KONG Chun Hei: Stay away from those rocks  鄺鎮禧 《遠離那些石頭》

​KONG Chun Hei
Stay away from those rocks
 
6 May - 3 June 2017

Gallery EXIT is pleased to announce "Stay away from those rocks", a solo exhibition by KONG Chun Hei. The exhibition will open on 6 May 2017 and remain on view through 3 June 2017. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, 6 May from 4pm to 6pm.
 
An unusually versatile artist, KONG employs a wide array of mediums, ranging from installations over video art to ink drawing, to reflect upon his experience of living in a highly urbanised and media-rich environment. Like an architect, he makes use of industrial materials such as concrete, steel and glass – the very building blocks of our cities. But instead of constructing as an architect would do, KONG deconstructs, hides, disables and unsettles.
 
One of the several installations in the exhibition, "Fang", consists of ten hand saws enveloped in fibre-reinforced concrete and mounted side by side on a wall. The sharp teeth of their blades are covered by concrete so that the viewer is guarded from the sight of the fang-like blades, suggesting that a feeling of security can only be achieved in complete isolation. The objects are named after the buried teeth forever lost to our visual perception, and only by losing them do we experience a sense of yearning.
 
Another recurrent theme in KONG’s work is our constant exposure to television and video images. In a group of installations devoted to this topic, he uses a surveillance camera, a projector and several television screens to show videos or to cast them onto walls or the floor. In this way, the light emitted from projectors and television sets takes on the quality of a building material. As KONG’s installations reveal, the glow of screens is an ever-present component that shapes our living environment just like concrete does – and that is just as sculptable.
 
With "The Tossing Light", an installation consisting of several old-fashioned TV sets, KONG takes a closer look at how we respond to these constant visual stimuli. The artist has carved ripples into the surface of the glass tubes – as a result, the images flickering over the screens appear distant and distorted, highlighting the glass barrier that separates the viewer from an illusionary world that usually blends seamlessly into our perceived reality.
 
The artist’s interest in materiality and barriers is also apparent in his more traditional work. His ink drawing "Stuff XI" carefully reproduces the texture of a heavily crumbled sheet of paper, but this illusion of brittle folds is subverted by mounting the actual paper onto a steel plate. KONG does not stop there – the upper edge of the plate is curved forward, adding a further twist to the meticulously constructed deception by making the work resemble a poster that starts to peel off a wall.
 
KONG’s work reflects his doubts about what we consider to be our reality. He bends and carves common materials right up to their breaking point, warps drawings out of shape and deforms TV screens. The objects we encounter make us feel safe and relaxed, but as Kong’s stress tests show, this feeling is just a convenient illusion. By deconstructing what seem to be stable and reliable surroundings, his work directs our attention back to the objects and lends them an air of obscurity.

鄺鎮禧
《遠離那些石頭》
 
2017年5月6日至6月3日

安全口畫廊呈獻鄺鎮禧最新個展《遠離那些石頭》，展覽於2017年5月6日至6月3日開放，開幕酒會在5月6日（星期六）下午4時至6時舉行。
 
鄺鎮禧涉獵多項藝術媒介，涵蓋裝置、錄像以至墨水筆紙本繪畫等，反映密集都市和充斥媒體影像的環境。他採用混凝土、鋼材和玻璃等工業建築物料進行創作，而這些物料正是建構城市的主要元素。但他的取向與建築師不同，以解構、隱藏、破壞功能和干擾為作品調子。
 
裝置作品《獠牙》由十把裹上纖維混凝土的手鋸組成，打橫並列在牆壁上。混凝土保護著尖銳的鋸齒，同時亦保護著觀眾，免受礙眼的銳齒所侵擾。這種安全感要透過強力的隔絕才能成全，被隔絕之物成為此物的名字，名字就是一種召喚。為了有所懷念，人們得先失去某物。
 
其藝術創作的另一主題，在於人們經常曝露在電視和錄像的狀態。在一系列裝置作品中，他利用閉路電視、投影機和電視熒幕，時而播放影片，時而將影像投射到牆壁或地上。投影機和電視機所產生的光線，是作品的構成元素，屏幕所發出的光無處不在，就如混凝土一樣充斥著我們的生活環境，也同樣地可被塑造。
 
《顛簸的光》由幾部舊式電視機所組成，探索連續不斷的視覺刺激。藝術家在電視機的玻璃表面雕刻和拋光，使影像顯得顛簸，強調觀者與玻璃之間的屏障，讓他們意識到平日習以為常的感知錯覺。
 
藝術家對物質和障礙物的關注，也在較傳統的媒介上展現出來。墨水筆紙本作品《Stuff XI》細緻重塑揉皺紙張的質感，並裝裱在一塊上端向前彎折的鋼板上，紙的柔弱與模擬的摺痕都在視覺上受到歪曲。那看似快將從牆壁脫離的海報，是藝術家預先制定的墜落 。
 
鄺氏的作品充滿對所謂現實的疑惑。他將材料和畫作扭曲，在電視熒幕等表面上雕刻，藉此接近物料的臨界點。我們周遭的事物洋溢著方便而輕鬆的安全感，藝術家嘗試對其施加種種不同的壓力，好讓注意力再次集中在事物的表面，作品將看來堅穩可靠的環境加以解構，混進某種不透明的質地。

About the Artist

KONG Chun Hei (b.1987, Hong Kong) graduated from the Fine Arts Department of The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2009. KONG's artworks often capture the surface of ordinary objects with ink on paper. His practice looks into the uncertainty of perception and the necessity of distance. Participated exhibitions include solo exhibition “Turn Down the Pulse” (Crane Gallery, Taiwan, 2018), “Sidestep” (Last Tango, Zürich, 2018), “Stay Away from Those Rocks” (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2017), “Back Unsay Shades Can Go” (Asia Now Paris, France, 2016), group exhibition “Today Could Have Been A Happy Day” (Taikang Sapce, Beijing, 2018), “From Ocean to Horizon” (CFCCA, Manchester, 2017) and “Rites, thoughts, notes, sparks, swings, strikes, a hong kong spring” (Para Site, Hong Kong, 2012). KONG currently lives and works in Hong Kong.