Art Collaboration Kyoto, contemporary art fair with a difference

Five household drying racks, draped in T-shirts creased from the wash, looked as if they had been left by mistake in the Japanese stone garden at the entrance to the Kyoto International Conference Centre (ICC Kyoto).

They were, are, in fact a work of art. Laundry, by Hong Kong-born Lee Kit, was a piece of defiant mundanity included in the public programme of Art Collaboration Kyoto (ACK), an annual contemporary art fair in the Japanese city which ran from October 31 to November 3 this year in the shadow of major political events.

Phrases hinting at a heavy social and political atmosphere were printed on each T-shirt, including “He was the problem”, and “Progressive failure”. The artist had washed the T-shirts with detergent in a bucket he bought at the nearby supermarket.

They were a tired, sorry sight after heavy rain fell on the second day of the fair – an eyesore that destroyed the serenity of the Zen garden of the Brutalist landmark built in 1966.

Andre Chan and Chong Chin-yin, of Hong Kong-based Arts Collective, were curators of the art fair’s public programme. They called their selection “What the Map Doesn’t Say”.

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