“ As individuals, we are unable to choose our birthplace or the colour of our skin. But as artists, we are able to choose our subject matter to confront the reality of the world. ”
「人不能選擇自己的出生地，不能選擇種族。 但藝術家可以選擇創作題材，直面世界的真實。」
When I returned to Hong Kong in 2006, I began to revisit Chinese painting, which I had often neglected during my earlier studies. For three months, I went to the library of New Asia College at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to study the imagery of Chinese painting, compiling quantities of pictorial elements and transforming them into an image archive of digital files. Together with figurines and loose components, I toyed around with the idea of recomposing Shan Shui (the Chinese word for landscape), overlapping historical imagery spanning thousands of years into a single painting. History is not a burden, but a multifaceted prism inviting us to reflect on our past and thus the present. But History is encircled by thieves who cloud our gaze. I used to think studying Chinese Shan Shui was a method to soothe my spirits amidst a chaotic world, that fabricating a landscape was a simple joy much like a child imagining a playscape in the intimate confines of one’s own home. Over the past decade or so, the world has only become increasingly chaotic, and simple pleasures have become difficult to come across. The way I perceive the world has also been shaped by my accumulative knowledge in my study of Chinese Shan Shui. My purpose of creating paintings is not for the pride of my national culture, because if art is unable to come face to face with the reality of the world, what is the point of talking about pride and culture? I believe that to create,
is to have a sensitivity of the world, and this awareness comes before medium or style. I began to develop videos and installations of my travels and urban wanderings in my later work series, A day of two Suns and Saan Dung Gei, which was an extension from my studies in Chinese Shan Shui. In late 2021, I returned to my studio in Hong Kong after travelling around the West Coast, and came to a realisation that the Potted City series was more than a mere landscape study, it represented a miniature world, where soil and earth could also be migratory. Why are plants displaced from nature in the first place? Why do we confine them into pots? I have seen potted bonsai survive for hundreds of years amidst the natural disasters and social upheavals in Japan. If we forget to cultivate our thoughts, our roots will forever be stubbornly dug into the ground, even if we grow into imposing heights. Against our recent social backdrop, the conception of Chinese painting and Chinese Shan Shui appear increasingly blurry and abstract to me. Diverse landscapes are bred from diverse climates. Art and nature are intrinsically innocent. It is the urge to control free thinking that taints and convicts the landscape. Let us set our landscape free, let us breathe and think freely!
Lam Tung Pang Fo Tan, Hong Kong 3 May 2022
2006年回到香港時，重拾在學時常被我忽略的 中國畫。有三個月的時間，我每天到中文大學 的新亞圖書館閱讀中國畫的圖像，整理中國繪 畫的元素，編輯成幾千個電腦檔案，化成字典 般的圖庫、組合玩具的零件，去建構出一片玩 樂的風景。我跟山水畫開玩笑，重疊跨越千年 的繪畫元素，完成一張張的繪畫。歷史不是包 袱，她是自由多面的稜鏡，在她的映照下讓我 們思考人的種種，從而面對當下。只是，歷史 的身旁，總是被盜賊包圍，遮擋了人的視線。
那時，我還以為世界紛亂，閱讀中國山水畫是 安撫心靈的良藥，建構一片風景是一種簡單的 快樂，猶如兒時在狹小的家居裡開闢一片私人 的玩樂天地。轉眼十多年，世界越來越紛亂，
View from high-speed rail (mainland China section) 高鐵（內地段）窗外風景
簡單的快樂越來越難獲取。在累積山水畫閱讀 經驗的同時，也在建構我的視角。我創作的存 在，並非為了服務國族的驕傲，發揚什麼文 化。因為，如果創作不能直面世界的真實，這 些驕傲與文化根本不值一談。創作是反映人對 世界存有的敏感度，否則媒介或風格，亦是不 值一談。從這個閱讀中國山水畫的基礎上，我
經年的社會狀態，「中國畫」或是「中國山水
開始策劃旅程、城市遊蕩的錄像與裝置，創作
畫」對來我說，開始越來越糢糊，越來越抽
了如《一日兩天》、《山洞記》系列的作品。
象。世界不同地方的氣候孕育不同的風景，自 然與藝術本無罪，而控制思想的慾望，卻讓風
2021年年底，旅畢美國西岸三個月後回到香
景沾上了罪名的水印。還一片風景自由，還呼
港的工作室，我發現原本用作為風景創作的盆
吸與思想自由！
景，竟是一片可移動的「土地」，一個微型世 界。人為什麼將植物栽於盆中？植物為什麼脫 離大地？看過有些盆景，在天崩地列的日本活
林東鵬
上幾百年。人若忘了栽培心，縱使因為紮根大
書於香港，火炭
地而長得再高再大，活著也枉然。
2022年5月3日
Potted City No.1 盆景城市一號
2021, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 123 x 86 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.2 盆景城市二號
2021, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 122 x 86 x 1.8 cm
Potted City No.3 盆景城市三號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 87.5 x 65 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.4 盆景城市四號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 91 x 72 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.5 盆景城市五號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 83 x 62 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.6 盆景城市六號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 82.5 x 62.5 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.7 盆景城市七號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 81.5 x 68.5 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.8 盆景城市八號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 91 x 71.5 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.9 盆景城市九號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 91.5 x 72 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.10 盆景城市十號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood, 塑膠彩及炭筆板本, 83 x 62 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.11 盆景城市十一號
2022, Acrylic and charcoal on plywood, 塑膠彩及炭筆板本,81.5 x 65 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.13 盆景城市十三號
2022, Acrylic, charcoal and nails on plywood 塑膠彩、炭筆、釘板本, 91 x 71.5 x 2.5 cm
Potted City No.12 盆景城市十二號
2022 Acrylic and charcoal on plywood 塑膠彩及炭筆板本 200 x 200 x 1.8 cm (Diptych 雙聯畫 )
Lam Tung Pang 林東鵬
Solo exhibitions of Lam’s include Echigo-Tsumari Art Field 2021 “Half-step House” (Hong Kong House, Niigata Prefecture, Japan, 2021), “Saan Dung Gei” (Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong, 2019); “Hi! House – Lam Tung-pang x Old House at Wong Uk Village” (Wong Uk Village, Hong Kong, 2017); “The Curiosity Box” (Chinese Culture Center, San Francisco, USA, 2013). Group exhibitions in which Lam has participated include “Ink City” (Tai Kwun, Hong Kong, 2021), “Memento: Jayashree Chakravarty and Lam Tung Pang” (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA, 2021), “Classics Remix: The Hong Kong Viewpoint” (Hong Kong Museum of Art, 2019), “Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture” (Shenzhen, China, 2017); “CHINA 8” (NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2015); “No soul for Sale – A Festival of Independents” (Tate Modern, London, UK, 2010). Lam is the recipient of the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship (2012). Lam’s work is collected by the LACMA Collection, Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), Burger Collection, the Deutsche Bank Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong), Kadist Art Foundation (France and USA) and M+ (Hong Kong), among others. Lam currently lives and works in Hong Kong.
Photo credit: Stephenie Kay
Born in 1978, Lam Tung Pang shares the same experience with other Hong Kong artists who grew up in 1990s, whose coming-of-age coincides with drastic social changes, a result of his homeland’s decolonisation from constitutional monarchy and new allegiance to China in a short span of time. Traversing between the media of painting, site-specific installation, sound and video, Lam’s playful practice arises from a curious imagination that recombines traditional iconography and vernacular elements, innovating with a myriad of found objects and images to form new practices that are often experimental in nature. Lam’s works engage the themes of collective memories and fleeting nostalgia, which articulate an ongoing negotiation of the overlapping city-state’s reality. In his allegorical landscapes, journeys and sceneries become essential passages connecting time and distance, longing and loss.
生於1978年，林東鵬與其他九十年代成長的香港藝術家 一樣，經歷了從君主立憲殖民統治，到回歸祖國的急劇 變遷。林的創作遊走於繪畫、裝置、聲音和影像之間， 以具玩味和充滿好奇心的想像力，重新組合傳統圖像和 本土元素，融合拾得物和現成影像衍生實驗性的創作。 他的作品大多以集體回憶和稍瞬的愐懷為主題，審問我 城交錯覆疊的現實。在他寓言式的風景中，山水和旅程 是時間、距離、願境和失去的連結。 林東鵬的個展包括2021年越後妻有大地藝術祭 — 香港
部屋“半步屋”、香港刺點畫廊的“山洞記”(2019)、 香港王屋村古屋的“邂逅！老房子 — 林東鵬 x 王屋
村古屋”(2017) 及美國三藩市舊金山中華文化中心 的“好奇匣”(2013) 。他曾參與的聯展包括香港大
館的 “墨城”(2021) 、美國舊金山亞洲藝術博物館 的“Memento: Jayashree Chakravarty and Lam
Tung Pang”(2021) 、香港藝術館的 “原曲變奏 —
香港視點”(2019)、“深港城市 \ 建築雙城雙年展”、 德國杜塞爾多夫NRW Forum的“CHINA 8”(2015) 和英國倫敦泰特美術館的“不出賣靈魂 — 獨立藝術 節”(2010) 。林於2012年獲頒亞洲文化協會藝術獎助 金。他的作品被洛杉磯郡藝術博物館、三藩市亞洲藝術 博物館、Burger Collection、德意志銀行藝術收藏、香 港藝術館 、Kadist藝術基金會、香港 M+等收藏。 林氏現於香港居住及工作。
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