Hong Kong Art: Culture and Decolonization (review)

The issue of identity is a "vicious" circle in relation to Hong Kong's return to China in 1997. The more one talks about it, the more it is to be talked about as if it is a phenomenon at a very special moment. But isn't not talking about Hong Kong identity in a certain period of time also a "vicious" circle, in which the lack of noise invites further silence?

David Clarke's Hong Kong Art is, in a sense, an initiation of Hong Kong art as a "vicious" circle. In this sense, a concrete affinity between a text and its subject matter is significantly established. This is one of the ideals, potentials, and powers of all books written for the sake of being read and having actual effect. In this respect, this "vicious" circle is not vicious in a negative sense. It is through such interactivities that a book establishes a positive link with its subject matter.

Hong Kong Art investigates "a particular historical moment in which HongKong art came into its own" (p. 10) and dwells upon the "local-ness of recent Hong Kong art" (p. 8). Nevertheless, Clarke deliberately avoids introducing a chronological survey of "Hong Kong art history as a whole" (p. 10). His solid research draws on the colloquial meanings of Hong Kong art in connection with the dynamics among different languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, and English), local receptions of art as reflected in local media, as well as backgrounds of artists, artworks, and political and cultural developments, among others. All this is necessary for a book that examines theemergence of Hong Kong identity. This is the case especiallyas "[n]o adequate survey exists of Hong Kong art as a whole," albeit surveying Hong Kong art as a whole is not the book's objective. Clarke's meta-survey about surveys on Hong Kong art is given in an endnote, which I also quote here in a note for the reader's reference. "The present author's Art and Place: Essays on Art from a Hong KongPerspective (Hong Kong, 1996) attempts to give a picture of the Hong Kong art world in the period immediately prior to the one covered by this text, and includes some discussion of art from earlier periods as well. Petra Hinterthür'sModern Art in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, 1985) attempts a brief survey, but is of course unable to throw light on more recent developments. A chronology of Hong Kong art development from 1922 to 1994 is given in Hong Kong Artists. Volume 1 (Hong Kong, 1995), pp. 21-32. A rather patchy and sometimes imprecise chronology of Hong Kong artistic events from 1967 to 1998 isgiven in Gao Minglu, ed., Inside Out: New Chinese Art (Berkeley, 1998), pp. 207-11. The latter chronology also covers political and other broader historical events of the period. A valuable resource (in Chinese) for research on the early period of Hong Kong art is provided by Edwin Lai and Jack Lee, 'A Chronology of Visual Arts Activities in Hong Kong, 1900-1930,' in Besides: A Journal of Art History and Criticism 1 (1997): 135-230" (p. 211).

With regard to the book's "ideal" link with its subject matter, I will now discuss the book's actualization of what it sets out to examine. The inadequacy of surveys on Hong Kong art (whether or not as a whole) manifests the relative tranquility in acknowledging that Hong Kong art is distinct. In view of this, the book itself is an intervention that (further) actualizes what it talks about. This is the case particularly in light of its predecessors' "vicious" circle of "silence," let alone those simplifications reducing Hong Kong art to either a Westernized product or a Chinese branch.

The "Introduction" of Hong Kong Art begins with a critique of Western art history practices such as Gardner's...