Hong Kong’s Legendary Frog King Debuts New Performance “Smoke of Change”

Description

Kwok Mang-ho (b. 1947), aka. Frog King Kwok, is an important figure in the history of contemporary art in Hong Kong who pioneered experimentation in performance and conceptual practices as early as the 1970s.

Originally trained in ink painting and calligraphy in the studio of seminal New Ink Painting master Lui Shou Kwan, Frog King is one of the earliest Chinese contemporary artists to explore the use of ink painting as a conceptual tool, incorporating it as both action and material into multiple-media installations, performances, happenings and assembled environments incorporating discards and everyday objects.

In his practice, Frog King drifts between Chinese and Western cultures by combining Chinese calligraphy with Latin writing which, he terms “sandwich font” or by bold splashes of paint used with both a performative and Taoist intention. Frog King was selected as Hong Kong‘s artist for the 54th Venice Biennale and will have a major installation at the relaunch of the Hong Kong Museum of Art in November 2019.

His new solo exhibition The Living Legend personifies the force that he has embodied for 50 years as a local artist, featuring new works of paintings and installations, as well as the new site-specific performance “Smoke of Change”, which takes place on 7 November 2019.