Para/Site Art Space presents Gao Brothers’ Performance: World Hug Day—Hong Kong Time: Venue: Participating Artists: Curated by: Organized by: Supported by:
(Wednesday) 29 July, 2009; 5pm-6pm Main entrance, Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong Gao Brothers: Gao Zhen, Gao Qiang Alvaro Rodriguez Fominaya Para/Site Art Space Hong Kong Arts Centre
Para/Site Art Space is honored to bring Gao Brothers’ warm hugs from China to Hong Kong. Strangers are invited to choose a person at random for a hug, which they will then do simultaneously with other couples, accompanied by music. The mass hugging performance World Hug Day— Hong Kong will be staged outside Hong Kong Arts Centre on 29 July 2009 at 5pm. Everyone is welcome to show up and participate. The group hug performance was first done in Shangdong Province, China in 2000. Since then they have taken their big hugs to different public locations in countries like China, Germany and UK. The performance challenges the use of public space in Hong Kong. The project engages in the way public space is controlled and brings an intimate act into the public arena, and is connected with the development of “Body Art” in the 70s and “Relational Art” in the 90’s. In China its meaning is connected to the echoes and resonances of the effect of the Cultural Revolution in people’s behaviour. In 2001 Harald Szeemann invited the Gao Brothers to perform their “Utopia of the