GROUP PROJECT BY WOW! (Andy Cheung and Joyce Wong)

Title: Just what is it that makes today’s home so different, so
appealing?

Artist: Richard Hamilton

Year: 1956

Medium: Collage of printed materials and
gouache

Dimension: 25.7 X 24.5 cm.

 

Title: “Just what is it that makes today’s homes in Mong Kok so different, so depraved?”. Artist: Andy Cheung

                Joyce Wong       

Year: 2011

Type: Jpeg file 

Dimension: flexible

In the late 1950s, an Art style “Pop” emerged in America. The “Pop Art” emphasis on derivation from commercial sources, daily life subjects, mass production and mass media. It is in contrast to Abstract Expressionist style which emphasis on abstract, inner world and unconscious expression. Pop artists are more focusing on the objective “here and now” and are more close to the reality. Richard Hamilton is one of the leading masters in Pop Art history and his art work “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” is also one of the most celebrated image in Pop Art history. It was created for the exhibition entitled This is Tomorrow held by Whitechapel Art Gallery in London. This art work was finished at around August ,1956 and the format of art is collage which used different material such as newspaper clipping, photograph or other found objects and then glued to a piece of paper or canvas. Richard Hamilton used American magazine, poster, comic, etc to reflect the climate in post war consumer culture and materialism in Britain. Although, the art work is small collage, only 25.7 cm times 24.5 cm, it still embodied with a lot of iconographic prescription includes “Man, nude Woman, Humanity, History, Food, Newspaper, Cinema, Comics (picture information), Words (textual information), Tape recording (aural information), Cars, Domestic appliances and Space” (Stonard 2007). All of this iconology was representing the Britain culture movement in that particular period of time. So, by rearranging the icon of this work by the up-to-date imagery in Hong Kong, it will fit the concept of “here and now” in Hong Kong as the iconography prescription can represent the modern Hong Kong in a specific way. Therefore we changed Richard Hamilton works into a new one with Hong Kong characteristic. In this essay we will explain the similarity and difference between the original work and our new work by comparing the composition, color, rhythm, size, medium of art and texture.

Firstly, our title “Just what is it that makes today’s homes in Mong Kok so different, so depraved?” which is very similar to the original one. The similar title is to capture the concept of “here and now” by the most updated climate in Hong Kong. We used of some cheap material to maintain the concept of mass produce and low-cost in our work.

In details, we used the latest model of Iphone and Ipad to replace the tape recording on the foreground as the color and shape are very similar. Moreover It is a symbolism that emphasis mass media was changed into a high-tech way. The screen of the iphone is showing a famous forum, HKGolden.com in Hong Kong and that of the Ipad is showing a facebook’s homepage, which are the most common communicating channel and information retrieving centre for the teenagers and adolescent which bring out the idea that we are changed in the media of communication between the mass media.

The face of nude-hunk man in the foreground found in Hamilton’s original work was changed by a face of Hong Kong singer Chan Siu-chun who is holding an Axe which is copied from the electronic game instead of a Lollipop. Chan Siu-chun is an icon of triad member in Hong Kong as he acted the character of triad member several time in Hong Kong movie. In addition, a story from Aesop’s Fable, the Axe represents greedy and temptation.

The ford symbol/logo on the lamp expressed the desire of power, status, luxury and money was changed to a Cocaine lamp which represents desire of drugs. The nude lady on the couch was replaced by another famous Hong Kong singer Jill Wai Sze, she is one of the famous singers who take drugs and got catch in Hong Kong. We changed the representation of the tin ham on the table with a big cough syrup accompany with drugs and syringe, these objects represents delusion, recreation, a symbol of drugs abuse and avoidance from reality. By combining these object together (male singer, female singer, the drugs lamp and substance on the table), it represents the darkness side of the adolescent and teenager. In addition, even we have changed the object, the consumption representation of “buy, buy, buy” lifestyle is still retained; the tin of ham means food, but now become drugs that means the primary drive of food desire are now become drugs desire.

The hopeless and avoidance from reality was exaggerate by the movie poster 2012 outside the window which represent Doomsday. We want to illustrate the psychological feeling of those unemployed teenagers and adolescents who live in a confused condition, Mong Kok, a place that surrounded with triad members and drugs seller and abuser. They have a feeling of hopelessness which may cause a thought of “enjoy in the moment”, a sense of helplessness and a grey life. So they took drugs and became a triad member to play with their life.

       

The Space or Mars like object on the ceiling which celebrating the competition between Russia and America of leading space technology is replaced by a skull which represents death instead of victory. For the stair we covered it with “Joss paper: Gold spirit money” which is a kinds of Chinese traditional offerings to show a road to the skull on the ceiling. The vacuum Cleaners at the bottom of the stair become a container for burning joss paper. This is to emphasis burning their life with drugs and money. The whole composition of these objects is emphasis playing drugs is a road to death. The teenagers view their mother as a hired laborer. On the other hand, some of these mothers neglected their children in Hong Kong especially in Mong Kok as their low education level or busy in work. We capture this concept to put her on the stair to represent they are paving the road for their children to death.

The conversation of the romantic poster on the wall is changed to a slogan “not now not ever, say no to drugs”. The television now upgrade to a new model with a Japanese AV star show on the screen. It gives a big contrast that adolescent neglected the slogan and also think that romantic love is a short period of sex instead of a lifelong process. Donald Tsang was replaced the critic on the wall as he is no logic thinking to critic the current situation about teenage drugs abuse problem. In addition, the newspaper at the bottom left hand corner is now changed to stock market’s news further emphasis the Hong Kong economic problem make the post 80’s hard to fulfill their own interests because of money consideration.

At last, we used similar composition and the space of our work is also similar to the original one. In contrast, the rhythm in our work become chaos instead of in a harmony way. Furthermore, the medium of art, collage, is changed to produce by computer with Photoshop editing which means the texture is different. Because our work was produced by computer, the image size can be changed to fit the screen size, so our work is flexible in size. Moreover the expressive of color is a more disorder way to emphasis the chaos and delusion feeling. In addition, the original work contains traditional historical allusion has removed. This is to make the viewer consider the contemporary situation and not to rememorize the conventional Hong Kong because we want to emphasis change instead of only memorized Hong Kong.

        In our work, we are focusing on the symbolism and iconology of modern Hong Kong and we have explained the difference and similarity between “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” and our work “Just what is it that makes today’s homes in Mong Kok so different, so depraved?”. We changed some of the object but keep something unchanged to emphasis Hong Kong is changing but still contain some elements is still as same as the time before. The new technology make our work become flexible in size and can be create it everywhere with a computer. The difference of color using make the rhythm changed and the meaning behind to bring out the drugs abuse issue in nowadays Hong Kong, the small living environment become chaos and the government does nothing successfully to control the problem. In sum, we capture the basic concept “here and now” in Pop Art, and rearranged the famous collage “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” to show the “here and now” in Hong Kong situation. Our piece is to let the viewer rethink the fundamental concept and meaning about Hong Kong’s adolescences and teenagers; the materialism, consumerism, escapism and hedonism.

Bibliography

Adams, Laurie Schneider. Art across time / Laurie Schneider Adams. Boston: Mass. : McGraw Hill College, 2002.

Stonard, John-Paul. "Pop in the Age of Boom: Richard Hamilton’s." The burlington magazine, 2007: 607-620.