The Works：M+ ink art, artist Christian Marclay, percussionist Matthew Lau & tribute to Yu Kwang-chun

Over the past few years, while the permanent M+ museum, and indeed the entire West Kowloon Cultural District, is being completed, the team has been creating programmes and activities to showcase the museum’s collections. On show at the M+ Pavilion until mid-January, “The Weight of Lightness” is the museum’s first exhibition of ink art.
American artist Christian Marclay has been examining the relationship between sound and visual art for the past 30 years, merging sound and music with performance, collage, sculpture, installation, photography and video. His early works vary from performances with turntables and dragging a guitar behind a pick-up truck to using clips from old movies with added sound. In 2010’s The Clock, he edited thousands of movie clips together to create a 24-hour clock that is also a reflection on time in the cinema. His current exhibition at White Cube features a series of prints based on the image of a scream we cannot hear.
Percussionist Matthew Lau has a wide repertoire that includes classical music, jazz, and contemporary music. He has also been known to incorporate electronics and technology in his works. Not only was his debut with his own vibraphone concerto at the Aspen Music Festival acclaimed, he has also commissioned other composers to write for him. He performs in chamber ensembles and as a soloist. Now, having earned a Master of Music degree from New York University and a doctorate from Stony Brook University, he’s back in Hong Kong and – today – in our studio.
Last Thursday, at the age of 89, Yu Kwang-chung died of pneumonia in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. A poet, writer and educator, he was one of the most influential contemporary Chinese-language poets. He was also a scholar of English literature and translation. Yu came to Hong Kong in 2011 to promote “Inspired Island” a series of documentary films about Taiwan’s literary heritage, one of which featured his life and work. We spoke to him then.