osage

osage hong kong
4/F, 20 Hing Yip Street,
Kwun Tong, Hong Kong
T: 852. 2389 8332
E: info@osagegallery.com
W: www.osagegallery.com

PRESS RELEASE
To Arts and Features Editors
For Immediate Release
14th August, 2014

Osage Gallery presents

Ng Sai Kit Solo Exhibition

dis/close
Exhibition Period
Opening Hours
Opening ReceptionVenue

5 – 30 September, 2014
Mon – Sat: 10.30 am – 6.30 pm
Sun: 2.30 – 6.30 pm
Friday, 5 September, 2014
7.00 – 9.00 pm
Osage Hong Kong
4/F, 20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong

dis/close is an investigation into the frictions and synergies between social media
platforms and photographic languages as presented in Ng Sai Kit’s series of Instagram
works, with aims to critically re-engage with our habits of image consumption and tofurther the possibilities of photography as a medium.
Ng Sai Kit was walking down the street just outside the customary New Year’s day lunch
at his mother’s house two years ago when - with his keen eye for a good photograph Ng happened upon a scene he wanted to capture. The only issue being, he hadn’t
brought his usual camera - so he captured the image on Instagram instead. Such a
gesture marks a turning point for the established Hong Kong photographer where hemoves from analogue to digital to a social media platform, from light to data and fromblack and white to colour. The series embodies his critical attention, depicting thealeatoric meeting of the photographer’s gaze with those of advertisements and posters,
and the encounter of his frame with architectural structures and surfaces.
While the characteristic 3 by 3 frame of Instagram provides an easily understandable
and stable organizing principle for both the viewer and photo-taker, what continues todraw Ng Sai Kit to Instagram is not the ‘easiness’. Ng Sai Kit, rather, expands his own
photographic vocabulary by incorporating the language of this contemporary medium.
The result being that the found frames Ng depicts sit rather uncomfortably within his; heshakes loose the original composition of these found images, often cropping rectangular
iPhone pictures to fit the Instagram format. The images that emerge spill over the corners
and edges; Ng Sai Kit thus activates the frame. His images reference a cubist attitude,containing several perspectives at once.
In an age where the high-res and the instantaneous are prized above all, Ng Sai Kit’s
images put us in a liminal space of poesis where we are as unsure of what we are looking
at as we are reassured that we have encountered these images before. Ng makes
strange the social dynamics or vantages that both produce and engender our
consumption of the found images he depicts and brings into question how these social
relations are embedded within our information networks and technological hardware,
determining how and what we see.
About the Artist
Ng Sai-kit was born in Hong Kong in 1957. He has been an active photographer since theearly 1980s; during which time he also set up the photography workshop The
Photoventurers Workshop with other photographers. His early photography was inspiredby Ng Hon-lam and Cheung King-hung; in 1985, he participated his first group
photography exhibition Sensitive, Transitive, which was curated by them. Between 1989
to 1990, he travelled to Europe; the National Library of France in Paris collected his
photography works. After he returned to Hong Kong, The Photoventurers Workshop wasreformed as The Workshop. Between 1993 to 1999, he took on an editorial role for elevenissues of non-periodical visual culture publications issued by The Workshop withsponsorship from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Between 2005 to 2008, thePhotocrafters workshop was set up. This workshop aimed at promoting visual culturalactivities in Hong Kong and it held many photography courses and exhibitions. In 2008,
he set up the Out-Focus Group Workshop with friends at the Jockey Club Creative Arts
Centre in Shek Kip Mei, Hong Kong. To date, his works have been exhibited in Hong Kong,
Macau, Tokyo, Canada and Paris. His works have also been collected by the Hong Kong
Heritage Museum.
About Osage Gallery
Osage Gallery was established in Hong Kong in 2004 and grew quickly to become one ofAsia’s largest commercial gallery groups. Osage has become well-known in the art world
for its uncompromising support for the most challenging and critically thought-provoking
contemporary art.
Osage Gallery is curatorially driven with a particular focus on contemporary Asian arts. It
aims to be a catalyst for the creative expression of the artists and the active
engagement of audiences by embracing a global, multidisciplinary and diverse
approach to the creation, presentation and interpretation of a diverse network ofpractices and works. It examines the questions that shape and inspire us as individuals,

and our cultures and communities through high quality programmes of research,
exhibition and publication.
Osage operates a major space in Hong Kong in the fast developing central business
district of East Kowloon. Osage Hong Kong is in an industrial building, which can be
configured for a variety of artistic encounters. The raw space allows for the explorationand presentation of experimental and innovative works in all media – including
performance, installation, interactive multimedia and moving images. Osage Hong Kongcombines 10,000 square feet of interior gallery space with 5,000 square feet outdoor
terrace. Osage Shanghai is currently used for an- artist residency programme and iscomprised of two floors of space, totalling 10,000 square feet. Sporting a five-meter highceiling, Osage Beijing is a 1,500 square feet space that houses a studio residency
programme.
Osage Gallery has gained wide international recognition for the quality of its
programmes and was the first Hong Kong gallery to be invited to feature at theStatements section of Art Basel, Basel in 2011, the Spotlight section at Frieze Masters in
London in 2012, Arte Fiera in Bologna, Italy, 2014, Art Cologne in Germany, 2014, and is
one of the first Hong Kong galleries to participate in Moving Image New York, 2014.
Osage has also participated in Art Hong Kong from 2008 – 2012 and at Art Basel, Hong
Kong for 2013 and 2014.
www.osagegallery.com
Media Enquiries:
Chloe Chuchloechu@osagegallery.com | +852 2172 1619
High res images:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/opdekzojy8ddmmb/AADswI31Uh7_hB_Z66GnoB6ha

http://myaccount.dropsend.com/file/aab18c394886e259
Please caption and credit images as below.

Ng Sai Kit
25062014
2014
Digital Inkjet Print
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

Ng Sai Kit
84132013
2013
Digital Inkjet Print
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

Ng Sai Kit
22682014
2014
Digital Inkjet Print
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

Ng Sai Kit
34902013
2013
Digital Inkjet Print
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

Ng Sai Kit
13072014
2014
Digital Inkjet Print
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery

Ng Sai Kit
08982014
2014
Digital Inkjet Print
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery