4 Feb 2008, Hong Kong
Curated by Singapore-born, Hong Kong-based artist Michael Lee Hong Hwee, the exhibition showcased 13 works by 12 international artists from Hong Kong, Singapore and Britain. In their individual ways, the works by these artists challenged the global and dominant ‘size fetish’ that equates physical size with social importance.
The crowd pleaser was surely Esther Yip’s collection of toylike figurines, with their sheer number (about 800 pieces in all), minute size (ranging from 1 to 4cm in height each) and chirpy colours. Esther also exhibited a kinetic piece, a box-set featuring Barbie trying her hands at the traditional guzheng instrument. Similarly small but less in number, Suki Chan’s floor installation of black houses got viewers to feel psychologically bigger, much like Gulliver, and to reflect on personal and collectives memories. The other architectural model in the show was by Chun Kai Feng: It featured a small-scale model of van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles, reflecting an artist’s constant struggle to be an individual nonetheless concerned with the larger community.
Two-dimensional art was given new spins by several participants of the show. Chow Chun-fai has painted key frames from an excerpt off the film Infernal Affairs as miniature stills, which he then reconstructed into a lo-fi animation. Shown for the first time on a mini-monitor whose screen size matched the dimensions of his paintings, the work focused the visitors attention on layers of visual and audio information about urban life. Debbie Hill uses chewing gum as her canvas for her painting of portraits of stars who have gotten into trouble, e.g., Britney Spears, questioning if we often subject public figures to higher standard of morality. Cornelia Erdmann’s drawings of domestic furniture on slides were noticeable only to the attentive and patient visitors. Installed onto flourescent tubes on the studio’s ceiling, the work also required viewers to stretch their bodies to scrutinise details. Tang Kwok Hin’s assemblage featured tiny figures, some of which were left behind after he sanded beer cans of their labels, others cut out from comics he laid into a landscape. Michael Lee brought photographs off the wall and the book by fixing hundreds of self-portrait cutouts onto the architectural elements of the exhibition space.
This show also brought in practitioners not steeped in the visual arts circle. Known more for his comics and illustrations, Chihoi shown a small book handmade from a single piece of A4-size paper and a single piece of thread. Full-time miniaturist Li Loi-yau proved that in this age of speed, technology and online-shopping, it is still important to make highly personalised gifts for people who matter: She exhibited a miniature sports shop which she made over a few years for her son. Sound artist Sid:Ned set up his compilation of one-minute “schizophrenic sounds” as an interactive piece with which audiences may select tracks to listen in to.
The notion that “small is big” was most apparent with a huge crowd gathering to watch Justin Wong’s animation piece on the tiny screen of an iPod. In it, audiences were treated to ten dreamlike sequences in which big-size and small-size people meet.
This exhibition is the second installment of the Things Artists Do series conceived by Studio Bibliothèque. Studio Bibliothèque was one of 34 studios that opened their doors to the public over the same period in the annual Fotanian: Fotan Artists Open Studios event. Some 4500 members of the public visited the event this year.
Reported by
Michael Lee Hong Hwee
Curator
Companion publication:
Top: Attentive visitors who discovered the little slide drawings on the flourescent tubes could not wait to snap photos of them. (Bottom: Detail of Seatings, Cornelia Erdmann, 2006/2008) 
This 256-page handmade book is no bigger than a two-HK-dollar coin. (I will write a book for you, Chihoi, 2007) 
Excerpts of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs was first transformed into a series of miniature paintings, and then into a lo-fi animation. (Top: A visitor adsorbed in watching the animation; Bottom: Video still of Repainting Infernal Affairs, Chow Chun Fai, 2007)
Media attention was cast on the three-dimensional rendition of van Gogh’s bedroom propped up on stilts and surrounded by barb-wires. (Blanket and Crib, Chun Kai Feng, 2006)
People mountain, people ceiling: Cutouts of an man in officewear pervaded the architectural elements all around the loft staircase. (Skive: A Worker’s Guide, Michael Lee Hong Hwee, 2005-2008)
Top: Visitors from Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Visual Studies programme discussed issues of stardom and contemporary portraiture as they gathered around Debbie Hill’s paintings of fallen stars on chewing gum.
Bottom: Closeup view of one of the chewing gum pieces featuring the portrait of rockstar Amy Winehouse. (Juicy Fruit, Debbie Hill, 2007)
Kids and adults alike found Esther’s colourful figurines hard to resist. (Make you happy and Esther’s Music Toy, Esther Yip, 2007 and 2008 respectively)
Justin Wong’s animation depicted ten dreamlike encounters between small-size and big-size people. (Animation still from Events, Justin Wong, 2008)
Small objects are visually captivating: This miniature sports shop took the artist several years to make by hand. (For my son – The sports shop, Li Loi-yau, 2001)
This simple and quiet keyboard setup belies a series of 18 “schizophrenic” soundtracks that mediate between the conscious and unconscious worlds. (60 seconds: A Schizophrenic Manual for Eternity, Sid:Ned, 2006/2008)
In front of Suki Chan’s tiny houses, visitors feel like giants, but are bigger beings necessarily stronger? (In Silence, by Suki Chan, 2005)
(Top) A visitor peers through a magnifying glass in Tang Kwok Hin’s assemblage to get a closer look. (Bottom) A pair of honey bees were left behind on one of Tang Kwok Hin’s beer cans. (The Earth Crust, Tang Kwok Hin, 2008)
While a visitor (left) gaped at more mini-portraits of Michael Lee stuck on the ceiling and railing, one (second from left) helped himself to the refreshments while another (second from right) savoured the spread of reference books related to the exhibition theme of miniature art.
Gallery view.
3 comments:
wow...so this is where you live? looks like u hold many exhibitions here too. We are very 'sui(2) bian(4).' As long as we have a resting place, it will be good. I will also check with HP if he is keen :D Hope to see you soon.
wow...so this is where you live? looks like u hold many exhibitions here too. We are very 'sui(2) bian(4).' As long as we have a resting place, it will be good. I will also check with HP if he is keen :D Hope to see you soon.
Wow great article .....i loved it
Welding electrode production machine
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