Prof. Frank Vigneron's Contemporary Art course at CUHK Fine Arts - An individual presentation on a piece of academic essay written by Prof. David Clarke, Former Chair Professor at HKU Department of Fine Arts

1. FAA 5301 – Contemporary Art
Individual presentation on Reading article
“The Rise of Installation Art” by Prof.
David Clarke
Lee Kwun Leung Vincent (Student No.:
1007070165)
MA Fine Arts Year 2

2. Prof. David Clarke
• Professor Clarke obtained his PhD from
the Courtauld Institute of Art,
University of London. Until his
retirement from HKU in June 2017, Prof.
Clarke taught modern and
contemporary art history and theory,
with a particular emphasis on the art of
Europe, America and Asia. Prof. Clarke’s
scholarly articles have been published
in journals such as Art History, Art
Journal, Journal of American Studies,
Oriental Art, Public Culture, The
American Journal of Semiotics, Art
Criticism, Postcolonial Studies, Journal
of Visual Culture, Early Music and Third
Text. Prof. Clarke is the founder and
academic director of the Hong Kong Art
Archive. He is also active as a
photographer.

3. Rise of Installation Art between the
1970s and 1989
• Coincided with a trend that the art scene in the
West began to foster a critical mindset towards
the effectiveness of Dadaism or Minimalism

4. Eagerness in searching for the cultural identity of
Hong Kong art between the 1970s and the
transformation period beyond 1989
• Modern ink paintings – Hong Kong art, but with
Chineseness
• Installation art – Hong Kong art, but with a sense of
localism, or the corresponding authors being called as
“Artists in Western”

5. Prof. David Clarke: historical significance of
HKADC in patroning installation art
• Council for Performing Arts  HKADC since
1995
– Hong Kong Arts Development Awards (Visual Arts
category / Media Art category) and other funding
schemes: mostly benefit the installation artists

6. Remarkable awardees of HKADC Art Awards
who are installation artists:
• Chan Wai Lap, Tang Kwok Hin, Lau Hok Shing, Tom Tam
Chung-man, Naddim Abbas

7. Prof. David Clarke: historical
significance of HKADC in
patroning installation art
• Why needs HKADC?
– City Hall and Cultural Centre:
For Civic Painting Society
Camp
– Hong Kong Museum of Art:
Xubaizhai for traditional
Chinese-ink paintings / prior
interest in collecting Wu
Guanzhong’s oil and ink
paintings
– HKADC: aims at
complementing the loopholes
of current official institutions,
such as the aforesaid three
venues, in ignoring installation
art during the dilemma of land
problems

8. ParaSite: a hub of enlightenment for
installation art in Hong Kong
• Began in Sai Wan and was later
prospered along Hollywood
Road in Sheung Wan since 1996
• Now one more branch in Quarry
Bay

9. Photography as important elements for the
installation art of Hong Kong (Luke Ching’s work
at ParaSite)

10. Photography as important elements
for the installation art of Hong Kong
• Prof. David Clarke: “Photography, because of its indexical
relationship to the space and time of the negative’s exposure, was
also (as the works by Wong Wobik and others have shown) a
medium that came into its own in Hong Kong during this period,
whereas artists were interested in referencing the local and evoking
a sense of living at the end of time. But photographs, because of
their durability, outlive the moments they are forever tied to (and
indeed because of the time-lag of development and printing can
only be seen after that moment has already passed). They speak in a
present tense, but of something that has passed before the time of
viewing commences, and thus offer expressive possibilities
somewhat different from those of installation art. Certain of the
installation artists to be discussed below seem well aware of
photography’s particular potential as a marker of now-lost time, and
either employ it as a second area of artistic creativity or even make
use of photographs as an element within their installation works.”

11. Basic theories about installation art
• Lecan: stressed “discourses” with the
popular mass to gain community-
wide support for your art creation
• Bronislaw Malinowski: Ethnography
– Notes and transcripts
– Data session groups
– Conservation
– Coding and sequential analysis
– Recording
– Experientially intensive
• Jean-Francois Lyotard
– L’ Axiomatique (system of public logics)
v.s. Paralogisme (parallel
constructivism)

12. Tsang Tak Ping
@ ParaSite:
Coding and
Sequential
Analysis for
Ethnography
• A ParaSite catalogue called “Local Accent – 12 artists from Hong Kong”
publishes Tsang Tak Ping’s creative statement in this manner:
– “Paperwork” is a series of work combing black and white photographs
and paper models. The photographic images are models made by my
9-year-old daughter Kuk Kuk and my 6-year-old son Toto, including
skycrapers, houses, car-park etc. All the buildings are well furnished.
There are daily neccessities, furniture and clubhouse facilities, like a
swimming pool. Every detail is determined by the way they perceive
their daily life.

13. Tsang Tak Ping
@ ParaSite:
Coding and
Sequential
Analysis for
Ethnography
• A ParaSite catalogue called “Local Accent – 12 artists from Hong Kong” publishes Tsang
Tak Ping’s creative statement in this manner:
– The paper models are done by me according to the creations of my kids. In the
course of producing the models I tried to trace the thoughts of Kuk Kuk and
Toto. Their considerations influenced my thoughts. Adults always try to
formalize the thought of kids. Nevertheless, the behaviour of the kids reflects
the values imposed on them by adults. How could one draw the line between
right and wrong in terms of values?
– Kuk Kuk and Toto are, in fact, mirrors. The reflection of me.

14. Prof. David Clarke described Choi Yan Chi by comparing her with
Tsang Tak Ping’s “conservational” approach of ethnographic
creation in this way….
• The fragile upturned boat (created by Tsang Tak Ping) – a wrecked or
marooned vessel, above rather than in the water – recalled Hong Kong’s
harbour, which has seen dramatic changes in the last few years, with
reclamation altering its whole physical appearance. The weathered
surfaces shown in the projected images brought further associations
with the past and its loss or erosion, while the changing appearance of
the harbour, the unstable or ungraspable nature of the present moment,
was conveyed by the blurred quality of the photographs that recorded it.
In contrast to all these significations of loss or the ephemeral (which the
temporary nature of installation art itself helps to underline) was the
gesture of preservation implied by placing photographs of the harbour
into bottles. This recalls the traditional method used for preserving
beancurd and other food products, although in this case the water in
the bottles gradually peeled off the emulsion to create a further image
of the past’s erasure. Such destructive embalming had a precedent in
Choi Yan-chi’s installation pieces such as “Drowned II” and “Drowned III”
(1993, Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane), in which
piles of books were submerged in tanks of water or oil.

15. Prof. David Clarke described Choi Yan Chi by comparing her with
Tsang Tak Ping’s “conservational” approach of ethnographic
creation in this way….
• “Drowned II”by Choi Yan Chi, in which piles of books
were submerged in tanks of water or oil

16. Prof. David Clarke described Leung Mee Ping’s art by comparing
her with Tsang Tak Ping’s “recording” and “experientially
intensive” approach of ethnographic creation in this way….
• Leung Mee Ping, the other artist in “Diving from Memory”,
also used water as an element, and like Warren Leung she
carved into the floor of the improvised gallery space – in
her case to create a temporary pond for a live goldfish.
The floor around the goldfish was covered in curved red
roof tiles of a traditional Chinese kind, and it was
necessary to walk across this roof-floor to see the fish,
occasionally cracking tiles in the process. Water had
featured in one of her earlier installation pieces with
similarities to one aspect of Tsang’s “Hello! Hong Kong –
Part 3”: in an untitled work of 1994 she included
photographs of her family and of Hong Kong, which were
submerged in metal trays filled with water, where they
gradually deteriorated.

17. Prof. David Clarke described Leung Mee Ping’s art by comparing
her with Tsang Tak Ping’s “recording” and “experientially
intensive” approach of ethnographic creation in this way….
• Leung Mee Ping: “Diving from Memory” (1996) v.s.
Tsang Tak Ping: “Hello! Hong Kong – Part 3” (1994)

18. Kwok Mang Ho
@ ParaSite:
Lecan’s
emphasis on
“discourses”
• Prof. David Clarke: ‘Kwok Mang-ho’s “Art Life at ParaSite for 72 hours”
(February 1998) was a further engagement with the theme of
domesticity. Literally turning the gallery into a home, albeit for only
four days. An expression of Kwok’s desire to blur the boundaries
between art and life, this performance and installation piece was one
of a long series of attempts to construct temporary utopian community
and banish the alienation of modern urban living. Kwok was also
involved in a “Street Happening” organized in the vicinity of ParaSite on
20 January 2001 as part of the “Landscape” project (curated by Young
Hay at various venues in January 2001 as part of the Fringe Club’s Star
Alliance City Festival).’

19. Oil Street – an important hub for
installation art
• Former tenants include: 1A Space, the Artist Commune,
Videotage, Almond Chu’s photographic and design
studio
– But they moved out around the end of 1999 and now it is
an exhibition venue under the Art Promotion Office of
LCSD
• Installation artists’ counteraction against property
hegemony once dealing with land problems: During
Tung Chee-hwa’s administration era, the Town Planning
Board has ever stood by the side of the installation
artists in 1999 to veto Cheung Kong Properties’ plan of
constructing a cruise ship terminal on the Oil Street.

20. Bibliography
• Edited by Mrs. KAN Li Lai-chi, “SBA Visual Arts Appreciation: Curriculum and Teaching-
Material Package 2019 – 2020”, Hong Kong: Kau Yan College, 1st Edition in August 2020
• Arthur Kroker and David Cook, “The Postmodern Scene – Excremental Culture and
Hyper-Aesthetics”, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2nd Edition in 1988
• Written by Jean-Francois LYOTARD, Translated by CHE Jinshan & Approved by Lin
Zhiming, “La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir”, Taipei: Wu-Nan Book
Incorporation, 1st Edition in May 2012
• Edited by LAU Kin-wah: “Local Accent – 12 artists from Hong Kong”, Hong Kong:
Para/Site Art Space Ltd., 2003