The Works：Violin maker Corvus Kwok, Alexander Calder, poet Nicholas Wong & theater "LGBTI Citizen",

When you think about violin-making, if you do, you’re likely to think about craftsmen in Italy, particularly the Stradivari family who produced the famous Stradivarius violins and other string instruments. But not everyone can afford, or even necessarily wants, a centuries-old instrument. Here in Hong Kong, one music graduate has taken up the craft. Now also working as a music teacher, Corvus Kwok has a workshop not in a typical industrial building space, but in a wet market.
American artist and sculptor Alexander Calder is known for his metallic kinetic sculptures that danced in mid-air as they balanced and moved. He also created monumental sculptures he called “stabiles”, as well as jewellery, oil paintings and toys. On show until the 16th July at Pace Gallery are eleven mobiles and stabiles he made between 1936 and 1969.
London’s two-week Pride Festival ended just last Sunday. It included an array of cultural events, including movies, fashion, guided tours, exhibitions, shows, concerts, seminars, events for LGBT youth, as well as plenty of parties. Here in Hong Kong, we don’t have such a long city-wide festival, even though the non-profit Pink Alliance, organises an annual parade to promote equal rights. Similarly, the local LGBTI art scene might not be quite so well known as that in other places, but a recent international award to Hong Kong poet, Nicholas Wong has refocused attention on this aspect of our art scene.
Ho Fan’s black and white photographs of Hong Kong during the 1950s and 1960s, capturing the lives of the people at the time, are iconic. Influenced by both Western and Eastern culture, Ho Fan loved the music of Brahms, Mahler, and Stravinsky. He also loved writing, ranging from Chinese poetry and drama, to Shakespeare’s plays, Greek tragedy and Hemingway. But it is lives on the street that inspired him most. Ho Fan passed away on 19th June in California at the age of 84.
His most recent visit to Hong Kong was in 2014 to open his second exhibition of work at the AO Vertical art space. We spoke to him then.