Harry Leung & Gabriel Flückiger
Street posts / booklet
2014 / stickers and booklet edition of 10, 2 AP
In Hong Kong it is common for services, products and shops to advertise on the streets with flyers, stickers, banners or salesmen. Sometimes these ads can be very informal and obscure, only with a phone number and short description written down on a pillar or electric box. These observations were the starting point for the collaboration by Zurich based Gabriel Flückiger and Hong Kong based Harry Leung. In discussions about these phenomena and if art or artists can also promote services, it became clear that art is often still seen by both people and local art institutions in a very ideological context, attributing different pleasing and valuable properties to art, artist and the reception of art. The stickers produced by the two students took up different keywords used by three of the major Hong Kong art institutions. These keywords are found in their official websites to describe their attitude and expectations towards art. The layout of stickers imitates those found in the streets of Hong Kong. The stickers were posted in the very busy and crowded district of Yau Ma Tei and Tsim Sha Tsui. Thereby the notion of art and all the ideologies that come with it are introduced into a non-official context. Also, modes of communicating about art (resp. art institution) are changed into something informal. Additionally, a little booklet was produced which serves both as documentation of the postings as well as giving insights into the discussion the artists had.
Exhibition view:
