New website: isaacchongwai.com

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NEW WEBSITE

New Website is online, please visit: isaacchongwai.com

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Future of the Past – Past of the Future: Creating Time in Public Space through Performance Solo exhibition by Isaac Chong Wai 6.4. – 28.4.2018 | Goethe-Gallery and Black Box Studio, Goethe-Institut Hongkong Isaac Chong Wai, a Berlin-based artist from Hong Kong, will present the result of his research in Germany at the exhibition “Future of the Past – Past of the Future: Creating Time in Public Space through Performance” from April 6 to 28 at the Goethe-Gallery and the Black Box Studio of the Goethe-Institut Hongkong. “What is the future in the past? And what is the past in the future?” – to addess these two questions, Isaac Chong Wai applies performance as the medium to deal with history and memory in public space. His research started from the history of Weimarplatz, which was formerly the Gauforum, built as one of the most important structures for the National Socialist Party in Weimar. In 1937, the foundation stone was laid for the “Hall of the People’s Community,” which was housed in the site, and the square was named “Adolf Hitler Square”. During the Allied Occupation of Germany, it was renamed “Karl-Marx Platz,” which was then kept under the reign of the German Democratic Republic. After the regime’s fall it remained nameless until 1999. Now, in its current incarnation as Weimarplatz, the absence of people has become the present view of the square, which has been blocked from public access. Looking at the past and the present of the Weimarplatz, one is led to address the function and dysfunction of its architectural structure: what kind of events, symbols and social activities could and can take place there? For this, an imaginary past is created through art in the hope of shaping possible fragments of utopia. The exhibition was first shown at the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar in January 2016, including works Painting a Moon on Viehauktionshalle (2014), I Dated a Guy in Buchenwald (2014), Neue Wache (The New Guard) (2015), One Sound of the Histories (2015). New Works to be shown in this exhibition include A Piece of Snow (2013), Flakturm and The White Flag(2016) ... etc. Isaac Chong Wai graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University with a BA in Visual Arts in 2012, and the Bauhaus-Universität in Weimar, Germany, with a MFA in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies in 2016. His recent solo exhibitions include “L'Homme et la Mer” at the Serlachius Residency organized by Serlachius Museums and Mänttä Art Festival in 2017 and "What is the future in the past? And what is the past in the future?" at the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar in 2016. His has recently participated group shows at the BERLIN MASTERS TOY Award at the Brandenburger Tor Stiftung in Berlin and “Forecast Forum” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin in 2017. His works were shown at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, the Kunstfest Weimar and Serbia’s Macura Museum in 2015, and selected for the 2014 Moscow Biennale for Young Art at Museum of Moscow. Isaac Chong Wai currently lives and works in Berlin and Hong Kong. Goethe-Gallery address and opening hours: 14/F Hong Kong Arts Centre | 2 Harbour Road, Wanchai

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“Rehearsal of the Futures: Is the World Your Friend?” Isaac Chong Wai Performance, Set of 13 Drawing (30x40 each with frame), Painting 160 x 120cm Exhibited at ACUD Galerie curated by Pauline Doutreluingne and Petra Suzie Poelzl Dancers: Katherine Leung, Manuel Lindner, Imola Nagy, Nobutaka Shomura. Photo: Alice Yu and Tobias Koenig In Rehearsal of the Futures: Is the world your friend? the artist combines existing works with a series of newly developed durational performances in which he imagines how future generations might look at the current and former ideological consensus of certain body postures, gestures and movements. Isaac Chong Wai deals with these so-called ideological movements or ideological postures in order to look for and propose possible futures. Rehearsal has always been made for the future: a rehearsal for a theater play before the curtain is opened, a rehearsal of a song before the concert starts, a rehearsal for a speech before it goes public. Rehearsing is then made for reaching the idealistic and perfect form of what one expects to show in the future, while we are not able to find a perfect form from the future to rehearse: the time has not yet come. The artist uses the word the futures, which are the possible fragments proposed in regard to the rupture of time between the past and the future as a form of reconciliation. Meanwhile, the reconciliation is enacted through performance so as to deal with the repetitive history and offers a new body movement that reconciles between body and time.

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Isaac Chong Wai Hong Kong and Hong Kong 2017 Crystal, flag, paper, sound track 19.9 x 26.4 x 8 cm, 2'49" Unique, Collected by Burger Collection Chong’s mixed media installation Hong Kong and Hong Kong induces the humming of the Chinese national anthem, in which a Hong Kong SAR flag is “frozen and suspended” in a resin crystal, forever dormant. How is it like to hold Hong Kong unchanged for 50 years? Courtesy of the artist and Blindspot Gallery

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The Suspension of the Air, 2017 Isaac Chong Wai Bronze, Mirror Berlin Haribo Wall - Gold (Under Construction), 2017 Isaac Chong Wai Berlin Exhibition View at the Stiftung Brandenburgertor Stiftung at the BERLIN MASTERS - TOY Award curated by Philipp Bollmann with A3 Arndt Art Agency

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“Sometimes when I look up, the sky falls down”, 2017 Isaac Chong Wai Installation 7.05 x 2.10 x 2.04m White Clothes and Razor Wire Exhibition view at Das Weisse Haus in Vienna at "Have you ever measured the reality?" I have worked for an art project in a former prison in Weimar. I spent 3-4months there to do research and produce my work. Everyday when I go inside the garden where prisoners used to play and have a break outside, I see razor wire which hanging 6 meters high. When I look up, there are always things hanging there and getting dusty like some rubbish, cans, cigarette, clothes, towel, bird’s bodies…etc. In this work, I drew again what I had been seeing everyday with a material which is easy to be dirty.

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One Sound of the Futures, 2016 Preview Version Isaac Chong Wai 3 Channel Video, HD loop: 7:13 min Photo Edition, Acrylic glass on photo prints Performance at Kai Tak Runway Park in Hong Kong, Democracy Square in Gwangju in South Korea, K11 Artist Village in Wuhan in China at the 5th Large-Scale Public Media Arts Exhibition - “Human Vibrations” curated by Caroline Ha Thuc

Description: “One Sound of the Futures” is a performance involving people from Hong Kong, South Korea and Wuhan in China. Standing like living sculptures, the participants were asked to simultaneously formulate the sound of the futures from Kai Tak Runway Park in Hong Kong, Democracy Square in Gwangju and from K11 Artist Village in Wuhan. Lined up in a stringent formation they expressed how they imagined their own and personal future. By mixing all these different voices of the futures, diverse times interwove to become a unique moment when the time that has not yet come is addressed. This ultimate, intangible time resounded in a spoken yet indefinable noise created by hundreds of individual voices heard from different cities and countries.

Presented by: Hong Kong Arts Development Council Organizer: Hong Kong Arts Development Council Venue Partners: K11 Art Foundation, Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Hong Kong & Wuhan K11 Artist Village Exhibition Partners: Burger Collection & Gwangju Cultural Foundation

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Exhibition View of "Falling Exercise" (Projection onto wooden box: 381cm x 214cm x 20cm) and "Help! Help? Help." (Projection onto wooden box: 300cm x 176 cm x 20cm) at Das Weisse Haus in Vienna in 2017 at "Have you ever measured the reality?" “Falling Exercise”, 2016 Isaac Chong Wai Performance at Faith and Terror – Performance Art Festival curated by Bernhard Draz, Anne Hoelck, Tristan Duschamps in Berlin HD loop: 3:06 min and Photo Edition Photo: Viktoria Nowicky The performers fall on the ground all at the same time. When everyone is lying on the ground, the ones who are below other bodies leave the performance area slowly. Meanwhile, the ones who are lying on other bodies have to hold and keep the postures that they are having (imagining that they are lying the on invisible bodies). When they are not able to hold the postures anymore, they leave gradually until no performers are in the performance area. Performers: Naomi Bazini, Stefanie Beyer, Adam Bratko, Isaac Chong Wai, Charlotte Draycott,Julia Falero Morente, Janna Gockel, Felix Haas, Anne Hoelck, Samuel Jung, Ophélie Le Hiress, Rositsa Mahdi, India Roper-Evans, Han Tang, Heiko-Thandeka Ncube, Nikita Volkov, Ada Kai-Ting Yang, Xiaopeng Zhou “Help! Help? Help.”,2016 Isaac Chong Wai Performance at Faith and Terror – Performance Art Festival curated by Bernhard Draz, Anne Hoelck, Tristan Duschamps in Berlin HD loop: 1:53 min and Photo Edition Photo: Viktoria Nowicky What does it mean to help and to be helped? Who should help and who should be helped? In this performance, performers are asked to lie on the ground and raise their hand waiting for people to pull them up. The gesture of reaching for “help” is depicted while the choreography questions the audience if they should “help” or not to “help”. The word “help” is then questioned under the policy formed by the performance and ideology in which people tend to “help” to become the “helper” without knowing what they are “helping.” Performers: Dilan Barkin, Naomi Bechert, Stefanie Beyer,Adam Bratko, Sun Chen, Isaac Chong Wai, Charlotte Draycott, Julia Falero Morente, Janna Gockel, Felix Haas, Anne Hoelck, Samuel Jung, Ophélie Le Hiress, Rositsa Mahdi, India Roper-Evans, Han Tang, Heiko-Thandeka Ncube, Nikita Volkov, T.I.T.S (Roselyn Yap), Ada Kai-Ting Yang, Xiaopeng Zhou Supported by the Burger Collection "Artist Scholarship Program"

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One Sound of the Futures, 2016 Preview Version Isaac Chong Wai 3 Channel Video Kai Tak Runway Park in Hong Kong, Democracy Square in Gwangju in South Korea, K11 Artist Village in Wuhan in China Description: "One Sound of the Futures" is a performance involving people from Hong Kong, South Korea and Wuhan in China. Standing like living sculptures, the participants were asked to simultaneously formulate the sound of the futures from Kai Tak Runway Park in Hong Kong, Democracy Square in Gwangju and from K11 Artist Village in Wuhan. Lined up in a stringent formation they expressed how they imagined their own and personal future. By mixing all these different voices of the futures, diverse times interwove to become a unique moment when the time that has not yet come is addressed. This ultimate, intangible time resounded in a spoken yet indefinable noise created by hundreds of individual voices heard from different cities and countries. Presented by: Hong Kong Arts Development Council Organizer: Hong Kong Arts Development Council Venue Partners: K11 Art Foundation, Leisure and Cultural Services Department, Hong Kong & Wuhan K11 Art Village Exhibition Partners: Burger Collection & Gwangju Cultural Foundation

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Exhibition View at Blindspot Gallery in Hong Kong "The Human Body: Measure and Norms" Curator: Caroline Ha Thuc Date: 5.12.2015 - 6.2.2016 Equilibrium No.8 - Boundaries 2012 Isaac Chong Wai Charcoal on paper 756.5 x 272.3 cm Unique Equilibrium No.5 - Distance and Red Marks 2012 Isaac Chong Wai Archival inkjet print 25.2 x 45 cm Edition of 6 (Photo by Larry Lee Tsz Hong) Equilibrium No.6 - Distance 2012 Isaac Chong Wai Archival inkjet print, set of 5 30 x 30 cm each Edition of 6 The horizon where we can never touch 2014 Isaac Chong Wai Video 14 min 31 sec Edition of 5 Courtesy of Blindspot Gallery link for more info.

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ONE SOUND OF THE HISTORIES, 2015 Isaac Chong Wai Weimarplatz, Weimar, Germany

The people of Weimar are invited to participate in a performance as living sculptures. Participants reveal the sound of history on Weimarplatz, the former Gauforum suffused with history. Lined up in a stringent formation they synchronically tell the stories of their life. By telling personal memories the present and the past of this particular place interweave to become a unique moment in history, resounding in a spoken noise created by hundreds of voices.

This project is realized within the framework of ACTING SPACE - BAUHAUS GOES KUNSTFEST 2015 under the direction of Prof. Danica Dakić and Anke Hannemann. Coordinated by Jirka Reichmann. A collaboration between the MFA program "Public Art and New Artistic Strategies" at the Bauhaus Universität Weimar and Kunstfest Weimar 2015 with generous support from Burger COLLECTION, Landesverwaltungsamt, Ordnungsamt and Atrium Weimar.

Photo: Ana Cayuela & Iva Kirova

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I Made a Boat in Prison - A Journey to the Shore, 2015 Isaac Chong Wai JVA Weimar, a former prison in Weimar in Germany Wire fence, Metal 300cm x 100cm x250cm Description: I used the wire fence of the prison to make a boat and I put it in the chapel of the prison. Projected supported by MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies and KreativFond

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I Dated a Guy in Buchenwald, 2013

Isaac Chong Wai

Buchenwald, Weimar, Germany

Mixed Media

Exhibited in Museum of Moscow in Moscow Biennale for Young Art 2014 curated by David Elliott

Exhibited in Bauhaus Museum in Weimar in "What is the future in the past? And what is the past in the future? - Solo Exhibition of Isaac Chong Wai" in 2016

I dated a guy in Buchenwald. We met in Grindr and then decided to visit Buchenwald together. It was the first time that I was there, and it was strange to be in a place where people were imprisoned and executed. While we were walking in the camp, I kissed him, and then I said: 'People couldn't do this in the past.' I asked him to write me something about that day, and he sent me this note:

'I had lost faith in man kind. One day, I decided to go to Buchenwald with this guy and once inside the camp, he kissed me and helped me find the oak tree. Then I knew there was hope for I had just experienced human warmth where I least expected to. -- François.'

In this work, I show only the text written by François on paper and, of course, the title of the work. This wasn't a performative work but a real story of how we dated and kissed in Buchenwald. In the context of the history of this concentration camp, where, amongst many others, gay people were doomed to imprisonment, a kiss somehow gave sweetness as a liberation from the past.

Review by curator David Elliot Catalogue of Moscow Biennale for Young Art 2014