藝評

圖片說明：

1.-2. 鍾正的《不宜呼吸》展覽，攝於裝設時
3.-4. 鍾正，《不宜呼吸》的裝置形態，攝於展覽最後一天，在張才生為觀眾表演時
5. 鍾正（右）正在觀賞表演
所有照片由作者提供

Captions:
1.-2. Mark Chung, installation view of Wheezing, during installation
3.-4. Mark Chung, installation view of Wheezing, during performance by Samson Cheung Choi Sang with audience on final day of exhibition
5. Mark Chung (right) watching performance
All photos: John Batten



(Please scroll down for English version)

第一次與藝術家鍾正見面時，他還是浸會大學視覺藝術院的準畢業生。這些年來在多場群展中看過不少他的作品，也不時會在大館碰到他，他現時是大館的高級技術員，我們不算相識。我們安排了見面，過去三星期便詳談了三遍，討論他的生命和藝術；因為是對談，我也談到自己。與鍾氏見面的動機，來自他剛剛完成了黃竹坑德薩畫廊的藝術駐留項目，還有項目的句點展覽《不宜呼吸》，但這樣說也不完全正確。真正觸動了我的，是我在展覽最後一天的閉幕表演中看到鍾氏一篇誠實的文章。

部份內容節錄如下：

「我居住的唐四樓住宅一劏為二，常常都有一股獨居老人慢慢逝去的氣味。經過雜亂無章地藏在地面、躲在牆後和在大廈外牆糾纏不清的管道，我隱隱可以從自己單位淋浴間的去水處嗅到他們的住處……（不久之後）我回家時看到洗手間的門沒有關上，整個房子於是充斥著壞掉的即食麵、頭髮和排洩物堵寒了污水渠的氣味……根本無處可逃，城內的腐敗都在空氣中，空氣就在你家裡……他們在黑暗中把光變成武器，所有人都在喘氣、被混亂包圍，內心充滿憤怒……在這種管治下，我們只能喘息。這種我們已忍受了12個月、永無休止的苦悶似乎不可能看到盡頭……難以想像光能致盲、空氣能把人灼傷、水會令人燒傷，簡單，毋庸置疑的道德已告消失……」

畫廊所在的常規商業大樓設有中央冷氣和玻璃幕牆。鍾氏曾與畫廊總監毛育新規劃和討論過他對空間的想法，畫廊最後完全轉化成大型而全面的裝置。鍾氏拆開了冷氣的喉管，重新編排出像蛇一樣從天花垂下來和滿佈地上的樣子。他新建了一個獨立房間，較長的牆身以強化玻璃作間隔。他小心地打破這塊玻璃，表面形成了網狀的碎痕；爆破需要精準進行，太用力的話，玻璃只會被撞至粉碎掉落地上。它需要被破壞，但同時要保持原狀。他以雕塑複製了香港大廈錯綜複雜的水喉管道，然後反裝在底座上，再放於畫廊地地面。畫廊多處建有假木牆，部份牆身有被出拳打穿的情況，就像被憤怒的一拳打中一樣。為令冷氣失效，藝術家刻意把向街的窗戶打開，讓參觀者吸入街上炎熱的夏日空氣。兩個房間一冷一熱，同樣叫人難以忍受，有點像香港的住宅。

鍾正，《使人迷惑》，爆裂玻璃上的錄影投射，2020年。（照片由作者提供）

鍾氏以無人機拍低了香港定期上演、喜氣洋洋的煙花匯演，但卻沒有直接拍下煙花，而是讓無人機捕捉圍繞維港摩天辦公大樓玻璃幕牆上的倒影。這些視頻被投射到滿布裂紋的玻璃上，再進入小房間內。畫廊沒有亮燈，只依靠幾隻相隔甚遠的窗提供天然採光。每位走到投影前的人士都會被拍下如霧一般的身影。

畫廊化身默然不語、暗黑、炎熱和寒冷的地方。我到底身在室還是室內？它可以是一間空氣不流通的香港住宅，也可以是街上，在（太多晚）示威出現時的某夜，空氣中充滿著閃燈和催淚氣體。




2005年，曾建華的《White Cube》展覽，裝設於在約翰百德畫廊。（照片由作者提供）


整個空間被徹底逆轉。它不再是高端的藝術展銷廳。鍾氏的介入佔據了整個畫廊和它的商業意圖。我喜歡那樣。這做法讓我想起自己的畫廊在2005時，為香港藝術家曾建華舉行《White Cube》展覽時也有類似的做法。當時整個畫廊飾以粗言穢語，狠批藝壇和它虛有其表的光芒、是搶錢的騙局，由「他媽的老外約翰百德」等藝術販子操控。是的，就是一種刻意的侮辱！鍾氏的手法比較含蓄，但他漂亮地把香港近日的政治風波、憂慮 、痛恨和生活艱難的情況並列於優美純樸的畫廊空間內––那裡現在已不再是畫廊。如果說是一種侮辱，僅屬溫和。

因為上星期一早上，香港特區行政長官林鄭月娥宣佈她規劃已久，原定於10月14日發表的施政報告將會延遲，這是因為習近平主席早前未有公佈的南巡深圳，正好選在同一天進行。

被中央權力機關告知把重要演講延期、被指導何時可回應立法會和香港人––還有我們現在剛學懂，要先出席北京的會議，因為要討論應在施政報告中包括什麼內容。對，那一定是奇恥大辱，對我們每個人都是。

參考資料：
鍾正: https://www.mpweekly.com/culture/%e9%8d%be%e6%ad%a3-mark-chung-%e8%a3%9d%e7%bd%ae%e8%97%9d%e8%a1%93-160270?&fbclid=IwAR02l4B-_-cAGy3HyprTIkv7xSzcKJTdsSCp0T1LU3aK7aCyO8FzHCGIsa0

曾建華: http://www.tsangkinwah.com/work-white-cube



原文刊於《明報周刊》，2020年10月19日



The Ultimate Humiliation

by John Batten


Although I first met artist Mark Chung when he was a graduating fine art student at Baptist University’s Academy of Visual Art and seen his art over the years in group exhibitions and often met him at Tai Kwun, where he works as a senior technician, we hardly  knew each other. So, we arranged to meet, and over the last three weeks we have had three long conversations discussing his life and art, and as it was a conversation, it included mine. The motivation to meet was Chung’s just-completed residency and resulting exhibition, Wheezing, at de Sarthe Gallery in Wong Chuk Hang, but that isn’t quite correct. What really jolted me, was a piece of remarkably honest writing of Chung’s that I picked-up at the closing performance on the final day of the exhibition.

Here are some excerpts:

“The apartment on the 4/F in my walk-up building always smells of old people slowly dying alone in the 2 subdivided flats in that apartment. Through the disorganized pipes buried under the floors, hidden behind the walls, tangled outside the building, I can vaguely smell their flats from the shower drainage in my flat….(later) I came home to realize that the toilet door was left open. The smell of rotting instant noodles, hair and excrement clogged-up in the sewerage, filled-up the house….There is no escape, the corruption of the city is in the air, the air is in your home….They weaponize light in the dark, where everyone is panting, surrounded by confusion and overwhelmed with anger….We can only wheeze under this mode of governance. It is almost impossible to see an end to this perpetual anguish that we have endured in the past 12 months….It was unthinkable that light could blind, air could scorch, water could burn, simple unquestionable morals vanish….”

The gallery is inside a regular office building with central air-conditioning and a glazed mirrored exterior. Chung’s intentions for the space were planned and discussed with gallery director, Willem Molesworth. The gallery was completely transformed into a large whole installation. Chung ripped out the air-conditioning ducting, arranged it, serpent-like, hanging down and around the floor. He newly built a separate room with one long wall of strengthened glass. This he carefully smashed, fracturing it into veins of shattered shards; the smashing had to be precise: too hard and the glass would crash to the floor. It had to be damaged but kept intact. He fabricated a sculpture replicating Hong Kong buildings’ tangled plumbing, then set it – the opposite of on a plinth – into the gallery floor. False wooden walls were built in different spots around the gallery and some were punched through as if an angry fist had let fly. Then the air-conditioning was intentionally mucked-up by opening the exterior windows, allowing the hot summer air to be inhaled. One room was unbearably hot, the other uncomfortably cold. A bit like Hong Kong’s homes.

 
Mark Chung, Befuddled, video projection on laminated tempered glass, 2020. (photo: John Batten)

Chung filmed one of the city’s regular celebratory firework displays by drone, but instead of directly filming the display, the drone captured the fireworks caught in the mirrored facades of high-rise office buildings that ring Victoria Harbour. This video was prominently projected onto the smashed window and into the small room. The gallery was unlit, relying on natural light from a few distant windows. Anyone walking in front of the video’s projection was captured, hazy, shadow-like.

The gallery was transformed into a muted, darkly lit hot and cold place. Was I inside or outside? It could be a stuffy Hong Kong flat, or, on the streets, during one of those (too) many nights of protests with the air filled with flashlights and tear-gas.



Tsang Kin-wah, installation view of White Cube exhibition at John Batten Gallery, 2005. (photo: John Batten)


The space had been completely upended. It was no longer an upmarket art salesroom. The gallery and its commercial intentions were subsumed by Chung’s intervention. I liked that. It reminded me of my own gallery when Hong Kong artist Tsang Kin-wah did similar in his White Cube exhibition in 2005 transforming the entire gallery with stenciled obscenities criticizing the art world and its hollow glitz, a money-grabbing hoax, led by art dealers like “fucking white man John Batten.” Yes – an intentional humiliation! Chung’s approach was more subtle, but he brilliantly juxtaposed Hong Kong’s recent political upheavals, worries, outrage and difficult living conditions into a beautifully pristine gallery space – that was now no longer a gallery space. As humiliations go, it was mild. Because, last Monday morning the Hong Kong SAR’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that her policy address, long planned to be delivered this week on 14 October, would be postponed because President Xi Jinping’s previously unannounced visit to Shenzhen would now be on the same date.

To be told by the Central authorities to postpone a major speech, to be directed when you can address the Legislative Council and Hong Kong people – and, we now learn, to attend meetings in Beijing first, to discuss what will be included in the policy address…. Yes, that must be the ultimate humiliation. For all of us.


Further info and images:
Mark Chung: https://www.mpweekly.com/culture/%e9%8d%be%e6%ad%a3-mark-chung-%e8%a3%9d%e7%bd%ae%e8%97%9d%e8%a1%93-160270?&fbclid=IwAR02l4B-_-cAGy3HyprTIkv7xSzcKJTdsSCp0T1LU3aK7aCyO8FzHCGIsa0

Tsang Kin-wah: http://www.tsangkinwah.com/work-white-cube



This opinion piece was originally published in Ming Pao Weekly on 19 October 2020, translated from the original English by Aulina Chan.