Gallery EXIT is pleased to announce No Matter. Try Again. Fail Again., the long awaited solo exhibition by KWAN Sheung Chi.
Kwan juxtaposes the intention to succeed with the inevitability of failure in a series of videos that document him going about his pre-planned tasks. In the original Artwalk Drinking Challenge 2009, Kwan wandered through all the art galleries in Central to drink free alcoholic drinks. In the remaking of the same event as a Do-It-Yourself instructional video, Kwan collapsed half way through as the video continues to record him in inaction. In another DIY-like video, Kwan demonstrates in a Sunday-hobbyist approach of how to make the exit bag, a popular euthanasia and assisted suicide device.
Many of his tasks take the form of self-training without advancement. This ongoing wrestle with the duality of success and failure, achievement and failure, calculation and chance, underlies much of his recent work and even his daily life. We are invited to be witnesses of a life, to come up with exit strategies from our dualistic mindset.
KWAN Sheung Chi was born in Hong Kong in 1980. In 1999 he entered the Fine Arts Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2000 he was named the “King of Hong Kong New Artist”. In 2002, Kwan Sheung Chi Touring Series Exhibitions, Hong Kong was exhibited and toured 10 major exhibition venues in Hong Kong. Within the same year, the Hong Kong Arts Centre presented A Retrospective of Kwan Sheung Chi. In 2003, he graduated with a third-class honor bachelor degree from the Fine Arts Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In the same year, he set up a studio in Fotan, and organized Fotanian: Open Studio 2007. From 2004 he became a nine-to-fiver in Central. In 2005 he helped his mother, TSANG Yin-hung, to create her first artwork, Teapoy. The piece was included in the Hong Kong Art Biennial 2005, as a selected entry. His artworks have not been widely exhibited around the world. On 1st January 2008, he determined not to sell any of his artworks for 3 years. In February 2009, he co-founded the web-based arts TV channel, Hong Kong Arts Discovery Channel (HKADC). He is also a founding member of the local art groups, hkPARTg (Political Art Group) and Woofer Ten, which both focus on experimental practices of art in relation to local politics, social issues and communities. In 2009, He was awarded the Starr Foundation Fellowship by the Asian Cultural Council to take part in an international residency program in New York City, USA.
