Song Dong: 36 Calendars
22 January–8 February 2013
ArtisTree
1/F Cornwall House
979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong
Hours: Daily 11–7pm
Co-presented by Asia Art Archive and Mobile M+ of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority
On 22 January 2013, Beijing-based artist Song Dong will open his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. Titled Song Dong: 36 Calendars, the exhibition is co-presented by Asia Art Archive (AAA) and Mobile M+, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA).
Conceived and initiated during his residency at AAA in October 2011 and January 2012, Song spent more than a year realising this ambitious participatory project which involves the re-writing of the last 36 years of history (1978–2013) from his personal perspective in the form of 36 years of hand-drawn annual household wall calendars. Each of the 432 months is accompanied by a sketch of a significant historical event, relaying Song’s longtime interest in socio-political history, individual experience, and art history.
During the exhibition opening, Song invites over 400 members of the public to collaborate with him to complete the project by adding, changing, or editing individual months according to their own memories of historical events. Alongside Song’s version of the calendar, participants’ creations will add another layer to the artwork and will be on display throughout the exhibition from 22 January to 8 February 2013, and online after the exhibition.
36 Calendars is co-presented by Asia Art Archive as a project developed during its annual artist residency, a programme that seeks to activate its public collection of material in unconventional ways through interventions by artists, and Mobile M+, a series of pre-opening ‘nomadic’ exhibitions curated by M+ of the WKCDA, Hong Kong’s future museum for visual culture. This exhibition platform allows the museum to explore different possibilities for engaging the public without the presence of a building—planned for completion in late 2017.
Public programmes and guided tours
A series of public and educational programmes around the project will take place at ArtisTree during the exhibition. Guided tours are also available on weekends. Please click here for the full schedule and more details.
Song Dong in conversation with Ou Ning, artist, curator, Chief Editor of Chutzpah!
Saturday 26 January
Mandarin with English interpretation | 4–5pm
Panel discussion
Saturday 26 January
English and Cantonese | 1–3pm
Speakers: Professor David Clarke, Department of Fine Arts, the University of Hong Kong | Liu Heung Shing, Beijing-based photojournalist | Carol Yinghua Lu, Beijing-based critic and curator
SONG DONG (b. 1966, Beijing) is one of the most important contemporary artists working today. He is a Visiting Professor at Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing Film Academy, and Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Since the early 1990s, Song’s artistic practice has focused on video, installation, performance, photography, and theatre, as well as curating contemporary art exhibitions. The artist participated in Documenta 13 in 2012. He received the Young Artist Award from the UNESCO/ASCHBERG Bursaries for Artists Programme in 2000, the Grand Award from the 2006 Gwangju Biennale, the Annual Award from the Fifth Artron Art China in 2010, and a Certificate of Honor from the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco in 2011.
Asia Art Archive is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to documenting the recent history of contemporary art in Asia within an international context. Founded in 2000, AAA is one of the world’s leading public resources for contemporary Asian art and it continues to grow through systematic research and information gathering. Comprised of 85% donated material, AAA is committed to creating a collection that belongs to the public; accessible free of charge on-site and searchable online, the collection is now accessible globally via the Collection Online, which launched in June 2012. More than a static repository waiting to be discovered, AAA is a proactive platform, instigating critical thinking and dialogue that generate new ideas and works that continually reshape the Archive itself.
M+ is the new museum for visual culture in Hong Kong, as part of West Kowloon Cultural District, focusing on 20th- and 21st-century art, design, architecture, popular culture, and the moving image. From day one, M+ is set to develop content from a Hong Kong perspective, the perspective of the ‘now,’ and with a global vision, expanding to other regions of China, Asia and the rest of the world. Mobile M+ is a series of pop-up “nomadic” exhibitions curated by M+. Installed across various locations in the future neighbourhood of M+, it marks the beginning of the museum’s venture into programming, to engage the public, before the completion of the building in late 2017.
Enquiries: 36calendars [at] aaa.org.hk / +852 2815 1112
