HONG KONG — A woman in a scarlet dress walks along the waterfront in Hong Kong while being whipped with belts by men dressed in black. We are at “Paper Rain,” a parade organized by musician Arto Lindsay in collaboration with various artists for the launch of Art Basel in Hong Kong on May 23.
The parade route followed the waterfront path from Central pier to the government headquarters at Tamar Park. The woman would was voluntarily undergoing corporal punishment during the performance is Hong Kong artist Angela Su, known for her high pain threshold — she previously underwent a procedure for an elaborate ink-less tattoo on her back for her series “The Hartford Girl and Other Stories” (a portrait of her marked back is on display at Hong Kong Eye).
During the parade, Su marched along with the procession while being subjected to humiliating and punishing acts. At one point the artist held out her arm for her “lover” to put out his cigarette on it. Su hardly flinched from the pain. All this took place while contemporary dancers tumbled in the background and a rickshaw puller danced along to the beat of music blasting from boomboxes. The effect was a surreal and rather melancholy parade, dwarfed by the grand setting of Hong Kong’s waterfront and the monumental government headquarters buildings, a sensitive location for a parade as many political protests take place around here.
“This is the dead skin of a protest,” Lindsay told BLOUIN ARTINFO. “What we’re doing is like a political demonstration without content. It is a husk, like when the insect sheds its skin.”
The musician held his first parade at Carnival in Brazil in 2004, a collaboration with artist Matthew Barney that became the first of a series of artist parades that Lindsay has since organized around the world. Living and working in Brazil for many years, Lindsay is informed by the procession of trio elétricos that roll through the streets of Bahia every Carnival. Like the floats of Brazil, the artists of Hong Kong’s “Paper Rain” created performances that connect allegorically.
Nadim Abbas fabricated foam barricades for his section. Modeled after actual barricades from the streets of Hong Kong, the jokey, oversized blocks were strapped to the backs of participants who enacted choreography, their color scheme (red and white) echoing with Su’s tragic scarlet-clad protagonist in an uncanny contrast of subjugation and subversion. João Vasco Paiva conducted a loudspeaker orchestra, improvising a noise soundtrack from the squawkish feedback of the loudspeaker and his own muffled mumblings. Nearby, an old woman with purple hair moved a pushcart carrying posters for artist Korakrit Arunanodcha.
Most iconic of all are the red and green rickshaws chosen to transport Shane Aspegren’s “Roaming Boom Boxes Sound Tracks.” The choice of this tired symbolism was borne mostly out of necessity, according to Lindsay. Motorized vehicles are not allowed along the route of the parade, so the next best thing was to hire out the rickshaws. He is also exploring the commercialized imagery of Hong Kong as a perfect meeting of history and modernity. “I like this painful postcard image of Hong Kong, and not making it this cool thing,” says Lindsay.