Body Dialogue

Ho Hing-kay Oscar

The works of Ho Siu-kee show an enduring perseverance that is rarely found in the local art community.  His continuous exploration of a few specific topics demonstrates a whole-hearted devotion, which is not merely repeating his creation and only making minor alterations. There is a clear line of incessant exploratory developments through out his artistic practice.

The development of contemporary Hong Kong art can be divided into various stages.  The late 1970s was the fermentation stage. In the 1980s the first generation of overseas-trained artists returned to Hong Kong and they laid down the foundation of the contemporary art of Hong Kong.  Ho Siu-kee who started his artistic career in the 1990s, belongs to the second generation of local contemporary artists.  He received his basic art training inHong Kong during the 80s and then he furthered his study overseas.  Ho is different from artists of the first generation such as Antonio Mak and Yank Wong.  Ho is not as wild and bold in artistic expression as the 80s generation, partly due to their differences in personality.  Ho Siu-kee works in a very careful and industrious way and often tries to support his methods with cited theories.  As an artist he takes art in a serious manner and one can hardly imagine his artistic expressions could go wild.

He conceives his artistic practice as a cognitive investigation of the body and how it attempts to harmonizes with the outside world.  Ho concentrates on the adjustments and changes of the body when it reacts to the external environment within various circumstances.  Besides studying the change of body language such as placements of the extremities and the postural adjustments, Ho also tries to capture the process in which the body reacts to the perception of the outside world.

This is a complicated process which involves a two-fold experience.  On the one hand the artist presents his observable body responding to the external environment to the audience, who can see body gestures being shaped and presented through the coordination as well as the interaction between the artist and his surroundings.  On the other hand, the audience has to imagine the artist’s bodily experience and his reactions to the external environment, which can only be perceived subjectively.

One of Ho Siu-kee’s early works, “Walking on Two Balls” is a typical example of this kind of dialogue.  The body simultaneously tries to balance itself and to move forward on two wooden balls that he has carved meticulously.  He tries to walk on/with them but he can hardly control them.  The body and the objects carved by the very body are engaged in a struggle of adjustment, which can even be called wrestling.  This is an interesting and complicated experience.  However the audience can only see the relationship between the body and the objects from the body’s contortion. They cannot experience how the body feels and responds during the interacting process. This is an unavoidable limitation with the audience as an uninvolved third party in the tactile sense.

Besides the adjustment and the interaction between the body and external objects, another aspect of the body-object relationship is the tools, which can be considered as an extension of the body.  Tools can extend the ability and at the same time be restrict the movement of the body.  This conflicting duality shows an interesting state of existence; the body and external world is at once complimentary and in opposition.  Within this dual relationship, we try to introduce control or to strike for a balance.  What is involved is not only the action of the body, but also the awareness and the compromise of behavior and perception.

The process of art making is no doubt a dialogue between the body (the hands in particular) and the external world.  In 2005, Ho Siu-kee went through the process of making a piece of brick according to the traditional method described in the book Tiangong Kaiwu (Exploitation of the Works of Nature, 1637, the late Ming Dynasty). The book reflects “the primitive and austere way that traditional Chinese perceived Nature”[1] in which the relationship between human beings and the natural world is not necessarily confrontational – not opposite to each other, not even about mutual checks and balances.  Instead, through the traditional and simple material process, human beings experience the humbleness within the natural development.  The work “Making Brick” has concisely illustrated this relationship.  This is an interesting and meaningful direction, which gives hints to new possibilities in the artistic practice.  The body and the external world can be a simple harmony.  They may form a new mediation.

Ho Hing-kay Oscar is Independent Curator and Professional Consultant of Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, ChineseUniversityofHong Kong

[1] Ho Siu Kee, “On Making Bricks – and Some Thoughts on ‘Exploring Materials’, ‘Making Utensils’ and ‘Applications’”, White Text no.3, Hong Kong Art School, 2006.

身體對話

何慶基