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5th element too sweet

It's the gigantic colourful chocolate pill-like vacuum capsules (when the lift door accidentally opened) which drew me to the graduation exhibition of The Arts School. The exhibition was titled The 5th Element, as pop as the welcoming art work at the lift lobby.

The number of students graduating from the private institution was a surprise: 40 something! Their works occupied the entire Pao's Gallery at the Arts Centre (till 28 Sept), divided thematically into 5 or 6 sections including Pop Art, Fragmentation, Nature, Body, etc. Like any form of entitling, such division and the signages on the floor helped to put the works into more accessible frameworks, and the exhibition itself into an organization, but unavoidably limited certain imagination at the same time. Theme-based, in this case, and too easily picked.

Most of the works were quite presentable in terms of their forms, some with good mastery of the media. However, perhaps for the bias of a graduate from another institute, I kept thinking the works were lacking sufficiently profound exploration of the subjects or some personal touches. Of course, they were part-time students only, who showed actually much greater perseverance and enthusiasm if one refers to the backdrop of the incredibly busy working world of the city.


There were a few works which I liked quite well, like the white plastic flower components in form of mock-up. Probably for its nostalgic quality with not too much sentimentality, the size just larger than life was also working well with some surrealist flavour. Another flower sculpture using concrete and the texture of steel was comparatively on the side of cliche. Other works showed too obvious traits of their references of some famous art pieces. Worth a visit as a whole.

posted at 12:35 AM | View by Post