Archive-14

2
For the self-portrait, there is a certain similarity to the way that I worked
comparing to Ka-sing. We worked from memories. Around 2002, Ka-sing was
working on an exhibition, a series he called dot hong kong, in which he used
the concept of re-photographing his old takes, to find new vision from originally
existed images. Thus, for two years he continued to explore the idea through
another exhibition, and realized the work in The Language of Fruits and
Vegetable, a collaboration piece with Leung Ping-kwan in 2004. In this way of
working, I like to think, over the years the chef had prepared many delicious
dishes, and finally gets time to sit down, to taste, and walk through from where
he’d obtained the ingredients, in what way he’d cooked, while happily recalling
people and friends who had shared the experience. In this extremely slow tasting
process, everything must have been delicately examined, and the undertaking,
deeply satisfying. In Ka-sing’s self-portrait, my blurred face was in the front.
That also makes me aware that, I am never too far from the corners of his mind.
Thousand Objects
Holly’s Self-Portrait in 1983
(POLAROID, 4x5 inch, colour, 1983)
In 1983, the Hong Kong Arts Centre held an exhibition on artists’ self-portraits,
and both of us were invited to participate. The photographs were all standardized
to 20x24 inches, with the organizers handling the lab work. The photographs from
that exhibition are still preserved, though I haven’t been able to locate them at
the moment. However, here is a Polaroid of Holly’s photograph, originally taken
as a test shot.
At the time, we were living on the second floor of an old building at 13 Prince
Lee Ka-sing, self portrait, 2002
8x8 inches, archival pigment print