Leung Chi Wo

Leung Chi Wo captured the variably colourful surface of the Victoria Harbour in different seasons and times of the day, recording the temporal and mnemonic impressions unperceivable by the naked eye.

In this installation, a paper plane was made of the magazine cover of LIFE (June 2, 1967), which ran a story of the escape of famous Chinese musician Ma Sitson from China. It flies on strings at variable speeds synced with the tempo and level of two songs: Long Life Chairman Mao (1966), and Yesterday (1965) by the Beatles.

The paper plane, which hints at the prospect of fleeing and symbolizes the fate of Hong Kong citizens, moves in an endless circle with no destination or free will, dancing subserviently to the music of Chairman Mao and the Beatles. In an ironic gesture, the playback music is barely audible, and the audience is forced to experience the difficulty and ambivalence in perceiving history.

Music in 1967 series illustrates the artist’s cross-discipline practice that is often based on extensive research concerning cultural identities, social and political phenomenon, belief system and the ambivalence of history. A collection of light boxes and photo installations consisting of images, texts and sound, the series is inspired by the 1967 anti-colonial riots backed by the communists in Hong Kong. The Beatles’ songs make a faint backdrop to the works, which recalls Western pop music being played in public spaces by the government during the riots to counter Chinese communist propaganda broadcasted on the streets.

After his eponymous solo exhibition “Press the Button… Leung Chi Wo: A Survey Exhibition” at OCAT Shenzhen in 2015, Leung created 54 hand drawings along with textual description for each of the works showcased at the exhibition. An art book titled Press the Button was published after. With limited edition of 50, each individually numbered box set includes an 88-page paperback and 54 loose hand drawings, with texts by Leung Chi Wo, curator of the exhibition Carol Yinghua Lu, art critic Anthony Leung Po Shan and curator Qu Chang.

Before Sunrise, is a set of 6 photographs that documents the artist’s response to Yoko Ono’s performance Morning Peace. Commissioned by MOMA and organised by M+ Museum, Morning Peace is 24-hour durational piece across 8 different cities globally to “celebrate the mornings of past, future, and now”. Set to the accompaniment of Im Abendrot (At Sunset), one of the Four Last Songs Richard Strauss wrote before his death, Leung Chi Wo and attending audience in Hong Kong witnessed together the twilight of sunrise.

An imaginative investigation through staged photography, He was lost yesterday and we found him today is a series of 28 self portraits in which Leung Chi Wo collaborated with Sara Wong. The series re-enact anonymous figures picked out from images in archival materials such as old magazines, newspaper, pamphlets, souvenir books and other documents that they have been collecting over the years.

Leung Chi Wo and Sara Wong’s collaboration started in 1992. Their previous work City Cookie was exhibited in Shanghai Biennale, Venice Biennale, as well as Queens Museum in the USA and Museum of Image and Sound in Brazil.