A Brush with the City: Wilson Shieh Brings Hong Kong’s Central District to Life

LOK WONG: [Cantonese] Hello, today we’re at Montane Mansion in Quarry Bay. Montane Mansion is actually one of five interconnected buildings [that form this complex]. Together, they are: Oceanic Mansion, Montane Mansion, Fok Cheong Building, Yick Fat Building and Yick Cheong Building.

From above, the five buildings form an E-shaped complex with shops at the podium level and mixed-use units inside the buildings. The complex is a world unto itself providing residents with the facilities that fulfil their basic needs. Looking up from the courtyard, the five densely packed buildings become an intimidating leviathan. The intricate rectangles occupy every space within sight resembling a spreadsheet waiting to be filled in. Today, the Eastern District has transformed into a diverse community where Grade-A offices and old tenement buildings coexist.

Montane Mansion’s unique structure stands in stark contrast. It attracts many creative workers who use the complex as a source of inspiration to create artworks.

In the M+ Collections, ‘Circus’ by American abstract artist Mark Bradford references Montane Mansion. Its creation is based on layered architectural drawings and urban landscape images resemble an infrared thermography image of a building with red and green lines. Although this work has a futuristic composition, the combination of bright red and olive green evokes the imagery of traditional handmade signs and window grilles of old tenement buildings. Bradford often reconstructs urban cityscapes through techniques, such as collage, sanding and spray painting. The artist metaphorically portrays the five buildings as a colourful circus. On the surface, it’s a world with an endless variety of experiences, but, behind this facade, there is a potential source of conflict. This work is a tribute to the unique aesthetics of Hong Kong and a reflection of hidden social issues, as Montane Mansion and other buildings have developed in a haphazard way.

German photographer Michael Wolf lived in Hong Kong for a long time, and used Montane Mansion as his subject. His practice focused on documenting urban life in Asia. In his work, ‘Architecture of Density, No.119’, he trimmed the sky and the podium of Montane Mansion turning the complex into a 2D pattern, [Through Wolf’s lens] the horseshoe structure is flattened, losing its boundaries. You may wonder ‘Could this structure extend endlessly?’

What does Montane Mansion mean to local makers? This Hong Kong 4As poster by Hong Kong designer Sandy Choi, features the Montane Mansion as its background. In the black-and-white inner courtyard

there is a unit painted with hot pink and written ‘Relieve Constipation at Flat 4A’, the text ‘Flat 4A’ symbolises the ‘HK4As’ referring to the Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies of Hong Kong. Aimed at encouraging industry creativity, this award doubles as a cure for ‘creative constipation’. The hot pink colour of the poster also resembles the colour of memo notes which some creatives use for brainstorming. Through the designer’s alteration, Montane Mansion becomes a local symbol of our haphazard yet utilitarian way of doing things.

Other than these objects from the M+ Collections. Montane Mansion is also frequently captured in works by other local and international makers of moving image works. This unique architecture gradually permeated diverse visual art mediums and served as a microcosm of the city.

As someone living in Hong Kong, how do the different ways of looking at our city inspire you?

SOUTH HO SIU NAM: (Cantonese) Hello! I’m photographer South Ho.

We are now in Tin Shui Wai. I’d like to take you to some of the locations, where I created the ‘Every Daily’ series ten years ago.

Around 2007, I moved to Tin Shui Wai. In the more than ten years that I lived there, I often photograph around the town. From 2012 onwards, I began to reflect on the relationship between the town and myself. One significant discovery was that when cleaning up my home, I stumbled upon the brushes left behind by my father. We moved to Tin Shui Wai after he passed away for a fresh start. I tried to combine his interest in painting and my photography, to see if it would make any difference to my art practice.

I started to experiment with drawing squares on the sky portion of the photographs. How did I come up with this idea? It’s because I saw the Light Rail trains passing by the same spot at the same time every day. Light Rail trains always run along with their rails. It makes me think that when a city is very well-planned, does it restrict the lifestyle of its residents? The ‘Every Daily’ series draws on this concept. ‘Every Daily’ is about thingsthat happen every day. How does a pattern begin? Is it predetermined by an architectural design or urban planning?

If you have seen my work ‘Every Daily 26’, you’ll notice that the pond captured in this work is the dried-up pond behind me. There was a buffalo sculpture in the pond. The most interesting part was that there was a rope tied on the sculpture. I found this a peculiar yet intriguing scene in the city. Returning today, I found that the pond had already dried up. It’s also interesting that the city kept changing in the past decade, and the buffalo sculpture is long gone.

From this hill where we are now, this place is not only a popular morning exercise route for nearby residents, but also a great spot for watching sunset and taking a walk. You can see the neatly arranged residential buildings in Tin Shui Wai. Back then, these areas were mostly fishponds. These buildings did not exist until the 1980s. Today, the town has become a well-established community. But at the same time, you’ll notice that the other side of the townis still rural and undeveloped.

In this town, in addition to the high-rises that we often see, there are also areas for other uses, such as for industrial purposes or container yards with large machinery. Therefore, it has a dynamic cityscape with many gradations between the urban and rural. When you continually observe what is going on, you will naturally gain fresh insights. You’ll also realise Hong Kong’s cityscape isn’t that monotonous. Besides high-rises, there are other constructed and natural features. For many people, this kind of cityscape is truly fascinating. It’s neither like scenic spots, nor tourist attractions, but it’s shaped by the diverse living environments of people in Hong Kong.

ALAN YEUNG: (Cantonese) Hello! Today, I would like to introduce a video work in the M+ collection. It's called Central, created by the French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster in 2001.

The protagonist plans to meet with her brother at Star Ferry Pier. Whilst waiting for him, she goes to Kowloon Public Pier to observe the strangers. Like her, those strangers are fascinated by this liminal space. Not daring approach them, she looks at their backs from far away and riding on the mere spark of resonance between them, imagines their inner worlds, their longings and fear

Year 2001 is 23 years ago. Twenty-three years, as a timespan, is sort of subtle. It can mean the coming of age or passing of a generation. But personal memories from 23 years ago can feel vividly alive. The Tsim Sha Tsui Waterfront Park and the public pier upon renovation have changed thoroughly. But the ferry in the shots and the views of Hong Kong Island apparently look just the same.

Our fantasies shall one day pass as memories and our memories can in turn trigger imaginations on the future.

Back then, what was the thing that moved the artist? Was it the visual stimuli brought by the concrete jungle, or the rhythm of the Harbour’s waves and the sailing ships?

Probably, it’s just like what the protagonist says: it's the moisture and stench in the air.

“Looking at a landscape like an immense face. It’s perhaps a disappearance. Trying to decipher the future. As if it were a rainy day”

TINA PANG: Today we’re at Victoria Harbour and we’re going to look at two projects from the M+ Collections. They take us back in time and look at different histories of the city, its representations and the nature of travel.

The first project is Henry Steiner's branding for a short-lived helicopter service, called Hong Kong Air, launched in 1970. In 1970, when Hong Kong Air was established, the only way to get from Hong Kong Island to the Kowloon Peninsula and back was by ferry. Following the opening of the cross-harbour tunnel in 1972, Hong Kong Air suspended its scheduled airport service at the end of 1973. But what is remarkable in few short years that it operated, it carried over 96,000 passengers.

Henry’s design is dominated by a vibrant orange and yellow colourway, bold sans-serif typography and a sharp logo that can be read both as a runway and the ‘H’ of Hong Kong Air. In contrast to the bold graphic style that Henry chose for the overall branding of Hong Kong Air, he decided to look back to the past for a set of postcards he produced for the company as souvenirs. The image of Hong Kong's as Victoria Peak rising up out of the harbour is one that traces its roots to an image from the 19th century in a painting made largely for an audience of foreign traders or tourists. It is this history of travel commerce, adventure and representation that Henry Steiner drew upon for the set of postcards.

The second project is a series of photographs of Hong Kong taken by the Japanese photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki, on a visit he made to the city in 1997. Araki’s unique style of photography can be spontaneous and unplanned intimate and confessional. In April 1997, Araki made the unusual decision to travel to Hong Kong. He spent five days here. Although he was used to staying in Tokyo and remaining in Japan, photographing the life around him. This decision would change his life and change his career forever. The series of photographs that Araki made while here. They're like a diary of a journey, taken over 5 days between the 16th and the 20th of April. In them, Araki captures in his impressions of a city on the cusp of uncertain change, particularly the intensity of the humid atmosphere in Hong Kong. As being charged with a kind of eroticism, like meeting a woman for the first time. In his tender, intimate portraits, he captures the city and its inhabitants a little unawares and a little obliquely subverting the idea of photography as souvenir.

Through Henry Steiner's branding for Hong Kong Air and Araki’s photographic travel diary, we’re invited to travel back in time to imagine the harbour as it was in the past and to anticipate the transformations to come.

TANG KWOK HIN: (Cantonese) Now I’m in Wing Lung Wai, a walled village in Kam Tin.

For hundreds of years, the villagers have lived here. Back then, Kam Tin was still called Sham Tin, Nam Wai, Pak Wai, Kat Hing Wai, Tai Hong Wai, Wing Lung Wai and Nai Wai, are known collectively as the ‘six walled villages of Kam Tin’.

I grew up in Wing Lung Wai, and went to downtown for the first time when I was 18 or 19 to see an exhibition by an upperclassman in the Fine Arts Department. In the city, I saw a lot of skyscrapers, lots of different faces. Everyone was dressed differently, having their own paces of life. That should be the starting point of my artistic journey that is through the language of art, to ponder how such differences arise.

Walled villages are small communities with their own rhythms and a distinctive set of customs and festivals. At times, I’m reluctant to throw things away and am inadvertently hoarding all sorts of materials. This is how Mount Huaguo came by. It's like writing an essay discussing apes. Journey to the West technology as well as fear evoked by myths.

What’s interesting about walled villages is their surrounding walls, which remind me of the school desks. ‘The Lonely Island’ is like recreating the scene, where I played by myself as a child. You might be alone when you’re lonely, but this work wants to emphasise that you can talk to yourself and be your own company.

Looking back, I can’t always tell how hazy or how sharp my memories are, but I’d like to believe that, the unnameable feelings engendered by a place that stay with us long after are speaking of an inexplicable connection.

Like now, I’d believe that the ritual that burns offerings into light and ashes is a language, a dialogue that bridges past and present. This kind of language and dialogue is akin to art-making.

As walled villages evolve, [Things we used to have in the past] are fading away. Such a fragmented state looks irresistible. And the change to the cityscape is all the more beyond my control. Taking things more positively. I believe those things that are reduced to fragments are actually distillation of customs preferences or something deep in us… They’ve become our second nature or senses and sensibilities that are insusceptible to change. These probably are the fundamental elements that last through life’s vicissitudes, hopefully.