Following ‘s Everything starts from “Here” and The Red Twenty Years of Ricky Yeung Sau Churk, Para Site Art Space invited artist for the third research-based retrospective projects on Hong Kong artists of the 80’s.
In 1983, graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and later went to study in the US. He returned to Hong Kong in the late 80’s with an M.A. degree and has since been teaching in the Fine Art Department of the CUHK. As a student growing up under the then prevailing notions of ‘Combining East and West’ in the 60’s and 70’s, these were also principles that shared with his Chinese Modernist mentors. It was only while establishing himself as an artist in the 90’s that he found himself struggling between internationalization and localization. Forced, but motivated, under these circumstances, generated his own brand of philosophy in mixed media as a contemporary art practice. His approach to art as an intellectual exercise of knowledge has been widely disseminated through his lectures, writings, and talks. Consequently, his influence and teachings, that reaches beyond the CUHK, has given him the label of the ‘academic’. As a scholar in university, felt the obligation to pursue general value and accountability for art in society, whereby Art — in the dilemma between personal enjoyment and social engagement — speaks a common condition that everyone who is dedicated to art will encounter. Therefore was chosen as the subject of this study, not because of his status, but because of his thoughts and dreams that both exemplify and belong to his generation. If the duty of the artist is in producing art, will producing more artists and more conditions for artists then become superfluous? Is the imbalance between one’s position in the art world and one’s own artistic achievements doomed in Hong Kong?
A Specimen Collection of Chan Yuk Keung only looks back on ‘s artistic development of the past 20 years, but as the third instalment of the Hong Kong Artist Series. The project researcher presents a ‘case study’ analyzing the profession of a Hong Kong artist. With a video documentation of his ‘work-in-progress’ at the Hong Kong Arts Centre, directed by , the ‘collection’ is a mid-term report on , from both an insider’s and an outsider’s point of view.
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