Art Venues & Artists Studios - Hong Kong
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Hong Kong artists have been finding creative solutions to an industrial-strength problem, writes Hamish McKenzie


Picture it: you’re a creative type in Hong Kong, driven to produce art but deprived of an adequate place to do it. You can barely afford rent at your one-bedroom shoebox, let alone fork out for a separate space for your artistic endeavours, and even if you did have the budget, the pokey, noisy options in the urban centre are hardly dens of inspiration. What do you do? Well, increasingly our artists, musicians, chefs and other lateral thinkers are turning to factories – some disused, others still humming – on the city fringes. There they find glorious space, attractive rates, and a sense of community. Maybe losing all those factory tenants to Guangdong wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre
Built on the ashes of the squatter villages that succumbed to the tragic Christmas fires of 1953, the factory that now houses the JCCAC was built to provide jobs for the displaced. More than five decades and a $69.4 million upgrade later, it’s now the massive home to 100 studios for artists, including ceramicists, painters, sculptors, singers, erhu makers, dancers, and thespians, as well as a few organisations, such as the Arts for Disabled Association and the G.O.D. Design Museum. A rooftop cinema is on the way to add to the gallery and theatre attractions already on site. Get a free tour on Saturdays (in Cantonese from 3pm-3.45pm; or in English from 4pm-4.45pm).
30 Pak Tin St, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, 2353 1311, jccac@hkbu.edu.hk;
http://www.jccac.org.hk/index.php/English/index.php

The Playground
Don’t let anyone tell you an industrial centre can’t be associated with fine cuisine. By creating The Playground, Hong Kong’s most prominent food critic and chef Walter Kei has proven that it sure can. Kei has converted a fifth-floor space in a Chai Wan factory into a chic kitchen studio, replete with classy modern Chinese art, sculptures, a large dark-wood table, and a set of double wooden doors painted a striking red. Kei hosts culinary workshops at The Playground and every month runs a charity workshop to educate kids about food.
Unit 10, 5/F, Block B, Ming Pao Industrial Centre, 18 Ka Yip St, Chai Wan, 8118 5625, walterkei@hotmail.com.

Wah Luen Industrial Centre, Fo Tan
Hong Kong artists would be hard-pressed to find an affordable space with high ceilings, green views and an in-built community of like minds anywhere other than in Fo Tan. More than 100 artists make up the district’s now-thriving scene, and a good chunk of them are to be found in the Wah Luen building, where top-notch galleries and spaces such as Blue Lotus, Yiliu Painting Factory, and Embassy Projects nuzzle up against studios and meat-packing facilities. “This place is not created by commercial developers or government people but by independent, free-spirited souls who just simply wanted to do their own thing,” says Blue Lotus’s Sarah Van Ingelgom. “The main reason I'm there is because I'm surrounded by artist studios and there is an artist community in the building and area that makes me part of a bigger scene.”
Wah Luen Industrial Building, 15-21 Wong Chuk Yeung St, Fo Tan, New Territories.

The Factory
No points for imagination on the name, but The Factory at least tells a good story. The hip residency’s owners contracted Italian comic artist Mauro Marchesi to paint the 12-storey building with a narrative comic that cuts a path from outside to inside, and then from the ground floor to the 5,000 sq ft rooftop, where there’s a landscaped sky lounge. The stylistically self-conscious apartment block is aimed at creative types and hopes to provide an inspirational working environment. That roof also looks good for parties…
1 Yip Fat St, Wong Chuk Hang. Leasing enquiries: 2880 1883.

Kwun Tong band rooms
Pulling aside a sliding door grate, Jon Lo, frontman of metal band Qiu Hong, reveals a DIY band room and recording studio, put together by hand, foam piece by foam piece. A pile of shoes clutters one corner, guitars lean idly against amps, and a small fridge offers supplies for breaks in recording and practice. When Qiu Hong started renting this Kwun Tong factory space in 2003, there were only about 20-30 bands in the area, reckons Lo. These days there are at least 100, and the number’s growing fast. Nearby are other top local acts King Lychee, Shepherds the Weak, and Hardpack, and there’s a lot of mingling within the music community – especially at a nearby 24-hour restaurant, where the players congregate after late-night practices. Fledgling small venues N-Set, Hidden Agenda, and Live House attract music fans to the area in the weekends. “I wish in this district we’ll later have some bars, some restaurants, some CD shops,” says Lo. “Maybe that will be the culture.”
N-Set, Flat 310, Century Centre, 44-46 Hung To Rd, Kwun Tong.
Hidden Agenda, Flat A, 1/F, Choy Lee Industrial Building, Chun Yip St, Kwun Tong.
Live House, Room L215, 3/F, Phase 2, Kwun Tong Industrial Centre,472-484 Kwun Tong Rd, Kwun Tong.

/see: http://www.timeout.com.hk/around-town/feat.../x-factory.html

/JCCAC : http://www.jccac.org.hk/index.php/English/index.php

= = = = =
links :
AC's links ..... :: http://www.artist-commune.com/link/link_e.html
HKAS links .... :: http://www.hkac.org.hk/cm_otherlink_en.html
Art in Asia ..... :: http://www.artinasia.com/event.php?filSM=1&catID=0

In a recent comprehensive gallery guide (2) of Hong Kong's contemporary art spaces, Hong Kong has:

• 10 commercial art galleries (regular solo exhibitions/stable of artists)
• 12 decorative art galleries (group exhibitions/stock of decorative art)
• 5 publicly funded art museums (including university & public museums)
• 4 publicly funded & independent artist run art spaces (including Para/Site Art Space, 1aspace, Artists' Commune)
• 1 independently funded artist run space (Meli-melo Artists' Alliance)
• 1 boutique-gallery (agnes
• 1 overseas cultural organisation gallery (Goethe Institut)
• 7 partially publicly-funded independent organisations with galleries
(including Hong Kong Art Centre, Fringe Club, The Pottery Workshop

Rough-fact 7: Hong Kong's population comprises over 7 million people.

/see: http://www.johnbattengallery.com/archive/P...ngArtspaces.pdf

Rough-fact 6: Hong Kong does not lack for arts funding;

It has the second highest per capita expenditure on the arts in the world. However, most funding is allocated to the bloated government arts and museum administration sector. It could be argued that the independent Para/Site Art Space on a yearly budget of HK$800,000 does much 'more' for Hong Kong art than the publicly funded Hong Kong Museum of Art with a budget of over HK$52 million (not including salaries) (1).

A survey of a similar sized city in another part of the world would make an interesting comparison; I suspect their art venues would be of greater number and diversity. These diverse facts have much bearing on Hong Kong's small art world. For example, Hong Kong's flats are so small that people rarely entertain in them; therefore 'keeping up with the Jones's' means, for example, buying things to wear e.g. jewellery, watches, clothes - art is not considered desirable as it is unable to be seen by others.

Government decisions are pragmatic and rarely ever consider aesthetic angles; the bottom line rules. Thus, Hong Kong has some of the dreariest public sculpture, fountains, streetscapes and buildings of any city of its stature. The new Heritage Museum (remember: built at a budget exceeding the Guggenheim in Bilboa!) and the new Central Library both display elements of ugly gargantuan Soviet-style box architecture that many architects in China have even abandoned! The general public is rarely offered anything difficult or conceptual when they look at their city. Understandably, like most refugees/immigrants once settled in their new home, the focus of work is on personal wealth creation and security building - art rarely enters
that equation when 'bettering' yourself and owning a home is the aim. When art is considered for purchase, decorative art and posters will invariably be the choice.
. . .
Hong Kong's 'alternative' art scene plummeted with a bang early in 2000 when the 18-month old Oil Street art spaces closed. Oil Street sprouted in late 1998 due to the availability of large and cheap warehouse space (albeit on short lease terms) close to Hong Kong's Central district - it was the sort of deal that is rare in Hong Kong. A variety of artists flocked to these spaces and many performances, exhibitions and art events evolved over the next 18 months - many of surprisingly good quality.

Many of the Oil Street art groups have relocated to the government renovated old abbatoir in To Kwa Wan (now known as Cattle Depot Artists' Space). Videotage (a video and film artists' collective) and 1aspace emerged as the most organised, and the Artists' Commune as the best connected of the Oil Street artists. Together with Zuni Icosahedran, it will be interesting to see how these groups will use this arts venue, which is not near an MTR station and relatively isolated in To Kwa Wan.

Hong Kong's only installation art venue, Para/Site Art Space, has presented a variety of installation, construction and video exhibitions with various degrees of success over the last five years. It has proved to be the most persistent and resilient of Hong Kong's artist-run spaces: and only those who have ever managed such a ("we do it for the love of it" type) venue and dealt with the variety of dilemmas, dramas, financial crises, aesthetic considerations, politics, form-filling, people and monthly rental and salary payments will appreciate that this 5th Anniversary should be specially celebrated.

Cattle Depot Artists' Space (To Kwa Wan) : http://www.energygallery.com/featureshows/...ttleDepotHK.htm
Para/Site Art Space

Events at Artist Commune, Cattle Depot Artist Village
New Trend 2009
Venue : Artist Commune, Cattle Depot Artist Village
63 Ma Tau Kok Rd, To Kwa Wan
website: http://www.artist-commune.com/
The Village is a former slaughterhouse, built in 1908, which ceased operations in August 1999. The depot comprises a number of red brick structures of colonial style. The roofs of these single-storey buildings are either gable ones or in segmental arch. In addition, there are some covered sheds for the animals. The office building is a 2-storey red brick structure with a very small balcony and wooden staircases. This group of buildings is a Grade III Historical Buildings. Since June 2001, the former cattle depot has served as workshops and galleries for 20 or so art groups. Address: 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, To Kwa Wan, Kowloon.



Until Aug 30 - Recommended !
Showing a fresh crop of young talent courtesy of the University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University and Hong Kong Art School. ...

..

New for OCTOBER...

"October Contemporary - Now or Never"

/see: http://oc.org.hk

More than 20 exhibitions across the city. All programs are free

Some examples:

I/O in Central: New Media, New Thinking - ideas on using new media

Primitive Contemporary 2 - 13 day : artist in-residence, by Gum Cheng Yee-man, and his artist wife, Clara
"HK people have no time for art, while Polish people have no money for art", says Cheng

Polish artists participate, with two local HK artists

GOD- has Photographic exhibition, prints from HK in the 1970's and 1980's (by Yau Leung)

Art Asia Archive, based in Sheung wan, runs a community based project: Interviewing Possession,
talking to neighbors about their favorite possessions.
"To connect the Archive with its neighbors, socially and artistically"

PRESS RELEASE - excerpt:

October Contemporary (hereinafter OC)
...is a non-profit initiative devoted to the contemporary arts since 2007, and the only event of its kind in Hong Kong. In its third year, OC 2009 takes Now, or Never to be its slogan, to imbue a sense of urgency among both art practitioners and the wider public to think critically, creatively, and persistently about the contemporary arts and care for its value to our society.

OC 2009 aspires to a better environment for the appreciation and critical reception of contemporary arts. To achieve this, not only are quality artworks and organization of art programmes essential; it is also important that the contemporary arts concerns itself with and remains inquisitive and sensitive to the larger socio-cultural ecology and economy in which it is embedded.

Featuring works by some one hundred artists (80% from Hong Kong, 20% from overseas), OC 2009’s programmes straddle multiple art forms (new media of I/O, contemporary Western painting of White Tube, ink painting of Artist Commune, sound installations of Osage Gallery, dance of 1a Space, etc.). They address issues from the ecological (1a space, Scratch), socio-cultural (AAA, MOST, MIA, YY9, White Tube, C&G Artpartment), to art as action and advocacy. There is also a commitment to build art as knowledge (art at all, soundpocket) and nurture art via cultural exchange (Para/Site Art Space, C&G Artpartment).

In addition, OC 2009 invites the public to think, make and act on the arts. We believe asking questions is the first step anyone can take to engage with the contemporary arts – from such simple questions as“Can I wear flip-flops in galleries?”to such questions as“How much does a taxpayer spend on the contemporary arts every year?”or even, “Is contemporary art art?”We invite the public to join us on this quest: find an OC 2009 street banner that raises an issue about the arts and tell us what you think; register to become a“concerned outsider”of contemporary arts. All respondents will receive such prizes as art books, a date with an art practitioner, etc. as an encouragement for their participation and concern.

/more: http://www.oc.org.hk/press/

Hong Kong Arts Centre
The mission ... is to nurture creativity, arts and cultural engagement through its two-pronged approach in promoting contemporary performing arts, visual arts as well as film and video arts and in providing lifelong and life-wide arts education.

Home to artists’ bold and creative explorations, the Arts Centre featured numerous presentations in various art forms, including film and Video programmes, visual arts programmes and performing arts programmes. The Arts Centre also presents conference, art festivals and public art projects.

The Art School has been renamed as Hong Kong Art School since February 1, 2006. The new school name marks the School’s standing as a unique visual art school in Hong Kong. Established since 2000, the School has been offering integrated programmes ranging from short courses to certificate, diploma, higher diploma, associate degree, first degree, and post-graduate degree, covering six academic areas, namely, Fine Art, Chinese Art, Applied Art, Media Art, Arts Education, and Humanities. As of 2003, the School has become a recognized Sub-degree Award Granting Institution.

/see: http://www.hkac.org.hk/hkac_aboutus_en.html