Just Kids!
Chi-Wen Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong 2020
Online Viewing Rooms
March 20 – 25, 2020
Victoria Sin
If I had the words to tell you we wouldn’t be here now, 2019
Documentary Film of Live Performance, 16 January 2019 at Chi-Wen Gallery, Colour, Sound, 22’15”
Gallery Collection
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Victoria Sin (b. 1991) currently lives and works in London, UK.
Produced and commissioned exclusively by Chi-Wen Gallery and performed on January 16th 2019, Victoria Sin created “If I had the words to tell you we wouldn’t be here now”, a performance using storytelling, drag, and elements of Taiwanese and Chinese opera to question how language not only gives shape to thought, but shapes thought. The performance staged a conversation between a desiring queer body and a traditional Taiwanese string instrument, the Pipa. Set in Chi-Wen Gallery’s own water garden, the work brings together narrative and image in order to bring to light how identity and experience are not only represented but also created and reinforced through language.
Preview Link:
https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/398178041/c029317796
For viewing the full length video, please contact us for your personal access code.
Makeup on face wipes (Upon Request)
An embodied language, 33.5 x 30.5 x 6.5cm, 2019
You have not been given the words to describe how multiple yourselves are, 33.5 x 30.5 x 6.5cm, 2019
The difference between you and I, 33.5 x 30.5 x 6.5cm, 2019
Victoria Sin
Act 1 Part 1 of A View from Elsewhere – Tell me everything you saw, and what you think it means, 2018
Single-channel Video, 4K, Colour, Sound, 5’38”
Edition 5+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Victoria Sin (b. 1991) currently lives and works in London, UK.
Renowned drag queen Victoria Sin combined their drag with multimedia art forms since 2013. Alternative narration is the aesthetic prominence of their video works. Act 1 Part 3 of A View from Elsewhere, body of work performed as multimedia fantasy on the experience of desire, shame and identification of the material queer body, featuring sound design by Shy One. In ‘Illocutionary Utterances’ a high definition close up of Victoria Sin’s lipsync in drag makeup is played over a sound piece exploring the role thats speech acts play in the ascription of gender. Speech acts which ascribe gender outside of a subject’s control are compared to speech acts of self identification, while overpainted lips mime exagerated attempts to sync with an altogether different soundtrack.
Preview Link: https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/398178159/1d48d0f528
For viewing the full length video, please contact us for your personal access code.
Installation View: Age of You, MOCA, Toronto, Canada, 2019
Photo credit: Tom Arban Photography Inc
Victoria Sin
Act 1 Part 3 of A View from Elsewhere – Illocutionary Utterances, 2018
Single-channel Video, HD, Colour, Sound, 5’54”
Edition 5+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Victoria Sin (b. 1991) currently lives and works in London, UK.
Renowned drag queen Victoria Sin combined their drag with multimedia art forms since 2013. Alternative narration is the aesthetic prominence of their video works. Act 1 Part 3 of A View from Elsewhere, body of work performed as multimedia fantasy on the experience of desire, shame and identification of the material queer body, featuring sound design by Shy One. In ‘Illocutionary Utterances’ a high definition close up of Victoria Sin’s lipsync in drag makeup is played over a sound piece exploring the role thats speech acts play in the ascription of gender. Speech acts which ascribe gender outside of a subject’s control are compared to speech acts of self identification, while overpainted lips mime exagerated attempts to sync with an altogether different soundtrack.
Preview Link: https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/398178130/f7478f4b6a
For viewing the full length video, please contact us for your personal access code.
Installation View: Age of You, MOCA, Toronto, Canada, 2019
Photo credit: Tom Arban Photography Inc
Victoria Sin
Narrative Reflections on Looking: Preface/Looking Without Touching, 2017
Single-channel Video, 4K, Colour, Sound, 1’07”
Edition 3+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Victoria Sin (b. 1991) currently lives and works in London, UK.
Renowned drag queen Victoria Sin combined their drag with multimedia art forms since 2013. Alternative narration is the aesthetic prominence of their video works. ‘Narrative Reflections on Looking’ is a series of films on the dynamics of power and desire in the experience of identifying with images. In ‘Preface/Looking Without Touching’, the lines of embodiment and parody of western beauty ideals are blurred in Sin’s drag persona, and viewers are invited to look at a breathing image which references the visual language of cinema and systems of looking in which femininity and feminine bodies are predefined.
Preview Link: https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/398149851/81c6bd5b13
For viewing the full length video, please contact us for your personal access code.
Installation View: La vie des choses, MOMENTA Biennale de l’Image, Montreal, Canada, 2019
Photo credit: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Victoria Sin
Narrative Reflections on Looking: Part One/She Was More than the Sum of My Parts, 2016
Single-channel Video, 4K, Colour, Sound, 3’36”
Edition 3+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Victoria Sin (b. 1991) currently lives and works in London, UK.
Renowned drag queen Victoria Sin combined their drag with multimedia art forms since 2013. Alternative narration is the aesthetic prominence of their video works. ‘Narrative Reflections on Looking’ is a series of films on the dynamics of power and desire in the experience of identifying with images. In ‘Preface/Looking Without Touching’, the lines of embodiment and parody of western beauty ideals are blurred in Sin’s drag persona, and viewers are invited to look at a breathing image which references the visual language of cinema and systems of looking in which femininity and feminine bodies are predefined.
Preview Link: https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/398149804/745dfd9539
For viewing the full length video, please contact us for your personal access code.
Installation View: La vie des choses, MOMENTA Biennale de l’Image, Montreal, Canada, 2019
Photo credit: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Victoria Sin
Narrative Reflections on Looking: Part Two/The Reprise of Cthulhu, 2017
Single-channel Video, 4K, Colour, Sound, 3’31”
Edition 3+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Victoria Sin (b. 1991) currently lives and works in London, UK.
Renowned drag queen Victoria Sin combined their drag with multimedia art forms since 2013. Alternative narration is the aesthetic prominence of their video works. ‘Narrative Reflections on Looking’ is a series of films on the dynamics of power and desire in the experience of identifying with images. In ‘Preface/Looking Without Touching’, the lines of embodiment and parody of western beauty ideals are blurred in Sin’s drag persona, and viewers are invited to look at a breathing image which references the visual language of cinema and systems of looking in which femininity and feminine bodies are predefined.
Preview Link: https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/398149837/0b2cb395b9
For viewing the full length video, please contact us for your personal access code.
Installation View: La vie des choses, MOMENTA Biennale de l’Image, Montreal, Canada, 2019
Photo credit: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Victoria Sin
Narrative Reflections on Looking: Part Three/Cthulhu Through the Looking Glass, 2017
Single-channel Video, 4K, Colour, Sound, 4’02”
Edition 3+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Victoria Sin (b. 1991) currently lives and works in London, UK.
Renowned drag queen Victoria Sin combined their drag with multimedia art forms since 2013. Alternative narration is the aesthetic prominence of their video works. ‘Narrative Reflections on Looking’ is a series of films on the dynamics of power and desire in the experience of identifying with images. In ‘Preface/Looking Without Touching’, the lines of embodiment and parody of western beauty ideals are blurred in Sin’s drag persona, and viewers are invited to look at a breathing image which references the visual language of cinema and systems of looking in which femininity and feminine bodies are predefined.
Preview Link: https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/398149824/f1d2c1f220
For viewing the full length video, please contact us for your personal access code.
Installation View: La vie des choses, MOMENTA Biennale de l’Image, Montreal, Canada, 2019
Photo credit: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Yu Cheng-Ta & Ming Wong
Watermelon Love, 2017
Single-channel Video, HD, Colour, Sound, 10’22”
Edition 5+2AP
Courtesy of the artists and Chi-Wen Gallery
Yu Cheng-Ta (b. 1983) currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan.
Ming Wong (b.1971) currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Yu Cheng-Ta and Ming Wong collaborative project “Watermelon Love” brings together artists from different regions and contest, including Berlin-based American artist Wu Tsang, FAFSWAG, the Pacific LGBTQ+ collective from New Zealand. Drawing from auteur Tsai Ming-Liang’s themes, images, languages and more, Ming Wong and Yu Cheng-Ta present themselves as the “Watermelon sisters”, celestial fairies descended to earth. Ming Wong pays homage to Tsai Ming-Liang’s “The Wayward Cloud”, in which watermelon is used as a symbol of fertility and sensuality. “Watermelon Love” explores gender gestures and mixes in traditional huangmei opera, contemporary popular culture and common scene on the streets in Taipei. Ming Wong linked it to the historical turning point of Taiwan’s move towards legalizing gay marriage.
Preview Link: https://vimeo.com/user20644139/review/396114732/e9d281e782
For high resolution viewing, please contact us for your personal access code.
Su Misu
ihategoodbye, 2016
Photography, Inkjet Print on Canson Baryta Prestige
50 x 33.5cm
Edition 8+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery
Su Misu (b. 1990) currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan.
Natural light on 135mm negative, revealing clothes or nudity, no resplendent accessories affixed. Models gaze right through Su’s camera lens with a calm demeanor, as if there is nothing left to manifest. Ihategoodbye is more of a “Watashi-Shashin” project: Photo shooting in a relatively casual manner, documenting an authentic lifestyle, nothing pretentious. Nevertheless, these portraits reveal what Su cherishes the most during the execution of her project: mutual respect. Though being dear friends already, Su said that she still tends to prevent any discomfort from happening between her model and herself while shooting photos, which can be an abusive experience.
Taiwanese photographer Su Misu is known for exploring gender, BDSM and LGBTQ+ topics. Coming from a medical background, she’s interested in the “Synthetic”, the “Unnatural”, and other embodiments, using photography to discuss the struggle between the real and the illusory. Her work draws from Lacan’s psychoanalytic concept of the mirror stage, which is where a subject becomes alienated from itself and is introduced into an imaginary order. Despite her young age, Su’s photographic work is one of the highlights of our presentation due to her unique approach and skill in style and composition. With signature pieces of her recent series “ihategoodbye” and “I am a fake, but my heart is true” on show, one can get a clear understanding of the trajectory of Su’s practice.
Marx Liao
Just Kids! Preview, 2020
Photography, Inkjet Print on Canson Baryta Prestige
33.5 x 50cm
Edition 8+2AP
Courtesy of the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery