AMID HONG KONG'S crowded skyscrapers and teeming streets, local artists are finding new spaces and ways to introduce their three-dimensional works to the public.
Locally based British sculptor James Wolfe, whose pieces explore and break geometry, says the city's streets, shops and malls are potential venues for temporary public art and performances.
'We don't necessarily need to look for anchor pieces of sculpture that are going to be there for 50 years,' says the 44-year-old artist, who has lived in Hong Kong for five years. 'It would be a positive thing to develop this concept of temporary public art. It [fits] the ever-changing style of Hong Kong. It doesn't stand still.'
During a day-long public performance sponsored by a property developer on Sunday, Wolfe made a cubist-influenced, tree-like sculpture in a cordoned-off driveway outside Lee Gardens, on Causeway Bay's Hysan Avenue.
Accompanied by experimental music, amplified sounds of working and echoes in the background, Wolfe shaped, fixed and painted pieces of plywood and styrofoam into a three-metre-tall sculpture within a few hours. The Briton says the concrete jungle theme of the piece is a response to 'the architectural rhythm of Hong Kong'. He also exhibited two other tree-form sculptures.
Wolfe graduated from the Wimbledon School of Art in London and held his first solo exhibition, of stone carving, in 1988. He came to Hong Kong five years ago on a visit and liked it so much that he stayed. He now works from a studio in Sheung Wan, and has participated in a number of arts-education projects and created murals for schools and hospitals. He preparing for a solo exhibition in December. His three tree sculptures will be displayed for at least a week in Lee Gardens' ground-floor exhibition lobby.
Wolfe says the local art scene is expanding, with more sculptures being displayed in public areas and institutes. An exhibition of Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming's work at Times Square last month highlights an increasing interest by shopping centres and property companies in cultural events, he says - providing a chance to introduce the public to sculpture.