Ink Subversion: Through Gender Lenses 墨夬：性別鏡像: Art Basel Hong Kong 2024 Parallel Exhibition 巴塞爾藝術展香港展會2024平行展覽

Can we subvert tradition with tradition itself? What happens when ink meets gender? How can we intervene in the tradition of Chinese ink art through the lenses of gender? This exhibition attempts to answer these questions and stimulate discussions and creation by presenting the ink and multi-media artworks from the female ink artist Peng Wei (HKBU’s Institute of Creativity Distinguished Visitor 2023–24) and six artists from HKBU’s Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) and bringing them into dialogue. Women and their own subjectivity are the core subjects of this exhibition, while the complexity and fluidity of gender are equally emphasised. The exhibition can be broadly grouped into four interrelated sections: “She is Here”, “Writing and Women”, “Re-Examining Female Virtue”, and “Relations and Reconstruction”. It presents new dimensions of contemporary art on ink and gender from Mainland China and Hong Kong. The participating artists incorporate their individual artistic responses to varied gender issues into a long male-dominated form of Chinese art — ink painting and calligraphy — with different approaches and from various perspectives. Besides ink painting and calligraphy on paper or silk, their creative works involve various other media, including photography, performance art, video, animation, glass, fabric, installation, etc. They borrow, reflect on, negotiate, or subvert the ideas from Chinese ink art and culture, pushing the boundaries of contemporary ink art. This exhibition seeks to find critical paths to contemporary art practice that are rooted in Chinese ink tradition while challenge Chinese gender stereotypes and constructedness.

The English word “subversion” in the exhibition’s main title corresponds to the character, guai 夬, in the Chinese title but cannot fully represent its layered meanings. Guai refers to the hexagram from the Chinese classic Book of Changes, or Yijing, a book about the principles of changes in the world. As one of the sixty-four hexagrams, The hexagram guai denotes the symbolic natural imagery of prosperity after rains. It refers to a “breakthrough” or a “resolute advance” after a long accumulation of tension, while it also signifies the moment when the people of inferior status gradually begin to disappear, which represents a subversion in power relations. The exhibition involves the transformation of various gender relations, and it showcases the power dynamics for women and the rising (self-)consciousness of female subjectivity. Such transformation and changes accord with the meanings of the gui hexagram.

我們可以透過傳統顛覆傳統嗎？當水墨與性別相遇，會有怎樣的激蕩？如何通過性別的濾鏡和視角介入中國水墨藝術的傳統？本次展覽提出這些問題，嘗試以女性藝術家彭薇與六位浸大視覺藝術院藝術家的水墨和多媒介作品及其對話給出答案，引發更多討論和創作。主標題中的「夬」字出自中國傳統經典《易經》，一本探討「變化」的書。六十四卦之一的夬 卦，有雨從天降、潤澤大地的含義。「夬」卦一方面指長期緊張關係之後的突破或轉折，代表了一種毅然、堅決的變化。另一方面，此卦指等級較低、處於劣勢的人逐漸消失，有權力地位顛覆的意味。本次展覽涉及多種性別關係的轉化和改變，呈現了以往處於劣勢的女性之權力關係的變化或鬆動，以及女性自我意識的湧現，契合「夬」卦所代表的豐富變化。

「女性」及其主體性是本次展覽的核心討論及表現對象，而性別的多面性與流動性亦是展覽的重點。參展藝術家將各自對多種性別議題的回應，以不同方式和角度融入長期由男性主導的中國書畫水墨藝術中，展示了中國內地及香港當代水墨藝術的新面向和趨勢。展覽內容大致可以劃分為四個相互關聯的部分：「她就在這」，「書寫與女性」，「重審女德」以及「關係與重建」。除了紙本、絹本水墨書畫，展出作品還融合了攝影、行為藝術、影像、動畫、玻璃等多種媒介和裝置，呈現出藝術家以多元媒介對水墨藝術、文化及觀念的借用、反思與革新，也重新討論了當代水墨藝術的定義與邊界。