Lee Kit : “I CAN’T RECALL THE DAY, THAT I LAST HEARD FROM YOU”

ISBN : 978-988-18126-4-3
Publisher : Osage Gallery
Date Published : January 2011
Author : Jeff Leung, Anthony Yung, Robin Peckham
Editor : Pauline J. Yao
Designer : Max Tsoi (Osage Design)
Curator : David Chan
Artist/s: : Lee Kit

Known for making in situ paintings for different situations, either for picnics and social gatherings, public interventions or at a prison visit, Hong Kong artist Lee Kit claims “painting is the means to convey the faint consciousness resulted from our emotion.”

Lee’s interest is to redefine how we identify with the everyday by staging communal activities with his artworks and to seek an uncanny interpretation of an object. The artist washes, folds, irons, consumes and even lives with the fabrics to search for the very meaning of his “painting”. His more recent artworks involve painting on cardboard using brand names drawn from his childhood’s memory that are steeped with pop sensibilities. One may situate what Lee calls his artwork “more than object”, that is, in between theatricality and presentness to upstage a total self absorption while anticipating a subliminal state in a casual manner.

For this exhibition, Lee will exhibited a series of artworks that allude to multiple stories inside a single space. An ad hoc cinema will also be set up in another gallery to polarize the tension between our static and theatrical associations of the objects on view. The unfolding of contradictory narratives transforms the exhibition site into a temporary film set, upstaging a tension between what is real and artificial, still and theatrical. What is left is an emotionally charged state, open for the audiences’ improvisation and imagination, and which requires the attention of a careful gaze.

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Inside looking Out

ISBN : 978-988-98388-9-8
Publisher : Osage
Date Published : April 2007
Author : Jonathan Thomson
Editor : Agnes Lin
Designer : Joseph Yiu
Curator : –
Artist/s: : Ma Chi-hang, Kwan Sheung-chi, Lee Kit , Chow Chun-fai, Pak Sheung-chuen,
Lam Tung-pang

This publication was published as the catalogue to the exhibition, Inside Looking Out held at Osage Kwun Tong from 13 April to 28 May 2007.

Inside looking Out features the work of six young contemporary Hong Kong artists and asks the question “Is there a “Fotan School” of Hong Kong?”

The establishment by young Hong Kong artists of studios in the old flatted factories at Chai Wan, Kwun Tong and in particular at Fotan, in Hong Kong’s New Territories, is one of the most interesting developments in recent contemporary Hong Kong art.  For Hong Kong, this is the closest we come to the Western notion of the aesthete or bohemian artist working for arts sake in his garret.  But the artist in his studio also has links to the traditions of the Chinese literati artist-scholar.

The exhibition Inside Looking Out comprises work by six artists from studio Mr 221 and studio 615 at Fotan and presents an opportunity to explore whether there is any solid theoretical and methodological basis for an examination of the construct that may come to be called the “Fotan School”.  As the artworld becomes more and more fragmented the identification of artists as a member of a particular group or “school” is for many the only way of lending structure to a highly fluid range of contemporary art movements.

The artists in the exhibition are Ma Chi-hang (Film/Media Arts), Kwan Sheung-chi (Multi-disciplinary Arts), Lee Kit (Painting Installation), Chow Chun-fai (Painting), Pak Sheung-chuen (Conceptual Art) and Lam Tung-pang (Painting / Mixed-media).

Some Rooms

ISBN : 978-988-18126-2-9
Publisher : Osage Gallery
Date Published : June 2010
Author : Eugene Tan, Isabel Ching, Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya, June Yap, Lee Kit,
Eva McGovern, Fu Xiaodong, Kate Chattiya
Editor : Agnes Lin
Designer : Joseph Yiu
Curator : Isabel Ching, Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya, June Yap, Lee Kit, Eva McGovern,
Fu Xiaodong, Kate Chattiya
Artist/s: : Poklong Anading, Louie Cordero, Silas Fong, Ho Tzu Nyen, Lee Kit,
Vincent Leong, Li Fuchun, Donna Ong, Pratchaya Phinthong,
Wit Pimkanchanapong, Qin Siyuan, Doris Wong, Danny Wu, Tintin Wulia

This publication was published as the catalogue to the exhibition, Some Rooms held at Osage Kwun Tong from 27 February  to 24 May 2009 and at Osage Shanghai from 07 March to 24 May 2009.

Some Rooms privileges and draws attention to the process of dialogue and exchange that occurs through curatorial collaboration in the development of an artist’s practice. It is an exhibition that is both, curated and not-curated, thereby examining the role of curatorship and curatorial processes. The artists have been selected for their dynamic and engaging practices, but have at the same time, not been given any curatorial brief or direction. Instead each artist has been paired with a curator, whom they have never collaborated with in any extensive way prior to this. The projects that the artists will produce for the exhibition, therefore, take as their starting point, the artists’ own practice and concerns, instead of any imposed curatorial brief. And even though Some Rooms is a group exhibition, each artist’s project is presented as a solo project, not constricted or subsumed by any wider curatorial intent. This year, the exhibition will feature fourteen of the most exciting artists from China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, working with diverse styles and mediums. These fourteen artists will collaborate individually with one of six curators, also based in the region. In this way, the exhibition becomes a platform for the artists to extend their practice, or to explore a new direction in their work, in collaboration with the curator they are working with. Some Rooms will not only introduce the work of these emerging artists but also demonstrate the potential and possibilities that can emerge from meaningful curatorial dialogue and collaboration, when the starting point taken are those of the artists’ individual practices.

Interval In Space

ISBN : 978-988-77281-0-8
Publisher : Osage Art Foundation
Date Published : December 2017
Author : Harald Kraemer, Janine Stoll, Charles Merewether
Editor : Agnes Lin
Designer : Jun Cambel for Osage Design
Curator : Harald Kraemer, Janine Stoll, Charles Merewether
Artist/s: : Zilla Leutenegger, Matthias Liechti, Beat Feller, Boris Rebetez,
Judith Fegerl, Nadim Abbas, Au Hoi Lam, Sarah Lai, Kingsley Ng, Lee Kit

This publication was published as the catalogue to the exhibition, Interval In Space held at Osage Hong Kong from 15 December 2017 to 28 January 2018.

This exhibition comprised the work of Hong Kong artists Au Hoi Lam, Nadim Abbas, Sarah Lai, Kingsley Ng and Lee Kit alongside work by Beat Feller, Zilla Leutenegger, Matthias Liechti, Boris Rebetez and Judith Fegerl.

Co-Curator Charles Merewether says “The collaborative exhibition ‘Interval in Space’ reminds us of the question of globalization and the local in characterizing contemporary culture. As such, the exhibition shows us that while there are common traits that inform all modern and contemporary artistic practice, there are also significant differences. No more so are these differences evident than in placing Asian and European artists together, in this case Hong Kong and Swiss artists. Together the five Hong Kong artists show in different ways how the social sphere appears as the subject of their practice.”

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Co-Curator Harald Kraemer describes these differences as follows: “The Hong Kong artists explore objects in space but often beginning with the domestic, the mundane and everyday. This is the point of departure. Recreating a living room, a bathroom or just a bed or a table their installations generate new narratives. Defined once as ‘social sculpture’, their installations fuse spatial design, paintings, everyday objects, sound to invoke the question of place and memory of the personal. They are immersive environments, often times creating a precarious relationship with reality, destablising a viewer’s perception of space, creating a precarious relationship with reality. In certain cases the work might playfully engage with kitsch or create a sense of estrangement with the familiar or to the contrary, forming quiet moments that escape the purview of the everyday, evoking calm and tranquility. The engagement of art with ordinary objects brings a poetry to the mundane, heightening the viewer’s sense of everyday life. Such practice belongs to a long tradition of engagement with everyday life but there in a new dimension to this contemporary manifestation.

dis/close

ISBN : 978-988-12248-5-9
Publisher : Osage Gallery Limited
Date Published : September 2014
Author : Steve Bisson, Chloe Chu, Yohsuke Ishizuka, Lee Lim Chee
Editor : Kaya Lo
Designer : Dio Lau, Sceroz Chan (Osage Design)
Curator : Chloe Chu, Yohsuke Ishizuka
Artist/s: : Ng Sai Kit

This publication was published as the catalogue to the exhibition, dis/close: Ng Sai Kit Solo Exhibition held at Osage Hong Kong from 5-30 September 2014.

dis/close is an investigation into the frictions and synergies between social media platforms and photographic languages as presented in Ng Sai Kit’s series of Instagram works, with aims to critically re-engage with our habits of image consumption and to further the possibilities of photography as a medium.

Ng Sai Kit was walking down the street just outside the customary New Year’s day lunch at his mother’s house two years ago when – with his keen eye for a good photograph – Ng happened upon a scene he wanted to capture. The only issue being, he hadn’t brought his usual camera – so he captured the image on Instagram instead. Such a gesture marks a turning point for the established Hong Kong photographer where he moves from analogue to digital to a social media platform, from light to data and from black and white to colour. The series embodies his critical attention, depicting the aleatoric meeting of the photographer’s gaze with those of advertisements and posters, and the encounter of his frame with architectural structures and surfaces. While the characteristic 3 by 3 frame of Instagram provides an easily understandable and stable organizing principle for both the viewer and photo-taker, what continues to draw Ng Sai Kit to Instagram is not the ‘easiness’. Ng Sai Kit, rather, expands his own photographic vocabulary by incorporating the language of this contemporary medium.

The result being that the found frames Ng depicts sit rather uncomfortably within his; he shakes loose the original composition of these found images, often cropping rectangular iPhone pictures to fit the Instagram format. The images that emerge spill over the corners and edges; Ng Sai Kit thus activates the frame. His images reference a cubist attitude, containing several perspectives at once.

In an age where the high-res and the instantaneous are prized above all, Ng Sai Kit’s images put us in a liminal space of poesis where we are as unsure of what we are looking at as we are reassured that we have encountered these images before. Ng makes strange the social dynamics or vantages that both produce and engender our consumption of the found images he depicts and brings into question how these social relations are embedded within our information networks and technological hardware, determining how and what we see.

Aversions

ISBN : 978-988-18126-1-2
Publisher : Osage Gallery
Date Published : 2009
Author : Susie Lingham, Tan Pin Pin, Martin Constable, Lee Weng Choy
TK Sabapathy, Adele Tan
Editor : Khim Ong
Designer : Yuen Chee Wai
Curator : Khim Ong
Artist/s: : Sookoon Ang, Cheo Chai-Hiang, Cheong Kah Kit, Khiew Huey Chian,
Charles Lim, Matthew Ngui, Shubigi Rao, Erika Tan, Tang Da Wu, Ian Woo

This publication was published as the catalogue to the exhibition, Found & Lost held at Osage Singapore from 22 May to 12 July 2009.

Aversions is a drawing publication project featuring works by established Singaporean artists Cheo Chai-Hiang, Matthew Ngui, Tang Da Wu, and Ian Woo, as well as young emerging artists Sookoon Ang, Cheong Kah Kit, Khiew Huey Chian, Charles Lim, Shubigi Rao, and Erika Tan. The artists were invited based on their strong engagement with (or thought processes behind) ‘drawing’ as an activity in relationship to their own artistic practice. Each artist was asked to contribute a piece (or pieces) of work in response to the notion of drawing within the context of a publication. In addition to the contribution by artists, the publication will also include text by artist/curator Guo-Liang Tan which offers a narrative and conceptual framework for the works in the publication, and essays by Susie Lingham and Eugene Tan.

Aversions is published by Osage Gallery, with the support of the National Arts Council, Singapore.