Mansudae Art Studio, Pyongyang, North Korea (2014) @ Art Basel HK 2019

kalen_artbasel2019_04_cropped_smallversion

Mansudae Art Studio, Pyongyang, North Korea (2014) @ Art Basel 2019
60 cm (H) x 75cm (W)
Archival Glossy Inkjet Print, Acrylic Face Mounting 

Screenshot 2019-06-19 at 9.10.59 PM

Flash Drives for (Artistic) Freedom: Art Basel Hong Kong (2018)
Animated GIF in a camouflaged flash drive

Founded in 1959, Mansudae Art Studio, Pyongyang, is one of the largest ‘factories’ in art production in the world that is owned by state, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Artworks produced by Mansudae Art Studio, like paintings of realistic depiction or propagandist persuasion of lives and ideology in North Korea, are manufactured, displayed and sold at the gallery attached to the Studio. An art market of its own – operation, economy, worldview, and dream. A photograph of Mansudae Art Studio is now situated at Art Basel Hong Kong 2019, one of the largest art markets in the world.

The work is comprised of two parts: a glossy digital inkjet print displayed at Art Basel Hong Kong 2019, and an animated gif of images of Art Basel Hong Kong 2018 (images gathered by data mining) stored in a camouflaged flash drive awaited to be trafficked to North Korea.

Howard, Danny, Brother Kuen (2018)

1a_space_2018_12

Howard, Danny, Brother Kuen (2018)
at Listen Up?! Exhibition, 1a space, Hong Kong

Eucalyptus wood

1520mm (h) x 210mm (w) x 140mm (d) (Set of 2)

Summer 1999, I first visited 1a space at Oil Street, a temporary premise for non-profit and independent art spaces in Hong Kong. I was there for SiXhibition. Howard Chang, my best mate’s brother, was part of the show. Six young architects built a model of 1a space at a scale of 1:1.2 within the physical premise itself. Twenty years passed by, memory fades away. I could only recall the material – wood, lots of wood, and a very narrow corridor. Wood was my first impression of 1a space.

Autumn 2003, as a recent university graduate and an unemployed, Kobe Ho and May Fung included me in Danny Yung’s Tree Man exhibition project. I worked on the publicity and I designed a book. 1a space was, and still is, part of the Cattle Depot family in 2003. I could not think of anything else, but wood and tree, to encapsulate my earliest encounters with 1a space.

October 2018, I went all the way to Dill’s Corner (Kwu Tung), looked for Chi Kee Sawmill & Timber and Brother Kuen, the owner. We went through mountains and mountains of raw tree trunks, and we found a piece of eucalyptus wood. I am told eucalyptus is difficult to work with – it cracks when sawn – as difficult as you and me, I thought. I sanded the wood, tempered the surface. Twenty years of experience in the art world, you and I are tempered, polished. We listen, and we learn from listening.

瓷相作為載體

瓷相作為載體

相信大家對「瓷相」並不陌生。每一位香港人也有機會擁有一幀瓷相。香港的慈善團體如保良局,東華三院以及來自五湖四海的宗親會會為捐款人,歷屆總理及同鄉印製瓷相人像並鑲 存在會堂內以誌景仰,流芳百世。自上世紀六十年代,香港平民百姓亦開始以瓷相記念先 人,在先人的墓碑上鑲存先人遺像以作紀念。在香港,瓷相多為黑白人像,製作方法是把照 片以移印方法(image transfer, 六十年代亦稱作「轉寫」)把成像以顯影化學物料曬在 瓷板上,再以瓷粉上色,最後以高溫燒存,確保影像在瓷版上永不磨滅。這些,都是我們對 瓷相的認知。筆者以近兩年對瓷相的研究作分享,希望讀者對瓷相作為影像的載體有更深入 的理解。

瓷相?瓷像?

有關「瓷相」在國際間攝影及照片歷史上的資料文獻並不豐富。歐美照片歷史學多以 Photoceramics 命名,簡釋作「陶器上的照片」。在旺角至油麻地上海街一帶的舊式攝 影館亦會見到「瓷相」二字。筆者最初亦以「瓷相」作為研究計劃的關鍵詞,搜尋相關資 料。一九七二年五月,一部由葵陽瓷像藝術院編著的工具書《瓷像技術》,介紹了瓷像的製 作方法。而「瓷像」跟「瓷相」互通,意即瓷上的「影像」或「人像」。筆者沒有企圖要推 翻「瓷相」在香港這個約定俗成的命名,但從《瓷像技術》一書中我們或可推敲「瓷相」在 香港最主要的用途是製作「人像照片」。「瓷相」是自六七十年起製作人像攝影照片的方法 之一,技術雖然複雜,但在香港的市場上仍有編製工具書的必要。

瓷相作為載體

「瓷相」的製作過程非常繁複,當中牽涉製作色盲片、曬版、移印、上粉,再以高溫燒製, 確保影像在瓷板上可作永久保存。工序涉及攝影、黑房沖曬、繪畫,版畫及陶燒等專業知 識,可謂集百家大成。讀者可能會問為甚麼一般的照片並不可永久保存?攝影及照片歷史大 概出現有一百七十多年,在數碼噴墨照片技術出現之前,照片多以感光物料作顯影。照片雖 然有定影的程序,但照片上的感光物料及顏料仍然會受陽光,空氣濕度及氣溫影響,陽光會 令照片褪色或變色,而紙本亦易受潮,或會發黃,發霉,蟲蛀。瓷相的製作方法是以高溫燒 製作定影部份,以確保瓷粉能夠燒進瓷板中,是為「瓷中彩」,而瓷板亦解決了紙本在潮濕 環境下會出現的問題。在香港,瓷相工藝都是以拜師學藝作承傳。如果大家想更深入地了解 瓷相製作工藝,可參考由香港電台電視部於 2015 年拍攝的《死神九問》第三集《音容可 宛在?》,節目後半部份有年屆八十的賴滿全師傅製作瓷相的紀錄。

筆者亦有參考歐美照片歷史文獻,理解瓷相作為影像載體的早期歷史。在 Christopher James 的 The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes 中,作者引述二 十世紀初 Fraprie and Woodbury 的 Photographic Amusements 一書(1905)中一種叫 dusting-on 的方法,和瓷相「上粉」的工序十分相似,並分享一個以先人骨灰 作先人遺像的故事,內容大概是:「家屬圍成一圈跪在地上,各人以雙手拿著已感光的先人遺照之一角,口中含著吸管,溫柔地把濕潤的空氣呼在照片表面,好讓先人的骨灰附在照片上。」方法是真是假在一百年後的今天真是無從稽考,但這故事更讓我們理解瓷相工藝在處 理先人遺照上的歷史脈絡。

瓷相是一種永恆不滅的載體?

最後,我們相信瓷相在其製作及應用上是一種不受風吹雨打,能永久保存的照片。在過去兩 年收集口述歷史及資料搜集的過程中,筆者亦多次聽到瓷相可保存「百年」這個說法。「百年」在華人世界中並不是單單指一百年,亦為「永恆」之概念。(瓷相在香港的應用可追溯 至一九三一至三二年,至今並未有百年之久)但在田野考察部份,筆者發現在本地墳場中來 自六十年代初的瓷相有出現褪色的現象,甚至是瓷粉剝落,影像受陽光,酸雨以及環境和人 為因素影響,而彩色瓷相比黑白瓷相褪化的情況更嚴重。瓷相師傅解釋,可能因為早期製作 過程中,高溫燒製時並未能做到「瓷中彩」的效果,瓷粉仍然留在瓷板表面,瓷粉曝露在空 氣中,褪化情況便會發生。概念上,瓷相是一種永恆不滅的影像載體,製作時所牽涉的多重 工序以至瓷板的運用就是要確保這幀照片在任何情況下也能流芳百世。縱然肉身經已離開人 世間,但至少,我們的影像仍然能在肉身離去後暫存人間好一個「百年」,人類留戀紅塵正 正以瓷相作為遺像的載體這一點中露出端倪。

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KGSELECT_VR*click for VR exhibition view 
Faded 色褪せた in KG+SELECT 12, Kyotographie International Photo Festival, Kyoto, Japan at Former Junpu Elementary School, April 12 – May 12 2019

Screenshot 2019-06-19 at 9.10.59 PM

Mansudae Art Studio, Pyongyang, North Korea (2014) @ Art Basel Hong Kong 2019 +
Flash Drives for (Artistic) Freedom: Art Basel Hong Kong (2018)

lumenvisum_2018
Faded: A Solo Exhibition by Lee Wing Ki
Lumenvisum (Hong Kong), November-December 2018

1a_space_2018_12
Howard, Danny, Brother Kuen
1a space (Hong Kong), November-December 2018

inbornrgb_orig.pngKimjongilia (2018) in Everything around photography and more!, 濕地 Venue, Taipei. Onfoto Studio (Taiwan), January, 2019.

WMA_cover_2017

Tsang’s Odyssey
WMA Masters Award (Hong Kong) – Finalist, 2016/17

LEEWK_G44_02The Film Negatives Detective – Romance (work-in-progress)
Gum Bichromate Print

Onfoto Studio (Taipei), August 2017