Curators: Cosmin Costinas, Larys Frogier, Celia Ho, Anqi Li, Billy Tang, and Xu Tiantian
Collaborators: Biljana Ciric and Mathieu Copeland
Chantal Akerman, Xyza Cruz Bacani, Leigh Bowery, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Cao Guimarães, Ho Sin Tung, Hu Yinping, Hu Yun, Derek Jarman, Shuang Li, Minouk Lim, Gustav Metzger, Ocean & Wavz, Jacolby Satterwhite, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Tan Jing, Robel Temesgen, Jason Wee, Cici Wu, Wu Jiaru, Stella Zhang, Jasphy Zheng, and Zhou Tao.
Curtain the ob/scene
or what can happen
beyond the scene
besides the eye
before language
beneath the skin
below the image
on the surface
Curtain unfolded
allowing passages or separations
filtering light, voices
clothing bodies and furniture
ornamenting a house, a skin
absorbing smells, sounds
reflecting shadows
flowing with the wind
breathing
Presented across two venues in Hong Kong, Curtain includes existing and newly commissioned works as well as site-specific interventions by 24 artists, offering a multi-layered experience that responds to the fluid concept of ‘curtain’. The exhibition makes artistic and conceptual references to passages, frontiers, separations, connections, occupations, circulations, and localities by drawing upon the mundane materiality of the curtain as a domestic object and its scenographic functions in various cultural contexts. Conceived as a framework to disrupt our usual habits of consuming visual culture, the exhibition also activates the viewer’s senses through acts of crawling into, lifting, peeking through, being guided by smell and sound, or that of reading, writing, and feeling a space.
Many artworks in the exhibition subtly unveil forgotten histories and raise critical questions in the age of surveillance by examining the production of the image and its instrumentalization in social media, science, art, and political regimes as seen in newspapers and photographic documents. In addition to exploring issues related to the visible and invisible in technology platforms and social structures today, other works look at smaller-scale ecologies on the periphery of the mainstream, attempting to understand the interdependence of different localities and the importance of transnational exchange from overlooked perspectives. In yet other artworks, ‘curtain’ not only serves as the physical partition in the exhibition space, but expands into the discussion of technology and the boundary of the screen. As people become more dependent on digital devices, the relationship between humanity and the world has also experienced a major shift, with digital devices becoming the main means for humans to learn about the world and themselves. Many of the works also focus on the performative dynamic between individual and collective forms of identity, and deepen the inquiry into how humanity perceives and differentiates the Other from oneself. For the practitioners featured in Curtain, each work represents a retracing of memories or a path into the future, with the anticipation to influence informational infrastructures that govern or haunt a post-COVID-19 pandemic world.
Curtain the transitional object
a fetish
a missed self
the other
Curtain performed
as a scenographic material for
theater
opera
dance
exhibition
cinema
music
puppet show
TV news and entertainment
