My blog

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• my brain is fagged (already)/another chapter of catch-up

  Thursday, Aug 21, 2008 9:05PM / Standard Entry / Members only

  why is it that there is no such thing as a slow ramp-up back to daily life in hk, where you don't feel like you're hitting a brick wall as soon as you step out of the airport? i've only been back for less than a week and i need a vacation again -- already!
  ....
  as usual, i'm a bit sleep-deprived. therefore, i am just going to start with what i can remember.
  ....
  in july, i went on vacation to england.
  
  as soon as i arrived in england, i was whisked away by my boyfriend, whose house i stay at in suffolk during the summers, to glyndebourne for a world-class, bar-none performance of the comparatively obscure german opera, hansel and gretel. it was absurdly plutocratic, elegant and exclusive, with picnicking on the green in black tie before, during and after the opera. what with a generous intermission of 1.5 hours, one can actually decant good wine and let it breathe at the beginning of the performance before returning at intermission to enjoy it properly. wow! while it IS awfully snobby and expensive and impossible to get into. (it took our friends 16 years to get off the waiting list to become members!), it was an otherworldly, Old World experience, which i will never forget. on top of that, it was amazing to be around cultivated people, who enjoyed the surprising, avant-garde production which included a transsexual wicked witch character (a baritone sporting prosthetic breasts and a comical toupe) who gobbled up children in the deliciously apt, ironic mise en scene of a modern-day supermarket! it was civilized but mind-bending at the same time.
  
  after a few days of recovery, where i developed a very bad head cold, caused by, yes, relaxation and decompression, my girlfriend visited us in the country, accompanied by her new boyfriend, a crass, insecure yob who coudn't stop dropping hints about how much money he had. worst of all, though, he was only mildly amusing. while it was disturbing to see my girlfriend treated as a trophy, it was worse to see her entranced by the attentions of such a vulgar man. i am wondering whether she will see this blog entry one day..... no matter: i'm always ready lie in the bed that i've made. it's sad to see a beautiful woman who is so deeply insecure that she only chooses lovers who grovel at her feet in rapt adoration. ugh.... there are different explanations for a major imbalance in power between lovers - some better than others. domination for its own sake is something i can stomach, but not this.....
  
  [a lot of text excised here, because i felt bored while writing it and lost patience. but it includes an episode in st. remy-de-provence, which includes a side jaunt to the crucially important photo fair at arles and many unexpected encounters of "six degrees of separation", all within the  confines of my friend's home! not a shocker, because my friend inhabits a similar world (although her workaholism and focus make me feel like i have a serious learning disability!). she founded bliss spa, soap & glory and, most recently, the FitFlop. everyone, please go and buy a pair immediately at RUSH, the fitness gear boutique in hk!]
  http://www.thefitflop.com/
  
  around this time, my home was featured in the ny times, for anyone who wants to take a peek
  http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/22/greathomesanddestinations/
  20080722_IHT_SLIDESHOW_index.html
  here's my favorite pic! i also have an ovoid column, which rotates 320 degrees and houses a desk, tv, keyboard, among other stuff, which takes pride of place in my living room. if you like that sort of thing, check it out.
  
  
  last week, i headlined a conference called Global Brand Forum with spike lee, the founder of wikipedia and the creative director of electronic arts. THAT was quite heady stuff. i was the ONLY woman, which was a gigantic honor. plus, i got to bond with those guys. i literally got 8 hours of sleep in the two days we were hanging out, but it was probably because it was life-changing and we couldn't stop talking! anyway, it was really inspiring. i decided to give a speech based on my personal reflections about the consumer world, rather than concrete branding advice or anecdotes of career experience. it was probably the first time that the true, totally Unvarnished Me got a chance to come out. god, that was fun! Joanne, the Professor! ha! here is a pic of me, spike and the founder of wikipedia, jimmy wales. (i love how spike is holding a glass of champagne and checking his phone. we were sitting on a mattress at the opening of Supperclub in SIngapore.)
  
  i'm now working on the huge month ahead:
  an exhibition for fellow AnD member, Wing Shya, whom my gallery represents, for Chivas Regal at their gigantic event, Chivas Studio, taking place 4-6 September in Hong Kong. Terence Yin, a founding member of AnD, also appears A LOT in the artwork being shown, SO PLEASE SUPPORT THIS EVENT! ;
  the ShContemporary art fair, 9-13 september. this will be our gallery's first art fair, so that's definitely a massive stress out. we are only one of 5 hk galleries showing at this fair, which was founded by the founding director of art basel, so it's a major feather in our cap
  then, mid-month, i will go to  istanbul for a speaking engagement, passing through london on the way back to hk so i can attend 100% Design, the UK's most important design show.
  
  omigod, i just realized that i forgot to blog about june's 100% Design Shanghai! i will no doubt have to pay penance for that.... ack! more on that tmo....
  
  [about to fall over now from the exhaustion of tonight's cyber-masturbation....]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• catching up is impossible but here goes!

  Saturday, Jun 21, 2008 11:21AM / Standard Entry / Members only

  i literally haven't written since i decided to open an art gallery in JANUARY!
  jesus!
  ...
  well, i OPENED IT!
  check it out at www.ooibotos.com
  and photos of the gallery are at
  http://www.jonathandsolomon.com/index.html?id=109,115
  (jonathan solomon is a professor of architecture at HKU. i let him do whatever he wanted pretty much, but i told him, please do something crazy and dramatic and radical. the origami-like red fiberglass facade was the result.)
  it's located at 5 gresson street - in the middle of nowhere, yet in the middle of absolutely everything. basically, the gallery is on the wet market lane located between 88-90 and 92-94 queen's road east.
  we have really weird hours, so if you care to drop by, please check the website first.
  my gallery is my major "fuck you, no compromises" statement to the world, the only thing i do in my life (besides blogging here every six months) which isn't meant to please anyone but ME -- a desperately needed antidote to my very commercial life of making stuff people love and buy.
  ...
  too much water under the bridge to attempt a recap. highlights were:
  shooting the shanghai tang ad campaign (april)
  visiting zhou yi, artist, during the installation of her monumental towers on place vendome, paris (april)
  checking out the milan furniture fair (april);
  opening the art gallery (may);
  shanghai tang party at legation quarter, beijing (june) -- i just came back from that.
  those are all the highlights my addled mind can remember at this moment, but, it's just the tip of the iceberg.
  .....
  i just came back from beijing, where i was fortunate enough to see the graduation projects of the central academy of fine arts, from all divisions - fashion to painting to photography to industrial design.
  CONCLUSION (with the concurrence of 3 deans of the school, with whom i was walking around the shows!): oil painting is dead. "so stale", "there's a problem with the teaching". HELL YEAH.
  there were plenty of graduates from the fine arts department who clearly possessed virtuoso technique. but not the vision or content to match.
   anyway, i can't look at a painting these days without feeling straitjacketed.  not only does NEW, CONTEMPORARY painting seem hemmed in by technique and materials, but its manifold expressions have been fully explored (and exhausted) during the last 300 years. PLEASE ARGUE WITH ME, because i'm saying something outrageously sacrilegious.
  (and please do NOT write a comment to this blog which is CUTE, approving, pat and servile. I HATE that!)
  not surprisingly, my art gallery is devoted to THE AVANT-GARDE in all categories, especially photography, because the latter is THE MOST DYNAMIC CATEGORY OF FINE ART these days, for many reasons, which deserve a separate, compelling expatiation.
  but, dammit, not now.
  gotta run.....
  but, PHEW, i wrote an update!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• EDISON CHEN (THE WHOLE THING MAKES ME WANT TO VOMIT)

  Saturday, Feb 23, 2008 7:45AM / Standard Entry / Members only

  we -- IN HONG KONG and ONLY in hk -- expect our cantopop stars and starlets to be perfect, plastic, pre-pubescent, desexualized, eternally teenage, virginal human beings, rather like living hello kitty characters -- rather than full-blooded adults who engage in normal activities, like sex, recreational drug use, cursing -- well, the full gamut of normal behavīor of fully-formed human beings, replete with the inevitable deficiencies of behavīor and character. the fact that we are horrified and transfixed by the entire episode illustrates the profound and unfair ambivalence in which we hold up these overexposed chinese pop stars. the whole episode is a testament to the hypocrisy and sexual repressiveness of hong kong chinese society at large. i'm glad we got to see  these celebrities naked and fornicating. it only shows that they are real flesh and blood, breathing and sweating like the rest of us. at the same time, i'm appalled by society's inability to avert its eyes and lose interest in this sordid, rather pathetic episode in cantopop gossip history. (for myself, i had no idea about this whole thing until i was in the heli lounge at shun tak two days ago and saw someone who looked like daniel wu, having a press conference on the TV. one of my companions then told me it was edison chen, apologizing for his sexual peccadilloes)
  ...
  i can't wait until China Stylus (Jay FC. check out his page on AnD) and Red Dog Studio (Timon Wehrli), come out with their book of beautifully shot nude photos of chinese women, both ordinary and famous! that will shake things up too. OH!!! did you know that famous chinese women sometimes get naked and have sex????
  ...
  JESUS, what kind of place do we live in????
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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• DINOSAUR DREAM

  Tuesday, Jan 15, 2008 9:26AM / Standard Entry / Members only

  my dream last night.

  suddenly, my stomach started feeling jumpy -- but to the point where i could see some creature's head, literally moving beneath the skin on my abdomen. the thrumming sensation turned into something much more violent, jumping. at which point, i actually stuck my hand into my abdomen and tore out a small dinosaur. naturally, that left a huge gaping hole in my gullet. another small dinosaur quickly followed on the heels of the first. and i had to dip my hand into my abdominal cavity again, this time, ripping off most of the flesh on my torso.

  suddenly, i was in a suburban tract home. again, i felt a distinct stirring, then a more tumultuous, back and forth sensation in my stomach. i tore one creature another out of  my body, but, this time, in quicker, then, never-ending, succession. each creature was different -- an admixture between a reptile/dinosaur and a transformer-like plated crustacean. while asleep, i was distinctly aware and living through the sensation of each abdominal disturbance. finally, i was sitting inside the living room of my suburban home, when i saw a young, green, hapless, rather adorable dinosaur show up on the front lawn. somehow, it dawned on me that i had to kill this dinosaur in order to make all the little ones vanish or die.

  i woke up at that point.

  i never remember my dreams, let alone write them down, but this one is still fresh in my consciousness. i can still feel each creature in my body, thrashing around....

  
  

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• YOU SHOULD GO TO THIS ON SATURDAY, GODDAMMIT

  Tuesday, Jan 8, 2008 10:00PM / Standard Entry / Members only

  www.clockenflap.com
  first, the name is deliriously absurd.
  next, the artists from st/art will be painting the "flap", so to speak.
  plus, there are some cool bands playing there all day. from 2 pm to 2 am! namely, the Young Knives.
  cyberport.
  if you need convincing, go to www.start.hk, then you will understand the vibe, the purpose, THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTING WHAT LITTLE GRASSROOTS ARTISTIC COMMUNITY there is in hk.
  for once, i myself am going to get off my a-- and drag as many people there as possible.
  GO!!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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