Art Issues

- Past Newsletters

The latest article on a special issue topic is below. Other articles on the same topic can be read by clicking on the 'Archive' year and month on the side-bar.

AICAHK Newsletter - December 2024 每月通訊 - 12月

at 11:14am on 21st December 2024

Image: Louisze Chan Pui Sze, Landscape, 4K, Realistic, installation (detail), 2023-2024 (photo: John Batten)

Welcome to the Hong Kong art critics' newsletter.

New reviews and opinions have been posted on the AICAHK website.

Oscar Ho's latest review admires the work of artist and educator Ricky Yeung, but laments the failure of the city's artists to similarly tackle hard social and political questions. An example of an activist-artist whose work continuously challenged is Peter Kennard, the veteran British artist who was inspired by the radical photomontages of John Heartfield, the German artist who confronted Nazism in print in the 1930s. In a review of Kennard's current exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery, Hong Kong curator Taylor Cheng discusses Peter Kennard's art activism producing posters, banners, printed newspapers and his own photomontages since the 1970s.

In 2014, exactly ten years ago this month, the streets surrounding the government offices in Admiralty, not far from Hong Kong's central business district, were cleared of Umbrella protesters. Soon afterwards, I wrote an article for ARTCo Monthly in Taiwan and then a longer piece for Yishu magazine analysing Hong Kong art scene in the aftermath of those 2014 protests. It may be of interest to readers outside Hong Kong, in light of the 2019 protests five years later, and the imposition of national security legislation in 2020. The consequences of the 2019 protests are still reverberating: the convictions of 47 democrats for subversion was announced last month, with 12 now appealing those convictions. Hong Kong's Chinese-language online media (e.g. The Collective online; @the_collectivehk ) and the English-language Hong Kong Free Press have continually reported these post-2019 court cases in Hong Kong.

Giving an insight into mainland and Hong Kong government thinking about the city's future art and cultural policy, the Hong Kong government issued its ''Blueprint for Arts & Culture and Creative Industries Development'' earlier this month - it can be read online, in English and Chinese.

All the best for 2025!

Enjoy our newsletter!

John Batten

Art critic

—————————————————————————————————————

歡迎閱讀AICAHK通訊。

最新的藝評可在AICAHK網頁上找到。

何慶基在最新一篇藝評中表達對藝術家兼教育工作者楊秀卓的喜愛，同時感歎這個城市的藝術家暫時還不能以藝術處理社會和政治的困境。以藝術行動主義藝術家（activist-artist）Peter Kennard 為例，他的作品不斷為當時社會作出異議。這位資深藝術家深受來自德國的 John Heartfield 影響—— Heartfield 在1930年代以印刷品對抗納粹主義。香港策展人鄭銘柔就最近在倫敦白教堂畫廊（Whitechapel Gallery）舉行的Kennard 回顧展撰寫了篇藝評。討論 Kennard 自70年代以來製作的海報、橫額、印刷報紙和攝影蒙太奇。

在2014年，即10年前的12月，在香港商業地帶不遠處，金鐘政府辦公室附近，雨傘運動示威者逐漸被清空。我在不久後分析了2014年運動後的香港藝術界，並於台灣《典藏．今藝術》刊登及後在《典藏國際版》擴寫。適逢於5年後發生抗爭及2020年國安法實施，海外讀者也許會對這篇文章感興趣。當然2019年抗爭的餘韻仍在我們各人心中迴盪：包括上個月民主派初選47人案判刑，當中12人提出上訴。香港中文網媒（如集誌社，@the_collectivehk）和英文網媒香港自由新聞（Hong Kong Free Press）不斷為抗爭後的法庭案件進行追蹤報導。

同一時間，香港政府十一月中發表了《文藝創意產業發展藍圖》。讓我們可以一窺香港與內地政府對這個地方未來文藝發展政策的想法。中、英文版的發展藍圖現可於政府網頁查看。

祝 2025年一切順利！

希望你喜歡這期通訊！

約翰百德

藝評人

—————————————————————————————————————