Greg Girard’s photo exhibition shows five decades of Hong Kong and Tokyo
Photographer Greg Girard’s new exhibition puts two Asian metropolises – Hong Kong and Tokyo – in the frame over five decades
Today, the image is iconic. Enveloped by the blackness of night, a young Chow Yun-Fat holds a burning banknote, eyes aglow and arms clutched towards his chest in a state of ecstasy as he gazes into the growing flame. Behind him, co-star Cherie Chung Chor-hung gives a wide, revelatory grin as neon billboards in the distance are reflected in the harbour.
More than a showcase of Chow and Chung’s thespian prowess, the photograph, snapped by Canadian photographer Greg Girard in 1987 on the set of The Eighth Happiness, captures Hong Kong’s “golden era” at its apex in the final years before the Handover in 1997, when the city’s culture, fuelled by a buoyant stock market, was exported all over the world.
“That was an exciting and pivotal time to be here. A lot of people made pictures about Hong Kong with this question mark over it, but I started making pictures here without any documentary agenda, just walking the streets [to capture] what normal life looks like,” Girard tells PostMag. “I always thought it was a fascinating place and it didn’t need to be within the framework of a story.”
That approach defines the Vancouver-based veteran’s latest solo exhibition at WKM Gallery, running until May 23. Simply titled “HKG-TYO 1974-2023”, the curation bridges two of Girard’s adopted hometowns over a 49-year period, where he began his storied career as a young photographer wandering through the neon-drenched avenues and alleyways of two of East Asia’s most electric metropolises, charting their parallel journeys from 1970s industrialisation to the heady “bubble” years.
A common motif between the two cities is the proliferation of neon signage – an art form that Girard captures in a juxtaposition of vibrancy and melancholy.