osage

Osage Gallery
4/F, Union Hing Yip Factory
Building, Hing Yip Street,Kwun Tong, Kowloon,Hong Kong

CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY

T : (852) 2389 8332
E: info@osagegallery.com
W: www.osagegallery.com

Media Release

18 February 2014

Attention Arts and Culture Editors

For immediate release

Solo exhibition by Leung Mee Ping
Pearl	 River	 Delta	 Series	 I	 :	 Made	 In	 Hong	 Kong	 Curated byValerie C. Doran1 March – 1 April, 2014
(held concurrently with “Space Drawing: Solo Exhibition by Chen Sai Hua Kuan” &“Touch: Solo Exhibition by Ma Shuqing)
Opening Reception
4 - 6 pm, Saturday, 1 March 2014
Opening Hours
Mon to Sat 10.30 am to 6.30 pm | Sun 2.30 to 6.30 pm
Open to special appointments & arrangements outside of these times.

Artist salon and docent-guided visits offered by appointment.
Salon hosted by the artist or her representative.
Please send request to gracelam@osagegallery.com at least 5 days in advance.

Venue
osage hong kong
4/F, Union Hing Yip Factory Building, Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong	  1	  CURATORIAL NOTES (extract)
By Valerie C. DoranLeung Mee Ping’s artistic practice is essentially conceptual and investigative, and one ofits strongest markers is her relentless and enduring curiosity. Leung’s mixed-media
installation Made In Hong Kong is like a conceptual onion: peel away one layer of
meaning and association only to find multiple layers underneath. On the first analysis, it
is a sophisticated conceptual work bringing into question issues of appropriation,copying and authorship. It takes both as its model and its locus of production that
artistic bastion of hand-made replication and appropriation, the ‘artist’s village’ ofDafen village in Shenzhen, which originally grew out of Hong Kong’s souvenir/tradepainting. As a conceptual vehicle, Made in Hong Kong shoves us back and forth acrossthe border, scrambling points of view, achieving multiple reversals of the tourist’s andthe producer’s gaze. It is the first project in Leung’s ongoing Pearl River Delta Series ofconceptual (and to some degree, performative) works in which the artist investigates thevarious, shifting relationships and mutual infiltration between the cities of the PearlRiver Delta: Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen.
When Leung Mee Ping first conceived of the Made in Hong Kong project in 2006,
many small Hong Kong industries—including its souvenir painting trade—had longsince moved over the border. At the same time, the flow of tourism had shifted in theopposite direction: now it was coming from China to Hong Kong. Leung’s curiosity
provoked a question: If mainland tourists were coming to Hong Kong, but souvenir
paintings were now being made in Shenzhen, then who would produce the Hong Kongsouvenir paintings that would reflect the gaze of these mainland Chinese tourists? Thatsame year Leung Mee Ping temporarily moved to Shenzhen, and then went undercoverin Dafen. Posing as an amateur artist who wanted to learn the tricks of the trade ofsouvenir painting, she was accepted as a trainee at the studio of a successful Dafen
artist. There she quickly mastered the formulaic painting techniques that allowed rapid
production. Gradually, Leung began to commission works from the studio herself,
asking them to copy photographs she had taken of Hong Kong attractions popular withmainland tourists, both the fantastical and mundane. She always ordered multiple
copies of each image, in varying sizes, and made use of the techniques she had learned
to help paint some of the images herself. Yet no matter who actually worked on thepaintings, Leung would always sign them herself. She also set a rule that these paintings
could only be sold in sets of at least two works, and that each set must always be of thesame image, though of any size. Concept made by Hong Kong; product manufactured
in Shenzhen.
Entering into the Made in Hong Kong installation is like confronting souvenir painting
shop suffering from hypertrophy. One is immediately surrounded by a panoply of oilpaintings of all shapes and sizes. The images are all scenes of, or relating to, HongKong: clearly touristic in their kitschy presentation and sketchy technique. Yet taken in
their totality there is something decidedly odd about them: while some make sense in asouvenir context—Mickey Mouse pointing the way into Disneyland, horse racing at	  2	  Happy Valley—others seem far too mundane to be enshrined in a painting, or indeed to
be an image one would want to take home: a crowd outside a Sasa cosmetic store? Agolden toilet that had once belonged to a Hong Kong tycoon? If a souvenir painting
represents an idealised view of a place seen through the tourist’s gaze, then one begins
to wonder just whose gaze is being represented here anyway?
The present moment reflected in Leung’s ‘souvenir’ paintings, and in the process of
their manufacture, represents not only an economic moment and a social moment, butalso the claim to a certain kind of ownership of place that souvenir paintings implicitlycontain. Multiple gazes, multiple images, multiple claims.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
I am interested in investigating a kind of uncertainty that exists in the networks that connect
things, and in the symptoms of that uncertainty. In my recent works, I do not emphasise
revealing or reflecting anything; rather, I generate events through connections, and then try tointerpret these events. I am also alert to the tendency towards control in my works, because thiscan result in the appearance of some kind of order. I think that ambiguity is a very importantpart of the creative process, as it results in an art action that is difficult to categorise.
At the same time, I also value the time-space contexts within which my works are read – theintercontextual relations formed with the local time and place, in particular as regards
community culture. In all of my works, my intention is to raise questions, and then to maintainthe possibility of pursuing these questions.

Leung Mee Ping learning the tricks of trade painting “undercovered” in Dafen Village in 2007.
Image courtesy of the artist.	  

3	  PRESS IMAGESPearl River Delta Series I: Made in Hong Kong, installation shot at Urbis, Manchester, 2007.
Image courtesy of the artist.	  

4	  Pearl River Delta Series I: Made in Hong Kong (part)
mixed-media installation with performative elements
dimensions variable
2007-2014
Image courtesy of the artist and Osage Gallery.	  

5	  Pearl River Delta Series I: Made in Hong Kong (part)
mixed-media installation with performative elements
dimensions variable
2007-2014
Image courtesy of the artist.	  

6	  ABOUT THE ARTIST
Leung Mee Ping is a Hong Kong-based artist whose conceptual, investigative practicespans a wide range of media, including installation, public and community art,
performative video and mixed-media. Her creative work is concerned with issues ofethnicity, community and collective memory, and her conceptual perspective isstrongly oriented towards the examination of creativity emerging from within daily
culture. Through her research-based practice she engages in experimental interaction
and integration in a daily-life context, developing issue-based projects which often
integrate elements and platforms of theatre, design, commercial space and social spacein order to extend performance or action. Leung’s creative work is strongly intertwinedwith her theoretical research into visual culture and issues of globalisation. Leungreceived her BFA (1991), from L’Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris,
France her MFA (2000) from the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, USA, and
her Ph.D (2009) from the Cultural and Religious Studies Department of the Chinese
University of Hong Kong. She is presently assistant professor of visual culture at theAcademy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University.

ABOUT THE CURATOR
Valerie C. Doran is an independent curator, critic and translator in the field of Chinesecontemporary art with a special interest in cultural cross-currents and comparative art
theory. Her curatorial practice has focused in particular on the work of Hong Kongartists. Curated projects include the acclaimed exhibition Looking for Antonio Mak(2088-09) and the cross-disciplinary project Stigmatics (2012), among others. Doran has
also translated texts by major Chinese art theorists including Li Xianting, Gao Minglu
and Gao Shiming. She is a recipient of the Certificate of Commendation by theSecretary for Home Affairs of the Hong Kong SAR for contributions to arts and culturalactivities in Hong Kong. Doran is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of theAsia Art Archive.
ABOUT OSAGE GALLERYOsage Gallery was established in Hong Kong in 2004 and grew quickly to become oneof Asia’s largest commercial gallery groups. Osage has become well-known in art
circles in Asia and in the art world for its uncompromising support for the mostchallenging and critically thought-provoking contemporary art.
Osage Gallery is curatorially driven and devoted to the exhibition and promotion ofAsian contemporary visual arts. It aims to be a catalyst for the creative expression of theartists and the active engagement of audiences by embracing a global, multidisciplinaryand diverse approach to the creation, presentation and interpretation of the arts of ourtime. It examines the questions that shape and inspire us as individuals, and our	  7	  cultures and communities through high quality programmes of research, exhibition andpublication.
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 beconfigured 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 motion picture. Osage Hong
Kong combines 10,000 square foot of interior gallery space with 3,000 square feetoutdoor terrace. Osage Shanghai is currently used for artist residency programme andcomprises two floors of space totaling 10,000 square foot. Osage Beijing is a 1,500
square foot space functioning as studio residency sporting a five-meter high ceiling.
Osage Gallery has gained wide international recognition for the quality of its
programmes and was the first Hong Kong gallery to be selected to the Art Basel art fairin 2011, Frieze Masters in London in 2012, Arte Fiera 2014 in Bologna, Art Cologne
2014 in Germany and Moving Image New York 2014.
www.osagegallery.com

MEDIA ENQUIRIESKaya Lo852. 2389 8332 | 852. 2172 1693 | kayalo@osagegallery.com

ARTIST SALON & DOCENT-GUIDED VISIT REGISTRATION
Grace Lam
852. 2389 8332 | 852.2172 1635 | gracelam@osagegallery.com	  8