HONG KONG
ADRIAN WONG: A FEAR IS THIS
1A Space

With its curious blend of dark humor and social commentary, Hong Kong-based artist Adrian Wong’s first solo exhibition on the island city provides audiences with an offbeat take on the phobias and anxieties haunting the inhabitants of this stressful, work-driven metropolis. Confidently shifting amidst sculpture, painting, photography and video, Wong’s self-proclaimed “landscape of fear” charts the arcane superstitions and urban myths interweaving the city’s social fabric over recent decades. As a Chinese-American artist living in Hong Kong, he is able to incorporate highly localized associations within an “outsider’s” perspective.

Indeed, many works in the show use phonetically translated Cantonese titles—as with the video Guhng Hei Fat Choi/ Happy New Year (2007), in which Wong proceeds to systematically break every traditional rule for good luck on the first day of the Luna New Year, filming himself eating meat, pointing at the moon, taking out the garbage and even clipping his nails in the evening. Similar obscure customs are compiled in the altar-like sculptural installation Tuhng Gwai Wan/Play With Ghosts (2007). This consists of a mirror with printed instructions on how to conjure up spirits as well as the various paraphernalia need to do so scattered around like offerings to the dead. While many may take this assortment of ritualistic props as a tongue-in-cheek poke at the peculiarities of a bygone era, it is hard not to feel a faint shudder of terror at the thought of reaching toward the unknown.

Wong also draws heavily on the traumatic reverberations caused by the recent SARS and bird flu epidemics in Asia. Sprinkled around the exhibition space are unsettling reminders of infectious diseases—from oversize latex bird droppings splattered on the wall to a blown up mural of the H5N1 virus as it appears under the microscope. Here, the visible accentuates what is fundamentally invisible, be it bacteria or fear itself. This is also grimly evident in the photography Sak Gai/Chicken Kiss (2007), which depicts Wong committing the potentially fatal faux pas of kissing a live chicken.

Final mention must go to the video Haak Sei Wuih Tuhng Mau Jai/Triads and Kitten (2007) which, with the same irreverent bravado, breaks down the aura of terror that surrounds Hong Kong gangsters or Triad members. Here, Wong addresses the clichés propagated by popular gangster movies with a campy depiction of four tattooed men performing a choreographed balletic struggle over a kitten.

However cryptic the connotations of his in-jokes, Wong always maintains an engaging dialogue with his subject matter without becoming overly indulgent. By tempting the viewer to look again at the things we would much rather avoid, Wong shows that in Hong Kong, as in any city in the world, the horrific is never far from the humorous.

-- Nadim Abbas