Asian Cultural Council Fellows Second Annual Exhibition 2020

Alisan Fine Arts is delighted to be hosting the ACC Fellows Alumni Showcase fundraising event at our Central Gallery for the second time, following the 2018 Alumni Showcase marking the ACC's 30th year in Hong Kong. This year the curatorial theme is one of unity, bringing together five Chinese artists from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and the United States to celebrate the spirit of cultural exchange that is central to the vision of the Asian Cultural Council. Since its establishment in 1963, the ACC has granted more than 6000 Fellows, representing a wide range of creative disciplines and a vast geography, the opportunity to participate in unique international experiences that have widened and enriched their respective practices. As articulated best in the words of ACC's founder, John D. Rockefeller 3rd: "I am convinced that this avenue toward understanding... is crucial to success in advancing peace and unity among nations and bequeathing a gentler world to future generations." The 2020 ACC showcase of art works by ACC Fellows Wucius Wong, Mao Xuhui, Ho Siukee, Isa Ho, and daughter of ACC Fellow Cai Guo-Qiang, Cai Wen-You will open on 13 January, 6-8 pm with a reception officiated by ACC Chairman Hans Michael Jebsen and close to equal fanfare with a ceremony of dance, music and performances by ACC Fellows from various disciplines on the evening of 4 February, 6-8 pm.

Alisan Fine Art’s relationship with the ACC dates back to 1986, when our Gallery Founder Alice King helped to establish ACC’s Friends' Committee in Hong Kong, subsequently serving as its Vice-Chairman. Similar to ACC, which, through the awarding of fellowship grants, fosters transformative for cultural exchange in the arts between the United States and Asia, our gallery encourages the bridging of East and West through our promotion of Chinese artists in Hong Kong and abroad. The art on display in the ACC Fellows Annual Showcase testifies to the vibrancy and talent fostered by the support of ACC; these are works that challenge, motivate and inspire. A portion of sales will directly benefit the ACC Alumni Fellowship Program to ensure its continued support of artists and art professionals.

ARTISTS’ BIOGRAPHIES

Wucius Wong (b.1936 Guangdong Province, China) is a celebrated ink painter and a proponent of the Hong Kong New Ink Movement, revered for his masterful synthesis of traditional Chinese aesthetics with western culture and contemporary design. He grew up in Hong Kong, and under the tutelage of Lui Shou-kwan began studying Chinese ink painting in 1955. He co-founded the Modern Literature and Art Association before becoming a member of the One Art Group. After organising the First Hong Kong International Salon of Painting in 1960, he went on to study at the Columbus College of Art and Design in the United States, before obtaining a BFA and MFA from the Maryland Institute of Art. He was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 1971 and an Emeritus Fellowship of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 1998. Presently, Wong is an Adjunct Professor of the Fine Arts Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, museum expert adviser to the Leisure and Culture Department, Honorary Chairman of the Chinese Ink Painting Institute in Hong Kong, Committee Member of the Hong Kong Chinese Artists Association, and Committee Member of the Chinese Ink Painting Institute in Beijing, and artist residence at Hong Kong Polytechnic.
Wong’s paintings have been exhibited in over eighty solo and group exhibitions across the globe. Two major retrospective exhibitions for Wong have been held at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 2006, and at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2016. His paintings were included in China: 5000 Years held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1998, New Ink Art: Innovation and Beyond, curated by Alice King in 2008 and held at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. His works have been collected by the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; British Museum, London; Museum fur Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin; National Gallery of Victoria, Australia; Shanghai Art Museum; Hong Kong Heritage Museum; University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong; Hong Kong Museum of Art.

Mao Xuhui (b.1956, Chongqing, Sichuan, China) is famed as the leader of the mid-1980s Southwestern Art Research Group, which included Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Yongqing and Pan Dehai. Like many of his mainland contemporaries, Mao Xuhui has developed a kind of branding identity for his work through the repeated use of certain symbols and figurative objects. Mao is universally recognised for his "scissors," "chair," and "parents" series, all of which reflect the strong influence of German expressionism as well as a motif of control and restraint. In recent years, Mao Xuhui has struggled between the contradictions between reality and artistic ideals, resulting in a return to the rustic style of painting from which he deliberately turned away in the early '80s. These rustic scenes reflect a gradual coming to terms with the tumultuous years spanned by his career, and a sense of rediscovered serenity. Mao graduated from the Yunnan Art Academy in 1982 and in 1985, alongside Zhang Xiaogang, Hou Wenyi, Zhang Long, Pan Dehai, and others, organised New Concrete Image (Shanghai, 1985), one of the first self-funded exhibitions in China, which later travelled to Nanjing, Kunming, and Chongqing. In 1986, Mao introduced the works of artists from the Southwestern region at the Zhuhai Conference and formally founded formed the Southwestern Art Research Group. Works by Mao and others from the group were shown at the seminal China/Avant-Garde Exhibition in Beijing, 1989. Other important exhibitions include: Farewell to Trend: The Art of Mao Xuhui, Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing (2010), Mao Xuhui: 30 Years An Artist, Hong Kong Arts Centre (2007), Air of Destiny, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China (2005); Inside Out: New Chinese Art, Asia Society and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Museum of Modern Art and Asia Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, USA and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Mexico (1998); and China’s New Art, Post-1989, Hong Kong Arts Center, Hong Kong (1993). Mao was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2000. He currently works out of his studio in studio in the Chuang Ku ("creative loft") district of Kunming, China and serves on the faculty of Yunnan University.

Ho Siu-kee’s (b. 1964, Hong Kong) artistic and academic research focuses on exploring bodily perception as a means and process of aesthetic expression both in contemporary sculptural practice and in traditional handicraft. His artworks function as self-portraitures through the visual presentation of his own body imagery, employing different media, such as sculpture, installation, photography and video. The visual presentation materialises and projects the innate personal experience as a means of artistic expression, which is expected to relay communication between the “Self” and the “Other." He is creating a new body of work especially for this showcase.
Ho obtained his BA degree in Fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in 1989. After some years of artistic practice in Hong Kong, he furthered his study in U.S.A. and graduated with an MFA degree in Sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1995. In 2003, he received his Doctor of Fine Art degree from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, Australia with the research topic of “Bodily Perception as a Means of Expression in Contemporary Art Practice." He currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine Arts at CUHK. Ho has participated in various prestigious exhibitions worldwide including the 23rd International Biennial of Sao Paulo in 1996 and the 49th Venice Biennial in 2001 as Hong Kong's Official Representative. Ho was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship in 2000 and Membership to the Royal British Society of Sculptors MRBS, London, UK in 2012.

Isa Ho (b.1977, Keelung, Taiwan) concentrates on digital and contemporary photography to create a simulated reality through which she addresses social concerns and fulfils what she regards as a personal responsibility to society. She is strongly influenced by her previous experience in oil painting, which leads to the rigorous compositional formation of her photographs, which challenges the documentary attribute of photography and adds a flair for storytelling. Ho received her Master of Fine Arts from Taipei National University of the Arts. She was awarded 2018 Arte Laguna Prize special prize, 2013 ISE Cultural Foundation Award, 2012 and 2015 Asian Cultural Council Fellowship, and 2011 Kaohsiung Art Award. Important collectors include National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Hong-Gah Museum, and Gwangju Museum of Art in Korea. She was the resident artist at International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York in 2013 and 2015, and at Cité International des Arts in Paris from 2009 to 2010. Ho has exhibited in museums, biennales and galleries around the world, including: The Pioneers of Taiwanese Artist,1971-1980 in National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2014, Taichung), Instituto Cultural de Mexico (2011, Texas, USA), Taiwan Biennial, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (2010, Taichung), Kaohsiung Fine Art Museum (2010, Taiwan), Kuandu Biennale 2008, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (2008, Taipei, Taiwan), PINGYAO international photography festival (2008, China) and also France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czech, India, Korea, China, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States.

Cai Wenyou (b. 1989, Tokyo, Japan) calls herself as a “reluctant artist and day dreamer." At the age of five, she received her first camera and from then on her life became intrinsically entwined with photography. Working closely with her father, the renowned Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang (ACC Fellow, Visual Art 1995), Cai Wenyou records the daily life of the artist and her family through her lens. “My father is ‘rooster’, my mother is ‘tiger’, my younger sister is ‘sheep’ and I’m ‘snake’. We have quite different characters but formed a harmonious, loving and playful family,” said Wen-You Cai. For the ACC showcase, we are showing a series of her work focusing on her father at work, play and with the family. These photos unveil the warm and fun-loving life under the lens of the artist (as Snake) as well as the palpable emotional and cultural connection between generations.
Cai is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and Goldsmiths College. In 2015, she published her memoir When You Make No Art, about growing up in the art world. In 2016, Cai founded Special Special, an art edition gallery and concept store in New York City. Her photographs made their exhibition debut in the 2019 exhibition Rooster, Tiger, Sheep by Snake at the MGM Cotai, Macau.

Artists are available for interview by appointment. Please contact Kathleen Mak at 25261091 or email [email protected] for more information and images.