How TV changed the way we see the world shown in 14 video works at new Hong Kong exhibition
‘Killing TV’, a new exhibition at Tai Kwun, brings together video works from the 1970s to the present to portray TV’s influence on contemporary art and societyVideos include Ryan Trecartin’s ‘Center Jenny’, an outrageous and chaotic appropriation of reality TV featuring excessive ‘valley girl’ personalitiesArtAshlyn ChakPublished: 5:15pm, 2 Oct, 2023Why you can trust SCMP
Television may be in decline but it changed the way we see the world when it invaded our living rooms, as a new exhibition in Hong Kong shows.
“Killing TV” at Tai Kwun, the first project initiated by Pi Li in his new role as the centre’s head of art, brings together 14 diverse video works from the 1970s to the present to portray television’s influence on contemporary art and society.
Setting the scene is Media Burn (1975), a 23-minute video in which a convertible Cadillac crashes into a pyramid of TV screens, causing the whole lot to erupt into a giant fireball.
The video, recorded on the 200th anniversary of US independence, was called the “ultimate media event” by its orchestrators, a countercultural art collective called Art Farm that was founded in 1968 in San Francisco, California.
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The performance was intended as a critique of television’s dominance and references a comment by former US president John F. Kennedy: “Who can deny that we are a nation addicted to television and the constant flow of media? … Haven’t you ever wanted to put your foot through your television screen?”