All City Canvas

A virtual tour of Vhils’ work at HOCA and on the streets of Hong Kong

Text by Monica Vazquez – Translation by Briana Prieto Fuentes

Identity and life in the urban context are the topics of the exhibition Debris at Hong Kong Contemporary Art (HOCA), by Alexandre Farto, better known as Vhils. The exhibition ran from march 21 to april 4, 2016 and for all those who wanted to see it, the artist shared a virtual tour of the exhibition and his work on the streets.

Vhils is a portuguese artist, who is known for using the walls to sculpt, to put collages on them and, in this occasion, to fill them with neon lights. The urban life and contemporary societies have been his subjects of interest during his artistic trajectory.

A bit of context of the artist in Hong Kong

It was his first individual exhibition in this asian region. A series of interventions in emblematic places and most traveled of Hong Kong. This work invited the residents and tourists to think about their urban environment and cultural landscape. Besides part of his work was exposed at HOCA. The artist used the gallery and the streets as spaces of exhibitions and expressions.

Time, geometric elements, and images that have turned into symbols of Hong Kong. Were also part of Vhils’ inspiration to intervene a trolley car with portraits of citizen’s histories; besides placing compositions of neon and metal in the middle of the streets, showing an extremely transited region wrapped in his own cultural diversity.

With this exhibition, HOCA, an organization founded in 2014, fulfilled one of his principal aims: to promote and to develop access to contemporary art in Hong Kong.

With information from Vhils, HOCA, We Heart and Artsy.