Archive as Detour: Historical Re-enactment in Artist Archive and Archival Art Practices of Contemporary Hong Kong

This thesis asserts the constant modification of histories of Hong Kong through the studies of artist archive and archive art practice of contemporary Hong Kong. Historical and archival materials, artefacts and artwork display, and historiography are always in antagonistic and paradoxical relations; archive is often seen as evidential proposition to the writing of history and as passive and static apparatus. Appropriating Walter Benjamin's concept of detour, art, with its abstract and metaphoric complex, invites subjective reflections that deviate the accomplished historical narratives. Artist archive is the result of an individual and eccentric practice of collecting, which is different from the rational and scientific manoeuvre of institutional archiving; the eccentricity of artist archive lies in the intuitive and non-linear logics of arrangement, thus artist archive is a heterogeneous assemblage. Furthermore, the pictorial and imagery prevalence of artist archive - which devices abstract association but not semantic decisiveness - invites and welcomes subjective imagination. Ha Bik Chuen Archive, is the lifetime endeavour of the late artist, is one of the main studies of this thesis. The collection, which covers periods from 1950s to early 2000, was intended to be self-learning resources of Ha; Ha's enthusiasm in collecting has intuitively turned his archive into kaleidoscopic apparatus that reveals the socio-political facets of the time that the late artist had live through. This thesis also asserts the allegorical competence of art through the studies of the archival art practices of Leung Chi Wo and Lee Kai Chung; they engage archival and historical materials in their practices to obscure the intact relations between archival materials and the writing of history. A curatorial exercise is included in this thesis as research method to assert histories are transitory and open-ended with the engagement of subjectivity. The thesis inquires what art can do for history and accentuates not on history as factual records of the past; rather, it is about searching for the meaning of histories through art history; this is particularly timely in the current times of post Anti Extradition Law protests and imposition National Security of Hong Kong.本論文透過研究香港當代藝術家檔案和檔案藝術，再借用華特・本雅明的「繞途」概念，以探討香港歷史的恆常修改狀態。此外，論文也探討藝術能對歷史有何作為。歷史及文獻資料、工藝品及藝術品的展示以及歷史的編纂是處於敵對及矛盾的關係。文獻檔案普遍被視為書寫歷史的證據，是被動及不變的架構；藝術籍著它的抽象與隱喻的本質，能夠引起對事物的主觀反思，既有詮譯會因此而改變。有別於歷史及機構檔案，藝術家檔案是個人化及獨特的收藏。個人的收藏沒有科學及理性的分類，而是以感受及隨意的靈感將不同時代及來源的物品分類，形成一個異質性的聚合物； 加上藝術家檔案以圖像為主，當中的抽象及符號不受語意涵義的限制，能引起主觀的想像。夏碧泉檔案是本論文是主要研究對象之一。檔案的庫存本來是夏氏為自學藝術而收集的各種資源，卻因為藝術家本人對各種事物都感到好奇，於是在其收藏中除了關於藝術創作外，也涵蓋關於香港從1950年至千禧年的各種資料，側影歷史面貌。夏碧泉檔案是異性質聚合體，它除了反映時代面貌之外，也是重新制定香港的過去及現在的寓言維度。本論文亦會以梁志和及李繼忠的檔案藝術作為研究主體，進一步探討歷史及檔案資料在藝術的抽象隱喻中能產生的變化，引發主體性的想像。論文更將「藝術的異質聚合性能將單一的主流歷史論述變成多元」的論題，以策展為方法作一次實驗，提出的歷史繞途及恆常修改，強調歷史除了是事情發生經過的記錄外，也關於當中意義的產生：就是如何理解及詮釋，因此歷史應該由多元及沒有定性的聲音組成而不是單一霸權。這主張在當下 2021 剛經歷「反修例」運動及國安法實施下的香港顯得更加重要。CHENG, Sau Wai.Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2021.Includes bibliographical references (leaves )Abstracts in English and Chinese.Title from PDF title page (viewed on ...