Leung Chi Wo: Press the Button

Blindspot Gallery will host the book launch cum exhibition of Hong Kong artist Leung Chi Wo’s art book, Press the Button (2016), published by OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT) Shenzhen. Limited to an edition of 50, the individually numbered box set includes an 88-page paperback and 54 hand drawings, with texts by Leung Chi Wo, curator of the exhibition Carol Yinghua Lu, art critic Anthony Leung Po Shan and curator Qu Chang. All original drawings published in the book will be exhibited from the day of the launch for two weeks.

Press the Button was born out of Leung’s eponymous solo exhibition at OCAT Shenzhen in 2015. After the exhibition, Leung created hand drawings for each of the works showcased at the exhibition. The new book features 54 pen drawings, along with textual descriptions of the exhibited works. Laid out in the standard format of exhibition captions, the textual descriptions of the exhibited artworks are used to clarify the intention, concepts and techniques behind their creation.

Accompanying these descriptions are images and texts the artist drew on A4-sized papers with a black outline pen, which call to mind prefaces and postscripts to ancient Chinese paintings. Originally fashioned by art dealers and collectors in the Yuan Dynasty, the practice of leaving postscripts on paintings gradually evolved into an artistic tactic that is sometimes employed to help illustrate the original work; at other times, these prefaces and postscripts are self-initiated, creative writing or poems by commentators inspired by the artworks – in Press the Button, these inscriptions command a life of their own.

Born in 1968, Hong Kong, Leung Chi Wo is the co-founder of Para Site. Leung studied culture of photography at Centro di Ricerca e Archiviazione della Fotografia in Italy in 1991 and obtained his Master of Fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1997. He has had residency at Monash University and Australian National University in Australia, and MuseumsQuartier in Austria. He had a solo exhibition at OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen in China (2015). His works have also been exhibited at Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre in Hong Kong (2014), The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in the USA (2013), Queens Museum in the USA (2000), and other biennials such as Venice Biennale in Italy (2001), Shanghai Biennale in China (2000) and triennials in Marrakech in Morocco, Guangzhou in China and Manchester in the UK. He is currently Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media of the City University of Hong Kong.