Under these circumstances, “Tailwhip” seems to be a rare, disappearing opportunity to consider the archives of someone whose career – and now retrospective – connects these different spaces on a single timeline.
The tragically allegorical presence of the ever-looming, ever-completing, and ever-becoming M+ has only intensified since in the National Security Law came into effect in Hong Kong last July, as practitioners have been departing or resigning from positions of power, projects are getting defunded, and having a point of view feels increasingly pre-emptively guilty. Jaime Chu: In “Tailwhip”, anti-white-cube Empty Gallery’s recent archival exhibition Xper.Xr’s output from the past three decades, the artist dedicates a 2021 reproduction of a mixed media painting – made from acrylic, Chinese ink, cement, mortar, and fake teeth originally exhibited during a noise show at the now-defunct Quart Society, one of the first artist-run independent spaces in Hong Kong, which opened in 1990 – to the soon-opening M+ Museum.
Jordin sparks album art tidal 2008 full#
The show, which collects documentation, artefacts, and ephemera from throughout Xper.Xr’s nearly thirty years of activity in the industrial noise music and anti-art realms, is a rare window into Hong Kong's poorly-documented underground scene – colourful and full of petty spats that reflect the unruly energy of Xper.Xr’s multifaceted practice. Even when they embraced the disco world of Giorgio Moroder and Harold Faltermeyer they did so knowingly and with a touch of cynicism (“Rock And Roll People In A Disco World”).On the occasion of Xper.Xr’s exhibition “Tailwhip” at Hong Kong’s Empty Gallery, Jaime Chu, phoning in on a video call, joined curator and researcher Michelle Wong on a walkthrough. From the outset they clearly stated that “Nothing Is Sacred Anymore” (from A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing) andthey kept that promise, because aside from the obvious humour in the songs, there is a cruel and venomous streak running through them as they mercilessly parody and lampoon any subject that takes their fancy - – not in an indirect ironic or sarcastic way, but head-on and bluntly, when they say “Thank God It’s Not Christmas” on Kimono My House or ask “What Are All These Bands So Angry About?" on Lil’ Beethoven they mean it. Yet these are not disposable 3-minute pop-tunes, they are mini-epics that draw inspiration from every corner of the musical spectrum, from Classical to Big Band to Grunge, with a smattering of synth-driven Elecrtro-Pop and all out Rock. It is the perfect combination of clever, inventive and eclectic music to smart, intelligent and perversely seditious lyrics all contained in short snappy songs that never outstay their welcome. For me they are the epitome of pop-oriented Art Rock. As far as I am concerned Ron & Russ are musical geniuses – from the moment This Town… hit the UK charts, even without seeing them you could tell this band were different, but it wasn’t until a friend of mine lent me their first two Todd Rundgren produced Bearsville albums Sparks and A Woofer In Tweeters Clothing that I realised how different they were.