Contemporary flâneuses in late capitalism: the representation of urban space in two Hong Kong women artists’ works

ABSTRACT

In literature on modern urban life, a flâneur is a man who wanders seemingly aimlessly but with the intention of observing people or events in urban life and perhaps recording these observations in text or images. This article shows how contemporary women artists in Hong Kong—a city in late capitalism, perform the role of the flâneuse, the female counterpart of the flâneur. The article analyses Stella Tang’s series of paintings Sauntering Through My City Series (2009–2016) and Annie Wan’s ceramic works Looking For Poetry in Wanchai (2005) and Collecting Moonlight (2017). The article takes a nomadic nondialectical approach to explore how the two women artists practise their flâneurie, and how they transform such experiences into art projects that are different from the conventional flâneur art. I identify three aspects of the alternative representation of urban space in the works of the two flâneuses: reconfiguration of conception, the creative appropriation of alternative art forms and public engagement.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese contemporary art
• hong Kong art
• women’s art
• flâneuse
• nomadic subjects
• feminist art

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Kimburley Choi, Dr. Damien Charrieras and Prof. Richard Allen for their advice. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the Senior Editor Prof. Panizza Allmark and the Editorial Associate Dr. Josephine Taylor of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, for their helpful and supportive feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Tang, personal interview by the author, 29 June 2017.

2. Wan, personal interview by the author, 6 November 2017.

3. When Wan did the second version of this work, she revisited the sites and realized that many of the characters associated with the shops, companies, and institutions she had moulded the first time had disappeared. She then had to look for the characters in other sites.

4. Wan, personal interview by the author, 6 November 2017.

5. See the statement of PerformingART, https://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/APO/en_US/web/apo/performingart.html.

6. See ‘Annie Wan Lai Kuen: Collecting Moonlight’ Exhibition Map, https://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/Museum/APO/documents/794617/1105738/Annie%2bWan_%2bcollecting%2bmo onlight_map.pdf.