The way to art it – writing about art, the Chantown way.

As someone who studied both history of art and fine art, I usually approach exhibitions with a few thoughts in mind – technique,  understanding and aesthetics. I want to learn but I also want to have an intelligent discourse about the visuals and concepts presented. I also want to indulge in artistic greatness. After all, as a writer, I have easier – and more – access to famous and accomplished artists than I ever had as an artist no longer at university.

But I live in Hong Kong and I run my own business. So, like most people here, I find it hard to do everything. Sometimes I can't get to all the press events I'm invited to. 

Other times, I go, but don't have time talk to the artists (or they don't have time to talk to me) or i just don't have time to write something proper and interesting. I don't even have time to copyright stamp my images. This blogging lark isn't all roses you know.

There's something else too. Since moving to Hong Kong, I've become more disillusioned with the art world because I live in close proximity to 'for profit' galleries and their clientele. And I no longer live in a country where the government supports and encourages artistic activities and appreciation of the arts. As an artist I've never been so aware that it's all about luck. There are few places for an emerging artist like me to show, especially where I won't be paying high rents with no hope of sales (even at 50% commission).

So I've decided to remedy my blog block problem by writing short snippets from the art shows I do attend. Inspired by the style of this highly popular no-holds-barred food blogger, you can expect honesty (and fewer expletives). These bites make no promise over what will be covered but they will provide personal insights or technical information in a truly digestible, Hong Kong sized format.

These insightful snapshots of my artistic observances, or Chantown Art Critique Critter, will also be tagged with 'Art Critter'. 

Toilets (what is it with...)

Aside from the fact that in nearly every mall or cinema, the queue for the ladies toilet is usually around 4-fold that of the men’s, and town planning departments should make it a rule that there are always four ladies toilets to every men’s toilet (but don’t), toilets don’t need Marcel Duchamp to make them interesting. There is something about toilets — I just don't quite know what it is yet.

For that reason alone, I (artist, Vickie Chan) plan to make an exhibition about toilets. I am going to collect photo evidence of toilets all over the world and make a giant montage. I am going to build a dummy toilet where people can go in and write their own message to the world. I am going to ask people to write down their most interesting toilet story, to ask them where the coolest toilet they have ever seen is, and do they clean up after themselves?

One day I am going to make a toilet travel guide. There will be one for France and one for Japan.

Toilets encourage and display all kinds of bizarre, wonderful, terrible, funny, abusive, hope-filled, spite-filled, angry and kind words of sentiment in the form of graffiti written in eyeliner, lipstick, Biro, Sharpie or scratched in paint using a nail file, safety pin, earring — whatever is at hand. We feel so safe in there we can bare our deepest thoughts and tell our most buried secrets. And say the nastiest thing about the person we hate most.

When you watch a TV show or a movie, toilets mean something. When I watch a show like ER or CSI, if I see a main character alone in the toilet, I start to think something bad is going to happen. If the character is perhaps sitting on the toilet with the door locked, or leaning over a sink just looking in the mirror and nothing happens, I know it’s ominous: bad times ahead. Veronica Mars used her high school toilet as some kind of makeshift office for her PI work, Judd Nelson shoved Rob Lowe’s head down a toilet in St. Elmo’s Fire and they bonded over it. And if you ever watched Ally McBeal you will know all about the crazy happenings in the toilets where she worked. I’m telling you people, there is something about toilets.

Toilets also encourage the least of cleanliness, it seems. While at home, you would wipe the seat clean, flush the toilet, maybe even replace the used toilet roll with a fresh one, outside of the home is a different story.

In Asia we commonly have two types of toilet:

• The hole-in-the-ground squat toilet

• The Western 'throne' toilet

Asian people think the squat toilet is cleaner, presumably because you don't have to sit on anyone else's pee and your skin never touches anything. Western people think the squat toilet is primitive and hard work. Let's face it, there are plenty of western-residing folk who are too overweight to squat.

And there's a lot less graffiti here. On a recent trip to Melbourne I was quite overwhelmed and bemused by the scribbling — no, discourse — taking place in the toilets. Interestingly, Australia is one of the few places I have visited where they use UV lighting in the toilets to prevent people from shooting up in there.

If I thought toilets in the UK were gross, I was wrong. They are worse in HK, I promise you, worse by far. In a ladies toilet you’d think that people might be a little more considerate but 95% of the time I walk into a stall to find that the seat has urine on it. And how is it that plastic toilet seats have scratches all over them? Do all women but me have metal spikes on the backs of their thighs? And if the toilet lid is down — walk away, my friend, walk away. It doesn’t mean that someone polite put the lid down when they finished, or sat for a few minutes composing themselves before hitting the humid streets. It means there is something bad in there, something you don’t want to see.

Where I work, the ladies toilet is disgusting. Aside from the apparently obligatory urine-on-seat situation (we work together ladies, don’t we have more thought for our colleagues than that?) the floor and surrounds often look like a giant hamster has passed through there and bedded down for the night - balls and chewed-up-looking tufts of tissue paper on the floor, in the bin, on the seat…

To top it off, why do women insist on standing chatting in the toilets for hours on end? I can’t think of a worse place to be. Ok, as a non-smoker you may feel that you are owed some kind of break in the daily bore we call work, but honestly, can’t you think of a better place to catch up with a colleague? Surely even the sweaty cigarette break scented stairwell would be better?

In that respect, I would say the staff of Seattle Grace has it right - meet in the elevator people, the elevator. Don’t hang around in the hamster cage we call the ladies toilet.

[And here's a tip for the ladies: When using a squat toilet, face the wall, not the door. It's a lot easier.]






© 2008 Vickie Chan

POP ID: Collective exhibition showing work by Vickie Chan

Ka-pok, Tin Hau, Hong Kong
May 2007

In Spite of Everything (a collection of 12" misunderstandings)

Whilst the name of the collection implies the emotional and temporal impetus we place on music as it passes through the airwaves and into our lives, this collection of LP-sized paintings question the sometimes heart-felt or seemingly innocent song lyrics that blister us on a daily basis.

With each piece named after a song, such as ‘Road To Nowhere’ (Talking Heads), artist Vickie Chan is taking the lyrics out of their musical context, and juxtaposing them with her own images to insinuate new meanings. Chan encourages us to look for new facets in what we know, give apparent innocence a second glance, and question simple relationships between image and text, as she pokes at pop culture. Chan hopes to encourage the viewer to make a new relationship with the songs, In Spite of Everything.


Paintings:
1. Ship Song — Nick Cave



2. Round The Corner — The Evens



3. So Warped — Papa M



4. The Lovecats — The Cure (Limited Edition 10”)



5. Road To Nowhere — Talking Heads



6. Bottomless Seas — Hot Water Music



© 2007 Vickie Chan