Valerie
C. Doran
Unfold
How does one look for the answer to the question of an artist’s life?
Or to understand the mystery of his appearance, or his disappearance,
in our world?
‘Looking
for Antonio Mak’ is not so much an exhibition, as the unfolding of
a process of seeking. It is a process that began with the question,
‘Where is the art of Antonio Mak?’, and has since led us to many different
places--perhaps above all to the understanding that art is a single
focal point from which, if we pay close enough attention, everything
else can emanate.
Looking
at his art and his life from this moment in time, Antonio Mak (1951-1994)
presents a paradox. Handsome, intense and inspired, in the 43 years
that he lived on this planet Antonio made an enduring impression on
many who came into contact with him and his art. Among many Hong Kong
artists of his generation and younger, he is almost a figure of legend.
Yet –for reasons that are complex and heretofore largely unexamined--his
work remains known and valued primarily within his own artistic community,
and by the collectors fortunate enough to own his pieces. Even in
life, Antonio found entry into the public and commercial arenas of
Hong Kong problematic (a situation that has begun to improve only
relatively recently for other artists here), and usually showed his
work at private spaces like the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Fringe Club,
Gallery 7, and even Club 1997 (which in the 1980s frequently helped
Hong Kong artists stage exhibitions at the restaurant). With the exception
of a posthumous, retrospective exhibition staged in 1995 by his family
and his many friends in the Hong Kong art world, and a few scattered
group shows in the late 1990s, over the last 13 years, Antonio Mak’s
work has virtually disappeared from the public arena in Hong Kong
Encountering
Antonio’s art anew, one is struck again by the incomprehensibility
of this circumstance. Antonio’s figurative cast-bronze sculptures,
visually evocative and beautifully crafted, his drawings and paintings,
and his scattered poetic writings, embody not only technical mastery
but, more strikingly, a uniquely Mak-ian iconography at the heart
of which is a series of existential paradoxes: at once surrealistic
and intensely personal, humorous and spiritual, disturbing and deeply
moving. This is demonstrated, for example, in works showing the figure
or torso of a naked man – often Mak himself –turned in side out (Spread,
1994), made to emerge from its own double (Man Coming Out from Himself,
1983, 1992), sleepwalking on the back of a tiger (Sleepwalker II,
1991; Good Morning II,1993), or bisected by a ladder that both separates
and unites the realms of animal passion and human reason (Man with
Ladder II, 1982). Antonio’s interest in the re-examination, dissection
and inversion of reality in order to reveal its ‘other face’ seems
to have been an integral part of his consciousness, and of the way
he interpreted the world. His brother, Mak Hin-ming, has described
how, as a young boy, Antonio loved to pull apart Chinese words into
their radical components to create a secret language where a word
was no longer the sum of its parts but rather a fractured assemblage
revealing its genesis: for example, in talking about a tree (樹), for
which the Chinese character in Cantonese is pronounced syuh, Antonio
would say muhk (木) dauh (豆) chyun (寸), creating a nonsense term meaning,
literally, “wood-bean-inch”.
As
more than one of his fellow artists has observed, despite Antonio’s
overtly Western technique, honed during his overseas study at the
best art schools in England, his works are ‘very Hong Kong’ and very
Chinese—not stylistically per se, but integrally. This can be seen
in his frequent use of literal and visual puns, that touch both on
Cantonese vernacular and the tradition of the rebus in Chinese art;
in the multilayered symbolism of the tiger and the horse; in the presence
of mirrors and steps leading into other dimensions that speak to Daoist
as well as Surrealist sensibilities; and in the Buddhist allusions.
Even in his expressionistic, eerily beautiful human figures and torsos,
there is a sensitive use of negative space--again a quality of Chinese
aesthetics. At times there is also a political subtext to Antonio’s
work that cannot be ignored, as in some of the tiger pieces, which
allude to the uncertainty of Hong Kong’s political future in the early
1990s.
Working
out of his studio and with limited funds for large castings, Antonio
created mostly small-scale works using the lost-wax method, and in
the casting process was able to dynamically preserve the original
texture of the wax, imprinted with the deft and sensitive movement
of his fingers, on the bronze. One could almost describe this as Antonio’s
own version of cunfa, the textural movement of the brush in Chinese
ink painting. Another important characteristic is the way that, despite
their relatively small size, his sculptures create an impression of
monumentality – a quality of his work also present in classical Chinese
art, and one to which other artists respond very strongly.
In
seeking to redress the almost inexplicable absence of Antonio’s art
from public view, we have in this project created multiple layers
of presence, to explore where and how the art of Antonio Mak exists
today, physically, spiritually and metaphorically, and of how our
own perceptions of his work and of ourselves might be changed by re-encountering
his art and his history in our own time.
The
first of these layer is a core exhibition in which we have brought
together for the first time more than 120 examples of Antonio’s works,
including sculptures, paintings and drawings, and assembled them within
an installation specifically designed for his art and, in many ways,
emanating from it. These works have been gathered together from many
places—from museum collections in Hong Kong, and from a number of
private collections here and overseas. A number of these pieces belong
to Antonio’s family, and his closest friends. In these sculptures,
paintings and drawings are transmuted the intensity of Antonio’s vision,
and the uniqueness of his understanding.
In
our second layer of exploration, eight artists—Fung Ming Chip, Jaffa
Lam, Lo Yin Shan, Kung Chi Shing, Simon Birch and Kwan Sheung Chi
from Hong Kong, and Wu Shanzhuan from Shanghai--have created installations
reflecting their response to Antonio Mak’s art and history. These
artists work in different media, are of different generations, and
had varying levels of familiarity with Antonio Mak’s work. The one
thread linking them all is the distinctiveness of their artistic voices,
reinforcing the possibility of dialogue and encounter. The process
has not been without its challenges: working within the limitations
of the museum environment, it was not always feasible for a particular
artist to fully realize their original concept for their work (no
live tigers allowed inside the gallery, for example). But in the end,
each artist has created a genuine articulation of his or her own vision,
separate and unique, but flowing into the whole.
Fung Ming Chip’s calligraphic installation, Sliver of Time, reflects
the strong resonance Fung experienced in looking through Antonio’s
sketchbooks, in which the artist often recorded his thoughts, dreams
and questionings. Inside a cave-like, darkened room, Fung uses charcoal
to inscribe and mark the walls with a graffiti comprised of a number
of artists’ thoughts on work and life, as well as his own poems and
drawings. Portions of these texts and images are revealed to us only
in the moment, by flashlight and through chance--and only if we choose
to look for them.
In
Jaffa Lam’s two-part installation and live-art work, Looking for Ah
Mak in the Dream Studio, the artist seeks to reconstruct and, in a
sense, to sanctify the spaces in which Antonio worked and dreamed.
Outside the gallery, Jaffa herself will inhabit, actively sculpt,
and engage with the audience in one of these spaces, compromising
an artist’s studio, and a special ‘visitors lounge’. Here she will
create small pieces of art both for Antonio and for her visitors.
Responding to the Buddhist themes in Antonio’s work, inside the gallery
Jaffa creates another space for meditation, in which she seeks to
sanctify the encounters between artist and audience.
In
his response to Antonio’s art, sculptor Lee Man Sang has chosen to
build an ethereal environment to envelop and illuminate it. Lee’s
monumental lantern installation, Radiate, is an almost magical construction
of found paper and tree branches, large enough to stand inside of.
At its core is a sculpture by Antonio Mak depicting a man holding
what could either be snake or a candle—radiating energy but at the
same time revealing an existential ambiguity that lies at the core
of Antonio’s art. At moments of inspiration, when ‘the spirit moves
him’, Lee also will play music on instruments of his own construction
inside the installation.
The
genesis of painter and video artist Simon Birch’s multi-part installation,
one hundred five zero, was the artist’s visceral response to Antonio’s
sculpture Good Morning II (1993)—one of the first if his works Simon
had ever seen-- depicting a sleepwalker standing on the back of a
powerful,stalking tiger. Simons series of 20 canvases, and --half
of them painted Argonautica (All That Is ) and half blank Hamartia
(All That Will Never Be)--and his video installation Soghomon Tehlirian,
address a man’s life, a tiger’s nature, and the connection between
them. In a one-off action piece, Huntingdon 300, in which the artist
gives away 300 origami tigers, numbered and signed and made of HKD100
bank notes, Simon also addresses the ‘cage of limitations’ he ran
up against in attempts to introduce unconventional elements into the
comparatively conservative museum environment (for example the presence
of a live, caged tiger in his installation).
As
an art student in 1993, Lo Yin Shan was stunned by her encounter with
Antonio’s land-art installation Heaven and Hell: a square hole dug
into the earth, with steps leading down to a ground covered by a mirror,
so that in descending one seemed to be walking into the sky. Lo’s
sculptural multi-media installation, When the feet go looking for
the body, both references and pays homage to this work. On another
level, her work is a reconceptualization of the idea of an ‘exhibition
catalogue’ and alludes to one of Antonio’s key conceptual puns—shu
shen, or ‘body of a book’.
The
writings of Wu Shanzhuan, one of China’s more notorious conceptual
artists, on the subject of ‘artwork as material for the further creation
of art’ were a key influence on the curatorial direction of this project.
Wu’s invited participation was envisioned as a process of taking a
key mainland artist out of his comfort zone and into a genuine zone
of encounter with Hong Kong art(ists). While happy to join the project,
Wu in the end didn’t actually ‘join in’--to this day he is not exactly
sure who Antonio Mak is, although he likes what he has seen of his
sculpture. Wu’s work in this exhibition, But Still Red.....How to
Do Nothing, was originally created by the artist when he was living
in Iceland in 1990-91. Stored in a barn in the Icelandic countryside,
it was rediscovered there only recently.
Hong
Kong conceptual artist Kwan Sheung Chi’s installation Ask the Hong
Kong Museum of Art to borrow “Iron Horse” barriers: I want to collect
all of the “Iron Horse” barriers in Hong Kong here….was inspired by
a variety of elements in Antonio’s work: his use of mirrors, his love
of punning, his political subtexts, and most specifically, his sculpture,
Horse with Ladder (1982, not in this show), in which the body of a
horse is bisected and extended by a ladder. Kwan uses as his main
material the ubiquitous metal police barriers seen all over Hong Kong,
and known in Chinese as ‘iron horses’ (tiema).Encountering this gigantic
installation in the exhibition space, reflected ad infinitum in parallel
walls of mirrors, we are impelled us to stop in our tracks and reconsider
what is that is keeping us standing there, apart from where we want
to be going.
Sound
artist Kung Chi Shing takes as his material the historical context
of Antonio’s existence as an artist--the milieu in which he worked,
the memories of those who knew him—to create a soundscape that both
intersects and unites the exhibition’s discrete spaces of artistic
response, of personal history, and collective memory. Adding another
layer, Kung punctuates this ambient soundscape with moments of live
musical performance—including his own and that of acoustic drummer
and singer John Lee—and with randomly shown video images of his own
father, underscoring an important element of this event: that art
unfolds, even as we do.
The
third layer of this project is the ‘adjunct show’, a documentary exhibition
that seeks to provide other avenues of insight into Antonio Mak’s
past and present. Both private and institutional collectors of Antonio’s
works were invited to photograph his art in situ on one particular
day in the year, and in their exact position—whether on display in
home or office, put away in a box, or what have you. The resulting
photographic exhibit creates a picture of reality of precisely where
and how Antonio Mak’s works exist physically in the real world, in
real time, outside the exhibition frame. Also displayed are more personal
objects from Antonio’s life, including a painting by his father, Mak
Hong, Antonio’s first mentor.
‘Looking for Antonio Mak’ is not a static display, but an organic
structure with elements that will subtly change and extend throughout
the two months it resides at the museum, and hopefully far beyond.
The project reflects an ongoing journey bringing together the insights,
memories, talents and creativity of a wide group of people. It is
in every sense of the word a collaborative project, and we are grateful
to all who have contributed along the way. Most of all, we are grateful
to Antonio Mak himself, who reminds us that great art can always be
the genesis of a journey.
Valerie
C. Doran, Curator
