example, Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne film has an entire dialogue of around 200 lines for the whole movie, and the average line was three words like “move” or “now.” With this style of tiny phrases, it’s easy to understand and not even necessary to translate.
PH: Which comes first – market then movie or movie then market?
NV: Big companies are very aware of trends. I remember about 15 to 20 years ago, I got a phone call from an agent in Hollywood, Miramax I think. She said, “I’m standing in a Hong Kong bookshop and it’s full of Harry Potter, but I’ve been sent here to look for Asian writers. You’re the only one I can find. What’s happened to the Asian writers?” That was 20 years ago and Hollywood was already becoming aware of the need for Asian representation. We need Asian movies.
Disney has been at the forefront sending out agents and feelers for years. They’ve tried to remake Asian books into Disney movies. They’ve tried to send money to China to make Asian-style movies. They’ve tried all sorts of things, with experiments using Asian-Americans, like the first Mulan, and then they tried using actual people born in Asia, then the second Mulan, which had mixed reactions. But they are trying at least.
There is still an opportunity for the next great Asian writer to hit the global stage. We’re counting on you, the next generation. I know one publisher who actively reads things like fan fiction and poetry and they are actually looking for Asian writers.
PH: How do you think the process has changed? Like the scouting process or the ability to be discovered?
NV: For the big Western companies, the process should be easier. But it’s not to be honest because movies are still dominated by the West and so they’re using the same stars. In Asia, however, it’s a bit more interesting because it is surprisingly quite creative. So Asia invented live streaming, for example – Asia invents a lot of stuff, but we don’t realize it. Like, I’ll give you an example between 2003 and 2006. The top stories in this part of the world, the biggest part of the world, were either on phones or on computers. They were texts based on technology and that was before the iPhone was invented and before the Kindle was invented. Right. So the best-selling stories in Asia were text-based stories before the keyboard, which not a lot of people know about. They would immediately assume Kindle invented eBooks. But no. They were never in print. They were always on your phone, always on your computer, always on, well now your iPad.
There was one called “the ghost blows out the candle”, using the typical Chinese story. People are hunting for some treasure and then somebody blows out the candle and you’re in the dark. Who blew out the candle? It’s none of us, so it must’ve been, you know, the ghost. It was a huge hit in China. Everybody had it on their phone and computer – it was like the first big e-book sensation and nobody in the Western world even knew about it. Eventually, the writer sold the story to a physical book publisher who tried to publish it. But the Chinese government had lots of weird rules at the time and one of the rules was that no occult stuff. So, they said, well, can you rewrite the book but without the ghost? So that was a bit problematic. Fortunately, in the last couple of years, the Chinese government has totally relaxed and the ghost blowing out the candle became a TV series.
PH: Which regions in Asia are becoming popular for creative writers?
NV: Well, not so much a region, but a whole region. The biggest potential market is books and stories for young people. There are 750 million young people in Asia. Now name an Asian children’s book writer. There aren’t any, right? So even when we were doing the literary festival here, we had to import children’s book writers from America, England, and Australia, all the Western countries with majority white writers. So there’s a huge opportunity for local writers, because Western books would begin with “Billy went out of his house to play baseball” and we think, okay, nobody is called Billy and nobody plays baseball [in Asia]. Not good.
We’ve been trying to cultivate local talent a lot. So we ran competitions to try and get the standard up. And it was really frustrating for the last seven or eight years, because what we found was great children’s book art but really bad stories – they just weren’t interesting. Like really bad folk tales, but in the past couple of years, the standard of stories has come up. So, I think within the next year or two, we’ll start to see more children’s books from Asia.
Have you heard of the Gruffalo? Are you the Gruffalo generation? Now here’s some interesting gossip from the industry that drives the Asian book industry mad. You know why? Because the story is taken from here. It’s an Asian story that the writer Julia Donaldson read and then rewrote and published it with a Western publisher. And now it’s the biggest selling children’s book of the last 10 years or something. Occasionally in interviews, she will say, by the way, I took it from an Asian quote – but usually, she doesn’t say that.
Another interesting one is Cinderella. There’s something weird about Cinderella compared to all the other Western folktales and traditional fairy tales. Typically, the woman marries the prince because she’s beautiful or clever or both. There’s no such fairy tale where a woman marries a prince because she has small feet. There’s only one place in the world where that makes sense – Asia. So Cinderella was written in China like thousands and thousands of years ago, and it made sense. It made sense to find that it was stolen. It was pirated by the French about 400 years ago or 300 years ago. And then it’s now everybody assumes, it’s a Walt Disney production with Walt Disney copyright. But in fact, it’s a story from this part of the world and only makes sense in this part of the world.
This article is from our Asia’s Emerging Creative Scene feature available to read in print. Get your limited edition copy here.
Percussionist and multi-disciplinary artist Angela Wai Nok Hui, tells the narrative of her youth spent between Hong Kong and London through her collaborative project Let Me Tell You Something. Still relevant today, the show examines identity, relationships and memory through the performance medium.
Paradigm Haus: How did you feel after Let Me Tell You Something?
Angela Hui: I can tell you how I felt right after the show. Wing is my producer and we are good friends as well. She told me that she had a strange feeling but she didn’t know how to describe it. However, I didn’t feel that way because I have experience performing and I don’t get this kind of “post-show depression”.
I’m using the show as a medium to express my feelings to the world and to Hong Kong, to London and to my family and friends. The show is me and I am a person that doesn’t know how to use words as you can tell maybe.
Let Me Tell You Something, Image Courtesy of Angela Wai Nok Hui (by Dimitri Djuric)
PH: I saw one of the photos where you picked a branch off the street, how did you choose different mediums and how are they all tied together?
AH: I collaborated with different composers. The composer Gregory Emfietzis has a piece called “Hestia”, which means “goddess of fire”, “goddess of home” and “goddess of a home setting”. That piece is interesting because Greg made this card game with a set of instructions. I composed the whole piece with his instructions, so the composition is the input of that piece.
For the main component, Greg tried to make me tell a story in front of the audience and he also told me it would be great to find any objects that are related to the story. I chose a full flowerpot and a baby’s glockenspiel, which is a toy instrument used throughout the whole program. This baby glockenspiel appears in Lucy’s piece and Jasmin’s pieces. Then there were normal bricking sticks, which I didn’t choose.
PH: What does collaboration mean to your creative process?
AH: Collaboration is very important for me. Collaborating with people is like talking to people. Because I am a classically trained percussionist. I went to the Royal College of Music. I spent six years playing a lot of notes, marimba, timpani, Beethoven, symphony, counting bars, triangles and all that. I love them. I enjoyed the experience. But then I always find it’s a little bit lonely when I’m practicing in my own practice room. I enjoy collaborating and making stuff in a whole different way that I wouldn’t even think of before asking people to join me, to have a jam.
This whole project started more than two years ago. Two pieces for Angus Lee, a Hong Kong composer, are actually finished. The final version finished in 2019 with Timothy Cape, where I made a very weird dance next to a bass drum. He is based in Italy, he would have come to London to work with me if not for the pandemic. We were doing videos back and forth. We were looking for weird and different sounds and we were jamming. He was making projections for me to have a feel and then I told him my feeling. But then he would say “maybe that’s not how I want you to feel, so maybe let’s do something else.” I work with composers, so I need to trust that person and open my heart to them.
With Jasmin’s piece, This Land is Yxxr Land, people could interpret the title of the piece differently. This piece is very personal. It was basically during an interview with me. She tried to record the interview and then put it into a new looping tape. It sounds not true at all, very emotional, but whenever I play that piece, I recall all of the memories that I told her. It makes me smile. Especially the first performance in Hong Kong, lots of friends and family came. I don’t know why the first performance is mostly for friends and family. Then the second is that of more colleagues.
The first performance is the first piece of the show as well. I did not play the pre-show cassette, so I used this piece to bring people into my world and I try to use the cassette as a gateway for them to come in.
So when I played that piece on the first night, it really was special because a lot of people that I’ve talked about in this piece were all there in the venue. It was creepy and it gave me goosebumps. That was a special moment, I didn’t expect that. Even one of my aunties bought tickets and came. She was in one of the events or one of the memories that I talked about.
PH: Then how do you think the audience affects your performance?
AH: Comparing day one and day two, I would say performing in Hong Kong, in general, is different from what I normally do. In London, my family wouldn’t be there. If there’s a piece that I need to be naked, I could do that. But in Hong Kong, I can’t do that. Even though I can do that, I have to go through lots of mental preparation to do that. But I haven’t really thought about why I’m having that feeling.
PH: Can you compare your experiences in Hong Kong to the scene in London where you’re normally based?
AH: Not to say that London is having a good time as well. I think there is the same problem everywhere in the world. It is fine, we have to deal with problems that’s kind of our life.
Audiences in London are more open minded and willing to support artists. I don’t know if that is the case because ticket prices are cheaper?
In Hong Kong, I didn’t know that my show could be sold at $250HKD, which is expensive. The shows I went to in London were just around seven pounds to walk in. Early bird tickets were just five pounds. I would love to do an experiment on this, for example, what if I do a completely awful show and sell tickets for $10 in Hong Kong.
In London, people are trying to bounce off ideas more openly. I’ve been in Hong Kong for two months, including my 21-day quarantine. I have a sense of the Hong Kong music industry, which is in groups. It’s very hard from the outside to break in.
I think the observation for me, between Hong Kong and London, is that everything in Hong Kong is very, very pretty and well presented.
For example, the big font of Tai Kwun is so pretty. All the wordings and even some English I don’t even understand like “microwave”. Emails used in Hong Kong are different from how we do in the UK. Whereas in the UK or in mainland Europe, such as Germany, Belgium, they have more of the rawness of art. I can see some really, unprepared, ugly, and raw shows in London, but then I don’t think I will get to see them in Hong Kong. But maybe ugly and beautiful really depend on how you see them.
PH: Are there any kinds of trends that you’ve been noticing in experimental art or in the music scene?
AH: People all have a lot of energy, but then they don’t have the support to do it. I’m seeing this crossing of disciplines, which might be a by-product of the pandemic.
I’m a percussionist, I’m a musician and now I’m trying to do some sound and music design, which I would never have thought of before. So my by-product of the pandemic is five short movies I made for this show. People as artists are trying to see how far we could go in different directions, which is really good.
Sometimes I don’t have the normal knowledge of how to make a sound and then something interesting can come out from that. I don’t know the normal steps of making a soundtrack. That could be the element of why the soundtrack could be so bad, or so good. So that’s why a painter tries to do music, and play percussion or piano. Simply because they don’t have normal lessons on how to do it, something interesting that I wouldn’t think of would come out of this.
PH: Do you think these thematic topics of the pandemic and cross-disciplinary avenues changed how artists approach their practise?
AH: The pandemic didn’t really change what I wanted to talk about in the show. It was more about what happened in Hong Kong during these two years that changed a little bit on this show.
For me, it all started by asking myself who I am. The identity crisis, you know? Where is home? Do I have one term or do I need to go back to my home? Am I humble or maybe I have no home and I will never have a home. And then the whole movement happened in Hong Kong.
It makes me think no matter where I go, I really have a very strong bond with Hong Kong and that would never change. I think I found the answer or maybe I don’t think I would ever find it. Do I have one home or do I have no home? I could have two homes. Now I’m married to an Italian Frenchman, so here’s my home as well? But it doesn’t really matter, I think I’m just going to continue this journey.
So I think that is a little change of direction because of what happened or what is still happening now in Hong Kong, such as people leaving the country and moving away. So I’m really excited about the London one as well. I really don’t know how the audience or Hong Kongers in London would take it. What would it remind them of? Can I give them the sweetness, a bit of comfort or would I remind them of something bad? So for Let Me Tell You Something, I didn’t really tell them forcefully and spoon-fed them. I created a space for them to tell themselves something. People would get different things from the show.
Hong Kong-based street artist and b-boy BOMS, speaks on his growth as a creative individual and the influence that street dancing and hip hop have on his art pieces. Sharing his thoughts on modern-day graffiti art, he explains how COVID-19 and the Hong Kong movement has had an impact on the art scene.
Paradigm Haus: I heard you started as a truck driver, how did that lead on from then going into graffiti and street art?
Boms: Well, actually I was not the driver though. I didn’t even have my driving license. I was just an assistant to the truck driver. So the truck driver is like a team leader to me. I’m just a little boy working with him. We need to carry on a bunch of silver and then deliver it to different doors.
After I resigned from my nine to five full-time job, I was just seeking my bread and butter, and then I took in a lot of different types of stuff, like a delivery boy and even a painter just to put my foot on the table. I was fascinated by the truck driver, like all those road rages and maybe some clients made him super angry while he was driving on the road.
The truck to me, it’s like traditional graffiti. For graffiti, there are some trains running around New York City, but in Hong Kong, it’s so hard to get inside the train station to paint all the trains. So a truck will become the train in Hong Kong. They drive around the city. We paint on the truck and it runs. That’s pretty fascinating to me. So for my artwork, I also projected some kind of experience with the trucks. So I’m a truck man, I love to paint and I also worked inside. It’s pretty close to me, I think.
PH: How did you get started with b-boy and hip hop influences as well?
B: After I graduated from high school, I went to IVE which is an education center. We have different kinds of subjects. I was in design because I have loved to paint since I was little. I started to get to know a lot of different societies and clubs. I went straight to the dancing scene because I love to listen to hip hop music, like Eminem and Linkin Park. I liked the music, so I wanted to get involved with the music, but I don’t have the ability to play instruments. I thought why don’t I just move my body around? So I got into the dancing society, doing choreography, being a b-boy and going inside the hip hop culture.
PH: How does that work? Does it ever intersect in terms of your dancing and being kind of like a multidisciplinary artist? Do you see yourself in that sense?
B: At the beginning, I think it’s like two separate things because I love dancing and I also love painting, but once I dig inside two different things, I started to realize that some things are similar. When I’m writing a word or painting a big word, we have a flow. We also have a flow when dancing. It’s like some water or liquid flowing around. I’m using the pen or I’m using my whole body to express that kind of flow. So those two things are pretty similar. It’s like I’m visualizing the rhythm.
PH: Have you seen the dancing and the street art changing since you started?
B: I think on the street art scene, like the graffiti, more and more people grab the spray and then go to the street. I think it’s because, after the movements in Hong Kong, people need some ways to express their emotions. I think using spray it’s a pretty nice medium to express ourselves. People start to know maybe they can grab their own spray and spread messages, whether it’s a name or some other message. More and more people are doing this, so I am feeling good about it.
PH: What kind of groups and individuals are you seeing getting more involved in this scene? For example, are there any kinds of patterns that you’ve noticed?
B: Anyone and everyone. Because you know graffiti is ghetto stuff, which came from the street, they don’t need to receive a lot of education to get to know that medium. I think it’s suitable for everybody.
PH: It’s quite interesting because I think there’s quite a big contrast between Hong Kong. Some places are industrial, kind of underground, grimey, still like a developing city. While there’s also the finance sector and the high glam. Do you see it ever intersecting at all?
B: I think we are in different categories, because most of the people who are doing the gallery stuff are more artsy, which is not a popular lifestyle. I think street art is pretty down-to-earth. But I am not really familiar with the gallery stuff, so I worked with that gallery team to explore more about it.
PH: How do you categorize the lifestyle of street artists?
B: The people surrounding me all have a similar background. They are all from the public houses and then go to the society and find a full-time job, but maybe the job is not the best for them, so they quit and started to do street art. For me, I would say it’s pretty down-to-earth. However, there are also some other artists from different backgrounds, such as being from a more wealthy family. I can’t represent all of them.
PH: How does storytelling play into your artwork? I remember I saw some of your art with anime, Godzilla-like aesthetic with the Hong Kong skyline too.
B: In recent years, I have been trying to explore my hometown. After the movement, I think what is more important for me is where I come from. I can show you this artwork from Arthur Hacker called Lap Sap Chung. This one is a rubbish worm, promoted by the Hong Kong government during the 1960s to 1990s and used as a city ambassador for city cleaning.
I tried to develop these characters from past pop culture references. It’s different because for the early years, what I did was some original characters, some myths like Godzilla. Like you said. For example, there’s a fisherman in some old story and then I pick it up and design another character. I think that’s the biggest difference between my past artwork and what I did recently.
PH: What caused that change? Why did you start choosing these new more Hong Kong-based characters?
B: I think what makes Hong Kong Hong Kong is the age between 1980’s to 1990’s. So that’s why I try to travel back as if I have a time machine and then find some characters while Hong Kong is Hong Kong, then just make them pop out today.
PH: Do you feel some nostalgia towards those 1980s and 1990s characters or the time in general? Also, why do you think Hong Kong was more Hong Kong-style back at that time?
B: What people know about Hong Kong is that Hong Kong is a mixture of Western culture and Eastern culture. Many Westerners lived here and built a lot of Western-style architecture. So back to that time, the old Chinese architecture and new Western architecture all blended in this city. However, nowadays some historical Western architecture got torn down and replaced by skyscrapers. I can’t say it’s not Hong Kong but it’s what Hong Kong is like today. It’s an Eastern mindset that portrays the whole city landscape today.
PH: Do you think that era was more authentic? How would you categorize today? Are people being real about what they’re trying to say? I guess because sometimes I feel people can create art in a way that they just want to cater to the XYZ audience or to a new market. But I feel with street art, there’s a lot to it. That’s more about what we feel and what the people feel.
B: Yeah. I love the buildings in the past, because nobody can tell how Hong Kong will go in the future. I can just become a narrator and watch back, and then pick up something about Hong Kong stuff to portray in my art. But I think for today it’s pretty hard that you need to be brave to be real in the Eastern culture, especially after the movement. But before the movement, people didn’t really care about politics and society so they didn’t realize what was happening in the world.
PH: Do you think street art is becoming better or worse?
B: I think it’s like a battle between street artists and the government. The government forced us to do more street art! It’s nice that many of my friends I know are doing graffiti in other countries. When they come back to Hong Kong, they will say “Oh, Hong Kong is too peaceful. You’re pretty safe doing graffiti in Hong Kong, you can paint whatever you want”. But now, there are more and more people getting involved so you can’t be lazy. You need to go out to the street, maybe a couple of times a week and then get yourself up to date with the city. So yeah, I would say it’s a good thing.
PH: It’s a good thing. There’s more rebellion out of everyone now.
B: Yeah, graffiti came from the rebellion mindset. We can’t be good boys 24-7.
PH: Do you think there is more opportunity for emerging artists to get known?
B: I don’t care who is watching, but I believe the people outside are watching Hong Kong and what’s happening in the art scene. To me, the most important thing is just being real and being honest to yourself. Also, of course, be honest about your art. I don’t care about marketing, just about what I did in my art. It’s not very popular in the market, but I don’t want to twist my style because of any other comments. I started doing some business so that I can protect my little operation space, then I can keep doing what I want to do. All about achieving a balance.
PH: Who do you think you’re inspired by in terms of your art?
B: In technical terms, I’m watching Stefano Bloch from LA. I’m also watching Helio Bray and Sofles of course. They are all super well-known graffiti street artists. They have some unique skills. I really love their artwork. In Hong Kong, after I resigned from my job, I tried to do different stuff. I went into a company called Egg Shell Sticker. It’s a pretty well-known sticker company in the world. At that moment, the company was owned by my friend Dan, who is also an artist.
I tried to learn from him because he is an experienced artist in Hong Kong. I got some inspiration from him. After I did it for two years, I found my partners doing my business and they also inspired me in a mental way. In the past, I didn’t really care what was happening around me. After I had my partners, I started to be aware of what was happening around me, which really changed a lot of my life and my artwork. So, I’m pretty grateful that I met all these guys.
PH: What effect do you think it’s had on your artwork?
B: I think it’s the message and the storytelling. Recently I’m not only focusing on some fantasy stories but some cultural stuff and some slang from my hometown. I turned them into my art. I keep creating a logo to represent my hometown in the way I think it should be, which is the main difference between what I did previously and now.
PH: What do you think a logo should be?
B: I think a logo should be a super expert on our language, Cantonese. As you did mention I mixed two languages, English and Cantonese in my art, this is a norm for every single Hong Konger here. For example, we have some English words like ‘shopping’ pronounced by the local Cantonese accent. It’s inside our culture. Therefore, I think Cantonese is definitely one of the ways to present who we are.
PH: Outside of graffiti, do you think language as a medium is another one of your favorites?
B: Yes. We will call ourselves writers because graffiti is mainly a writing thing and that’s definitely the medium. My mother tongue is Chinese, so I started to explore how to write Chinese for graffiti.
PH: What do you value in terms of the art that you create? What message would you like to send?
B: I think it’s basically every story that happens around me and also some cultural stuff, such as Cantonese. I wish I could make a guide for people about Cantonese because there are a lot of local slang with double meanings, which are super fun. I wish I could present the fun part of Cantonese.
PH: Yeah. I feel whenever I learn Cantonese, it’s more about profanities. That’s fun.
B: It’s so interesting. Last year I created some allegorical sayings in Cantonese. I turned the first part of the meaning into a piece of art, and I kept the second part to let people think about it and guess the story behind it.
PH: I want to ask as well about the light trucks that you’re making, the sculptural works. Are you still working? What came first? When did you start getting into sculptural pieces?
B: Actually it’s a toy project. My first exhibition was in 2017. The monster truck you saw was my original character. My friend visited my exhibition in 2017 and he invited me to make it into a sculpture. Then I gave him the design. Now the project’s hanging in the air. We originally planned the whole project to be launched in 2020, but the movement and COVID-19 made everything get postponed. We all wish to restart the project now.
PH: Do you think your art changed a lot because of the movement?
B: I think I focused more on the Cantonese stuff after the movement. As I said, I want to present Cantonese to the people, which is who we are, but I still love to paint a character.
PH: What are you working on at the moment and what do you hope for? What will you be doing in the future?
B: Recently, we opened a retail shop and I am working there. For my art, I have some projects with some galleries. We are collaborating with many artists, including tattoo artists and pop artists, to present a group show together. I want to keep doing the gallery work because I think it provides me with power. I also continue to paint when I’m hanging out with my friends.
PH: Can you tell me more about your retail shop?
B: This is one of my parts of the business. My friends were running different brands and products. Some of my artist friends may have made some artworks but they didn’t have a place to display and sell. Therefore, we opened a shop to let our friends put their brands, products or artworks at our shop.
We also have some trendy stuff, such as Northface and Carhartt, so we can guide people to that trendy stuff. I am also doing some business importing cans, so I will put them at my store for styling. My artist friends can also find a place to show their work. We hope to have a space to build our community and stay united.
PH: Are most of the products or artworks you’re showcasing in your retail store locally sourced?
B: No, not only local, because one of our partners is actually from LA, he also brings some American brands and jewelry to our store.
PH: That sounds really interesting. I’m excited to see it!
The Flow of Ink: New Dimensions in Chinese Ink Painting (26 Jul – 26 Aug 2021) is a new exhibition at Oi Ling Chinese Antiques in Hong Kong that is an expression of contemporary Chinese Ink Painting today. We talked with Oi Ling to uncover the hidden traditions.
HONG KONG. In collaboration with the Chinese Cultural Studies Center and The Hong Kong Academy of Chinese Art Studies, this exhibition of nine artists attracts the best of the traditions in literati painting.
Each landscape and contemporary take on the genre derives from a feeling of spirituality, where symbolism is used as one of their strongest technical tools. Including works from Lam Tian Xing, Liu Wei, Fan Hong Bin, Tian Yan Hua, Ma Lin, and fashion designer William Tang.
When we look at the ink on silk painting Yearning for Home 戀舊林 (2020) by Lui Jia, combining nature and geometric elements: a sparrow, mountainscape, clouds, and glass box in pastel shades. The piece exemplifies delicate lines of Gongbi painting techniques paired with a contemporary narrative.
For 馬麟 Ma Lin in 幽谷知音 A Kindred Spirit in the Deep Valley (2021), two gentlemen, representing a scholar and his discipline carrying a traditional Guqin, walk a mountain plain shrouded by pine trees in a monochrome ink-washed painting. There is an echo of poetic history, spirit, and appreciation of nature.
While, 黑色的聚會 Black Rally (2014) by Wong Hau Keri takes contemporary photography composition to depict a black, white and red rally of people on the street. The piece talks to modern social uprisings and brings them into focus using traditional ink on paper techniques. The artist is able to challenge the contextual and cultural nuances of Eastern society — in form and topic.
Overall, the exhibition is able to showcase simple themes and concepts of Tao (道), as each artist in their own process discovers a truth in the natural order of the universe. As a viewer, we are brought the philosophies of the East, Buddhism, and religion together with an intersection of traditional techniques and contemporary stories. Linking both ancient and modern sensibilities of China.
For Oi Ling, the owner and founder of Oi Ling Fine Chinese Antiques she entered the arts business in the early 1990s, when Hollywood Road, where her store is located, was once the mecca for antique wares and jewelry retailers left behind from colonial Britain. Now, from Lynhurst Terrace to Cat Street Galleries, we see the past peeking through the facades, cobblestoned stairwells, and mumbled clock radios spinning Cantonese melodies and foreign languages in the background.
When we consider the physical landscape and works on the show we are able to see the contextual importance of Chinese studies of art as a bridge to understanding the past.
Interview with Oi Ling by Sarah Wei.
Paradigm Haus: Could you start by giving us a brief outline of your background and how you got into the antique business?
Oi Ling: The reason I chose to enter the antique business and set up a retail shop on Hollywood Road is quite simple. When I look back, I would say that it is all destiny.
In the early 90s of the last century, a distant relative had a workshop in Macau restoring antique furniture and he was thinking to retire and close the workshop. Since I was thinking to change fields I approached him to take over the business.
After I took over the workshop, I opened a retail shop in Central [Hong Kong] on Lyndhurst Terrace with a focus on Chinese antique furniture. I did well from the beginning and very soon built up a reputation. Different collectors started approaching me with their collections and that is how I branched out later to different types of antiques but my heart remains with wood – that is anything wooden – furniture pieces and small wooden objects.
PH: How has the reputation of Hollywood road changed, from old antiques and merchants to the international retail avenue it is now?
OL:In the 1990s, Hollywood Road was famed for its many quaint little antique shops and old-style tuck shops. Slowly when the property market began to take off and hit Hollywood Road many small businesses were being pushed to Sheung Wan and the Western District.
New and posh western-style restaurants slowly replaced the old tuck shops and antique shops. In the past 10 years, the road sees fashion brands and lifestyle shops nesting there.
PH: Is there a memorable or standout story from your life in antiques and fine art that stands out to you?
OL:The most memorable one is when I was in my one-month confinement right after I gave birth to my daughter, my colleague called and said that she received a phone call from a five-star hotel telling her that a very important guest of the hotel would like to come to see me so the hotel called to make sure that I would be in the shop. They didn’t tell us who the guest was.
It turned out that it was Glenn Frey from the band Eagle. He was recommended by a friend to us. So I rushed to the shop with my baby daughter. He gave us VIP tickets to the concert and bought furniture pieces from us. He even asked to hold my baby in his arms and we took a photo together.
Another memorable story is also related to a five star hotel. The general manager himself called to tell us another VIP would be stopping by. This guest loved Chinese art and antiques, they heard from other sources that I was good with interiors especially with artwork placement. So I was invited to the hotel to redecorate their suit. It turned out to be Jacques Chirac.
PH: Speaking on your current exhibition, what themes and elements are you presenting in the story?
OL:The focus of this exhibition is to highlight the spirit of Chinese scholar tradition – to be sincere and without hypocrisy in intellectual pursuits and expressions. In the exhibition, the paraphernalia such as handmade Xuan paper, brushes, ink-stone, ink-stick, seals, and seal paste is on display at the same time. The intention is to give a full picture of tradition and its associated material culture. Through such a combined display of artwork and material culture, we hope to cultivate an understanding of tradition and its evolution through changes of time and history.
PH: Could you take us through the practices and techniques of the ink artists?
OL:The appreciation of a piece of Chinese ink painting differs from the appreciation of a piece of western-style painting in that it requires the understanding of calligraphy, poetry, and the art of seal engraving as well.
For an artist to be considered good in Chinese ink, he or she must be good in all the four genres – poetry writing, calligraphy, painting, and the art of seal, additionally to having the good taste in balancing the four elements in a piece of painting.
PH: Which elements are essential to the process?
OL: The essential thing in the process, apart from fine tuning the skill, is an understanding of the spirit and value of the Chinese scholar traditions and the philosophy behind this tradition.
PH: How have traditional ink practices changed?
OL:One of the main changes in practice is contemporary ink is more experiential with the infusion of modern elements and ideas.
PH: Leading from the last question, is there a modernization that has occurred?
OL:If the word modernization means the infusion of western ideas and compositional style as well as the modernization of materials, the answer is yes.
An example to illustrate my point is the use of ready made ink that comes in a bottle rather than using ink stick to grind ink.
PH: Which artists are your favorites and exemplify innovative style and practice?
OL: All of them are innovative in different ways.
Fan Hongbin is an artist with multiple talents — his brush and ink techniques are traditional and, separately, developed a color palette that is completely modern. The artist enjoys creating scenes and landscapes which convey beauty and tranquility but can also be bold and provocative with his use of vibrant pinks, blues, and green color choices.
Tian Yanhua takes modernity to a new level with use of traditional brush strokes and ink techniques to narrate a personal utopia without any traces of the old lyrical style.
Lam Tian Xing’s contemporary look is achieved through a composition of void space by way of covering the entire canvas with heavy layers of ink. An absolutely innovative technique.
Liu Jia invigorates the old art form with a modern sense of humor and talking to topical social issues.
Wong Hau Kwei did away with old styles of panoramic view composition in their landscapes by replacing them with modern photographic angles compositions.
PH: What do you hope this exhibition achieves for Chinese ink painting and the culture?
OL: Chinese ink painting is an art form that includes the following: the art of seal engraving, the art of calligraphy, the art of paper making, the art of making ink stone and ink stick, the art of seal paste making, and the art of brush making.
The technique and craftsmanship involved in the making of all these art forms are now items of intangible cultural heritage. To successfully pass on the technique and craftsmanship of all these elements to future generations requires not only understanding but the development of a viable system that is sustainable and where proper conservation and protection can be implemented.
Find out more about Oi Ling Chinese Antiques on their website and follow them on Instagram at @oilingantiques.
For those looking to collect contact Oi Ling via email at oiling@oilingantiques.com.
Doris Poon and Tiffany Law from Asia Society Hong Kong shares with us five contemporary artists to follow for inspiration from Sweden to Hong Kong.
The lead curators for Asia Society Hong Kong, Tiffany Law started as a practicing artist before moving to curation to explore the relationship between exhibition and society, while Doris Poon focuses on ideology and artistic expression. We asked Tiffany and Doris about their favorite contemporary artists now.
This excerpt is part of our ‘Rapid Fire’ series from our interview with Doris Poon and Tiffany Law. Find the full interview here.
Mamma Andersson’s paintings are captivating in the sense that the cinematic landscape paintings project a complicated composition, juxtaposing the interior and exterior settings with textured brushwork, loose washes, and evocative colors. The pictorial spaces often evoke a hint of suspense, mainly because Mamma draws inspiration from a wide range of archival photographic source materials, cinematic imagery, theater sets, and the mountainscapes in northern Sweden. It is like that specific scene does not belong to here nor there, the past nor present.
Crippling light, #3 2020 Image Courtesy of De Sarthe Gallery
Mark Chung is a young media artist known for his immersive installations which often offers an intimacy to the viewer’s personal experience. The audience recalls a similar feeling that relates to your daily encounter with the urbanscape. In Mark’s most recent solo exhibition’s work, “Wheezing”, recordings of the light show at Victoria Harbour ‘A Symphony of Lights’ were projected onto a wall of shattered glass and casting the shadows and light beams onto the viewer’s body. That installation was visually intriguing and held metaphoric meaning about feelings of inescapability from a candy-coated utopian world.
MuiMui, Doodood and Balltsz 2018 Image courtesy of Chris Huen Sin-Kan
Chris Huen explores the moments and exquisite experiences of everyday daily life. Chris’ subject matters always appear to be his dogs, sons, and wife, yet each interior scene is delicately painted, capturing a frozen moment. One can sense his intuition in the works, where brushwork is used to depict the “aura” and the air of each setting is fantastic. Sometimes it looks like there are different time zones in one scene.
Wong Ping, Debts in the wind, 2025 Installation view, “Sigg Prize 2025”, M+, Hong Kong, 2025. Photo by South Ho. Image courtesy of Kiang Malingue
Wong Ping is famous for his video works, capturing the hidden obsession and secret compulsions in our everyday life and address them in the metropolis setting.
Sarah Lai is a local Hong Kong artist who is keen on using the pale palette to depict objects from daily life. The way Sarah places her paintings in a gallery space and the presentation with real everyday objects would offer new perspectives to view your daily surroundings.
