Archives: Activity

Aberdeen was a pirates’ den two centuries ago before growing into a fishing village. But with today’s skyrocketing cost of real estate, many high-rise developments are becoming backdrops to Aberdeen’s Typhoon Shelter, towering above the numerous junks and sampans that sail daily to the Aberdeen Wholesale Fish Market. In this Saturday activity, we will experience how modern art blends into this former fishing village. The morning will start with a private tour to two contemporary art galleries – Koru Contemporary Art and Alisan Fine Arts – followed by one of the freshest seafood lunches in Hong Kong at the Aberdeen Wholesale Fish Market Canteen.

Koru Contemporary Art, established in 2001, represents a diverse range of contemporary international artists, specializing in modern sculptures. A large selection of their collection can be found in their two gallery spaces with a combined exhibition area of over 7,500 square feet.

Koru’s art consultant, Amandine Hervey will give an introduction on the evolution of glass and its role in art history. She will introduce the glass making centers and masters that have played key roles in art history, discuss in detail their techniques, both new and old, as well as identify useful tools to appreciate this special art. Following her talk, we will tour their collection to explore how contemporary artists are using the various techniques developed over centuries past.

Alisan Fine Arts, founded in 1981, was one of the first professionally run galleries in Hong Kong. Well placed to service the serious collector and novice alike, this gallery has been associated with some of the best contemporary Chinese paintings and sculptures, with styles ranging from traditional to abstract. Over the years, it has organized more than 100 exhibitions for Chinese artists around the world. Through these exhibitions and other events, Alisan has brought to Hong Kong and other parts of Asia, established international Chinese artists such as Zao Wou-ki, Chu Teh-chun and Gao Xingjian (France), Chao Chung-hsiang, Walasse Ting, John Way and Fay Ming (USA), Hsiao Chin (Italy) and Lui Shou Kwan (Hong Kong). In 1987 the gallery began promoting Chinese artists from the mainland, including Yang Jiechang, Wei Ligang, Wang Tiande and Luo Qi.

Aberdeen Wholesale Fish Market Canteen has been operated by one family for several decades. Situated inside the Aberdeen Wholesale Fish Market, this cha chaan teng serves typical instant noodles with fried egg and sausage, milk tea and French toast to the various fishermen, seafood wholesalers and buyers from the early morning hour of 4 am. But by noon, it proudly presents its diners one of the freshest and tastiest seafood meals in the city. With its close proximity to vendors that distribute a large share of live-seafood imported to Hong Kong, the canteen serves only the freshest daily catch available in the simplest settings.

Join us for a sumptuous seafood lunch in this hidden gem. Advance reservations are required, as the canteen will purchase the live-seafood according to the number of diners in our group.

An ancient Tibetan Buddhist master described today’s Indian State of Sikkim as the hidden paradise where good-hearted people could escape the end of the world at the end of time. On invitation from the Princess of Sikkim, Dr. Andre Alexander began restoring the royal palace monastery in the capital Gangtok, using the knowledge he gained from restoring the 2010 earthquake stricken Yushu, the ancient trading centre of Qinghai province in China.

In Qinghai, the oldest timber-structure building is the Tibetan monastery of Serkhang, which houses a wealth of well-preserved wall paintings from different ages. Founded in 1340, its six surviving historic buildings were meticulously studied and conserved by the NGO Tibet Heritage Fund over four years.

In the early 10th century, the heirs to the throne of the Tibetan empire in Lhasa founded three kingdoms in the Western Himalayas. Pockets of ancient Tibetan culture have survived in the northernmost areas of both India and Pakistan. In India, the region of Ladakh became an important crossroad on a side branch of the Silk Road, and over centuries the ancient Tibetan Buddhist culture blended with elements of Central Asian cultures, to create the unique Ladakhi civilization.

Jointly presented by The University of Hong Kong Museum Society and the Friends of the Art Museum, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, our speaker, Dr. Andre Alexander and Yutaka Hirako will introduce these monuments from the past 1000 years and discuss the challenges to conserve them against steep economic and climatic changes. They will also introduce two new publications by Tibet Heritage Fund: "The House of Tashi Tsering" by Pimpim de Azevedo and "Jullay Ladakh" by HK artist Fongie Chan.

Speakers:
Dr. Andre Alexander was born in Berlin, where he completed his PhD in Architecture. He studied Tibetan traditional architecture in Lhasa, and co-founded the NGO Tibet Heritage Fund in 1996. Since then he has directed conservation and research projects in Tibet, Ladakh, Bhutan and Sikkim. He has also published "The Temples of Lhasa" in 2005. Japanese architect, Yutaka Hirako came to Lhasa on bicycle from Kashgar in 1998 and subsequently joined the Tibet Heritage Fund, overseeing the Serkhang monastery project.

Founded in 2000, Asia Art Archive (AAA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to documenting the recent history of visual art from the region with an international context. Its mission is to collect, preserve and make information on contemporary Asian art easily accessible in order to facilitate understanding, research and writing in the field. AAA endeavours to be pro-active in instigating dialogue and critical thinking through the regular initiation of educational and public programs, and in introducing as wide an audience as possible to this rich and free-of-charge resource.

As the official educational partner for the 4th year in a row, AAA presented "Backroom Conversations" during ART HK 11, an exciting series of discussions with leading experts and practitioners in the contemporary art field. New to the program, the "Inaugural Burger Collection Keynote Lecture" honours a significant voice in the field today and "Open Platform" selects projects from around the world that demand to be heard.

Co-Founder and Executive Director Claire Hsu will give us an introduction on the founding of AAA, its current progress and future development to meet the needs of art professionals and the public. Claire has participated as a speaker in a number of forums around the world and sits on the Museum Committee for the West Kowloon Cultural District; the Board of The Foundation for Arts Initiatives, New York; Advisory Board for "Yishu" Magazine; and the Advisory Committee of the Academy of Visual Art of HK Baptist University. She was a recipient of the RBS Coutts/Financial Times Women in Asia Awards in 2009; and was included in the Art Review’s Power 100 List in 2009 and 2010.

Susanna Chung, Head of Operations, and Head of Learning and Participation will guide us on a tour of AAA’s facilities, including their 32,000-volume library. Susanna is a grantee of Asian Cultural Council in 2010 for conducting research on art management, with a particular focus on audience development in contemporary art, specifically in museums, organizations and art centres in the United States.

Do join us for an inside look at this young and dynamic organization!

"Celebrations!" features 100 best photography artworks selected from 773 entries submitted by the Society’s members. These colourful images follow the footprints in their travels and offer vivid views of the world in “celebrations”, at home and abroad. The submissions were organized and judged in three categories – "Landscape Symphony", "Melodies of Life" and "The Sound of Silence". Successful entries were chosen in a strictly name-blinded selection process by a jury panel comprised of 3 renowned photographers – Dr. Leo Wong, a recipient of the HK Government Bronze Bauhinia Star for achievement in photographic art; Dr. Wong How Man, explorer and former National Geographic photojournalist, and Carsten Schael, President of the Hong Kong Institute of Professional Photographers.

The exhibition will be held from 12 October to 15 November 2011. It will also feature an art installation by floral designer, Masao Mizukami. A beautiful photography book, published to commemorate the special "Celebrations!" will be launched. The cost of this book will be $560 for members and $700 for non-members. For your purchases please fill in the attached form and we will handle your orders accordingly. Profits generated from the sale of this book will be donated exclusively to UMAG.

To celebrate art and friendship, all members are invited to an "Evening at the Museum" for the opening reception of the University of Hong Kong Museum Society’s inaugural members’ photography exhibition – "Celebrations!" As the title aptly suggests, this exhibition is a celebration of both The University of Hong Kong’s Centenary and of the talents of our members. So bring a friend and join in toasting 100 remarkable photographic images over wine, hors d’oeuvres and music amidst the picturesque University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG) on the University’s 100th year.

About the Exhibition
"Celebrations!" features 100 best photography artworks selected from 773 entries submitted by the Society’s members. These colourful images follow the footprints in their travels and offer vivid views of the world in “celebrations”, at home and abroad. The submissions were organized and judged in three categories – "Landscape Symphony", "Melodies of Life" and "The Sound of Silence". Successful entries were chosen in a strictly name-blinded selection process by a jury panel comprised of 3 renowned photographers – Dr. Leo Wong, a recipient of the HK Government Bronze Bauhinia Star for achievement in photographic art; Dr. Wong How Man, explorer and former National Geographic photojournalist; and Carsten Schael, President of the Hong Kong Institute of Professional Photographers.

The exhibition is jointly presented by the Museum Society and UMAG. It will be held from 12 October to 15 November 2011, and will also feature an art installation by floral designer, Masao Mizukami. "Celebrations!", a limited edition of the photography book published to commemorate the special festivities, will be launched. The cost of this book will be $560 for members and $700 for non-members. Profits generated from the sale of this book will be donated exclusively to UMAG. Please generously support with a purchase as holiday gifts to your family and friends!

Organized in conjunction with the exhibition, "Celebrations!" as part of the Museum Society’s HKU Centenary festivities, a special gala dinner will be held inside the TT Tsui Gallery for 100 members and honoured guests. This event will be a rare opportunity to dine among the exhibited works inside the historic University Museum and Art Gallery. While feasting on sumptuous food and wine, guests will be treated to a unique music performance by Asian Cultural Council Grantee Louis Siu and Vicky Shin, that resonates with the theme of "Celebrations!"

All proceeds generated from this gala dinner will be earmarked specifically as donation to UMAG. As space is limited, do look out for the invitation with reply slip that is mailed separately.

About UMAG
The Museum is elegantly situated in the Fung Ping Shan Building and the lower three floors of the TT Tsui Building. The Fung Ping Shan Building, originally donated to the University by Mr. Fung Ping-shan in 1932 for a Chinese book library, was converted into the Fung Ping Shan Museum of Chinese Art and Archaeology in 1953. With further extension into the TT Tsui Building in 1996, the Museum changed its name to the University Museum and Art Gallery and remains one of the oldest and most distinguished museums in Hong Kong, housing over one thousand eight hundred items of Chinese antiquities in ceramics, bronzes, paintings, Chinese oil paintings, as well as carvings in jade, wood and stone.

This lecture introduces the works of an underground art group named Wuming (meaning No Name) active in Beijing between 1973 and 1981. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-76), socialist realism remained the artistic orthodox and western modernism was strictly forbidden. How could an alternative modernist Chinese art movement grow in such an environment? The solidarity of the Wuming group provides an excellent example. Painting landscapes, portraits, and still lifes in oil, the Wuming artists rejected academic conventions and shunned political propaganda art, eking out an early form of Chinese modernism still little known. As a group, their alternative, counter-culture identity also exemplified the underground movements that emerged in the closing stages of the Maoist era. Samples of Wuming art will be shown to illustrate how they were produced in the living, social and historical context of that period.

Speaker:

Dr. Wang Aihe holds a PhD in East Asian Languages, Civilizations and Social Anthropology from Harvard University. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Chinese at The University of Hong Kong. Her representative publications include "Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China" (Cambridge University Press, 2000, 2006), and the "Wuming (No Name) Painting Catalogue", 13 volumes (The Hong Kong University Press, 2010). Born in Beijing, she was assigned to a plastic factory in 1971, working there until 1983. During that period, she met other self-taught oil painters and they eventually formed the Wuming group. Her paintings have been shown in Wuming exhibitions in 1974, 1979, 1981, 2006-07, and 2011.

Born in Vienna and raised in New York, Henry Steiner is an internationally renowned graphic designer who studied at Yale under Paul Rand before entering Sorbonne as a Fulbright scholar.

In 1964, Steiner established Steiner & Co in Hong Kong and it has since become one of the world’s leading design consultancies concentrating on branding and corporate identity, encompassing creative works in corporate identity programmes, naming, corporate literature, architectural graphics, publication design and banknotes. His clients include HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Hongkong Land and Lane Crawford. His ubiquitous design can also be found in several series of banknotes for Hong Kong and coins for the Singapore Mint.

Steiner’s distinguished body of work led to professional recognition – as president of Alliance Graphique Internationale; fellow of the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Chartered Society of Designers and the Hong Kong Designers Association; honorary member of Design Austria and member of the New York Art Directors Club. He was named Hong Kong Designer of the Year, and was included in Icograda’s "Masters of the 20th Century".

Awarded the Golden Decoration of Honour of the Republic of Austria as well as an Honorary Doctorate by Hong Kong Baptist University, Steiner is Honorary Professor at The University of Hong Kong’s School of Architecture and Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design. He is co-author of "Cross-Cultural Design: Communicating in the Global Marketplace" (Thames & Hudson 1995). A monograph, "Henry Steiner: Designer’s Life", in Chinese, was published in 1999.

In this lecture, Steiner will explain why creating a corporate identity is all about visual communication and cross-cultural inspiration. He will share his experience with special focus on analysis and the design process.