project retrospective | Bicycle Thieves@Para Site | 22/F, Wing Wah Industrial Building, 677 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong

Bicycle Thieves

DATE | Jun 29, 2019 – Sep 1, 2019

LOCATION | Para Site| 22/F, Wing Wah Industrial Building, 677 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong

Artists |

Chang Yuchen, Luke Ching Chin Wai, Stephanie Comilang, Dark Fluid, Dries Depoorter, Display Distribute, Hong Kong Artist Union, Firenze Lai, Miao Jiaxin, Yunyu “Ayo” Shih,   Eason Tsang Ka Wai, Andrew Norman Wilson, Wong Kit Yi, Lantian Xie, Xu Tan, Yao Qingmei  

 

Bicycle Thieves is curated by Hanlu Zhang. Artist Luke Ching shares Italo Calvino’s fable about a city in which every citizen is a thief: they maintain everyday life by breaking into neighbours’ homes and stealing from one another until the arrival one day of an “honest man” who does not steal, throwing the town’s ecology into disequilibrium. Some continue stealing while others close their doors and hire workers to steal for them. Eventually, wealth gaps and class divisions start to emerge, and a security system is established.

Bicycle Thieves is interested in the fine line between sharing and stealing. Paying tribute to the eponymous Italian neorealist film in which a worker spends all his family savings to buy the bicycle needed for a new job but ends up losing the bike at the hands of a thief on his first day of work, the group exhibition extends the film’s concern to a contemporary context and highlights individuals’ precarious status as situated within increasingly tricky relations to various institutions and systems.

If we are to find a bike embodying the Zeitgeist of today, an invention once championed but soon bankrupted comes to mind: the bike sharing platforms. Juxtaposing the two imageries of bicycle, we speculate now with a seemingly far-fetched question: could these shared bikes be a potential solution to the tragedy depicted in the movie of some seventy years ago? Under the fluctuating backdrop of technological development, economic transition and political aggression, what has changed and what has not? Who are the bicycle thieves today?

Whether in post-World War II Italy or post-internet China, bicycles epitomise the relationships between humans and the technical object as means of production. Labour is at stake here because it is an everyday form of public participation for each one of us. As both a platform for sharing and a den for bandits, Bicycle Thieves seeks to discuss the relations between labour and technology not only in digital economies, but also within the service sector, domestic work and contemporary art. More than one of the participating artists experiment with the unusual concept of “artist as service provider”, exploring subversive potentials within both the private domain and the realm of the imaginary.

Looking from the perspective of Hong Kong, there is a sense of uncertainty and crisis from the crossroads at which the city finds itself. Confronted simultaneously by global capitalism and the dubious Hong Kong-mainland relationship, we are intertwined with leviathan infrastructures and conflicting systems. Now that the intimacies between technology and power centralisation are widely acknowledged, how do we re-evaluate the labour of organising, the network and collective processes? Is it possible to borrow, appropriate and even re-invent technologies? With these questions in mind, Bicycle Thieves invites practitioners from various backgrounds to envision possibilities for alternative systems and diverse technological futures.

Hanlu Zhang is a writer and curator based in Shanghai. She is also editor at artforum.com.cn. Hanlu received her MA in Art History, Theory and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013. She received second place in the “International Award for Art Criticism” in 2014 and her writing can be found on LEAP, ArtReview Asia, Flash Art, and art-agenda. In 2015, she co-curated “Nightmare of Exhibition Part II: the Two-way Theater” at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai. She has also curated exhibitions at No Longer Empty and 49B Studios in New York, Yang Art Museum and 798 Photo Gallery in Beijing, among other spaces. Zhang is interested in art as public sphere, and she has participated in multiple collaborative projects/platforms such as OnPractice and Theater 44.

Zhang’s curatorial proposal for Bicycle Thieves was chosen from an international pool of submissions made as part of Para Site’s annual Emerging Curators programme, now in its fifth year. The programme offers full access to the institution’s resources and network, in supporting the development and presentation of the curator’s exhibition on site.

Exhibition Design: Liu Yang / Atelier Waterside

Exhibition 「CATALOGUE」: Display Distribute + Hanlu Zhang

Bicycle Thieves is financially supported by the Project Grant of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. The Hong Kong Arts Development Council fully supports freedom of artistic expression. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council.

藝術家 |

常羽辰、程展緯、Stephanie Comilang、暗流體、Dries Depoorter、展銷場、香港藝術家工會、黎清妍、繆佳欣、施昀佑、曾家偉、Andrew Norman Wilson、黃潔宜、謝藍天、徐坦、姚清妹

「偷單車的人」由張涵露策劃。藝術家程展緯分享過一則卡爾維諾的短篇小說，故事描繪了一座人人都是小偷的城市，市民心照不宣，通過每晚盜竊鄰居家財物來維生，各取所需，直到來了一位「誠實的人」；他不願偷，因此導致原先的平衡被打破：有人繼續偷，有人關起大門累積財富還雇傭別人幫他去偷，最終這個城邦開始顯現出貧富差距和階級分化，並且建立了治安系統。

展覽「偷單車的人」關注偷盜與分享之間那條細細的界線。標題借用意大利新現實主義傑作《偷自行車的人》（港譯《單車竊賊》），在電影裡，一位工人為了得到廣告招貼的工作，以全家積蓄換得一部單車，但這輛寄託了生活希望的車卻在工作第一天被偷。是次群展致敬這部七十年前的影片，并意圖將其中的詰問延伸至今天的社會，觀察個體處于諸多越來越繁雜和詭譎的體制和系統中的境遇——七十年後是變更好還是更壞了？

如果要在今天找一部凝聚時代精神的單車，我們可能會想到一項曾被寄予厚望然而今已成為逝去景觀和廢墟美學的技術發明：共享單車。將相隔七十年的兩個單車意象重疊，便推演出一個看似錯亂的問題：滿大街的共享單車是否可能為電影中刻畫的倫理困境提供解決方案？展覽由此追問：「共享經濟」與誰共享？在今天，誰是偷單車的人？

單車在兩個語境中都折射出人與技術物的關係，也可以說是一件重要的生產資料。從勞工問題切入，因其是我們每個人參與公共生活的日常形式。展覽及其後續活動和出版物將研究隨著技術發展和經濟轉型而出現的「數碼勞工」及其不穩定（precarious）狀態，同時也關注傳統服務業、家務勞動、藝術勞工與技術之間的關係。不止一位（組）創作者對「作為服務的藝術」這一富有爭議的概念進行實驗，以此試探私領域和想象域的顛覆力。

「偷單車的人」希望捕捉到香港在2019年六月所經歷的動蕩和不安，除了呈現抗爭的記錄外，展覽也開闢朝向未來的行動空間。長期來說，這座城市同時面對全球金融資本主義、中央政治野心、「大灣區」經濟計劃等來自不同方向的制度、系統及基礎設施架構。技術與權力集中化的親密關係已被廣泛認識，但我們可不可能去借用、佔有，甚至重新發明技術？今天應如何重新看待組織、網絡和集體工作？「偷單車的人」既搭建一個分享的平台，也為「小偷」提供溫床，由此啟程同各領域的創作者一起對替代系統的可能性及多樣化的技術未來作出想象。

張涵露是一名寫作者和策展人，並擔任ARTFORUM中文網編輯。她出生並生活於上海，2013年於芝加哥藝術學院修畢藝術歷史、理論和評論碩士。2014年獲「國際藝術評論獎」（IAAC）二等獎，文章發表於瑞象視點、LEAP、Flash Art以及art-agenda等媒體。2015年入圍上海當代藝術博物館「青策」項目並聯合呈現了「展覽的噩夢（下）：雙向劇場」；除此之外，她曾在紐約No Longer Empty、49B Studios，北京央美術館、百年印象等空間策劃展覽；2018年參與了「成都·蓬皮杜：“全球都市”」雙年展。張涵露曾參與實踐論和44劇場等多個合作性項目，她對藝術的公共性感興趣。張涵露的策展方案「偷單車的人」從第五屆Para Site年度新晉策展人項目的國際徵件中脱穎而出。該項目將提供機構的全方位資源，以支持被選中策展方案的研究和布展。

展覽空間設計：劉洋/ 氹邊建築工作室

展覽「目錄」：展銷場 + 張涵露

「偷單車的人」獲香港藝術發展局計劃資助。香港藝術發展局全力支持藝術表達自由，本計劃內容並不反映本局意見。

all photos and texts credits: Para Site www.para-site.art