The World Falls Apart Into Facts: Samson Young

Ota Fine Arts is delighted to present 'The World Falls Apart Into Facts', a solo exhibition by Hong Kong artist Samson Young. Young's creations utilize sound, performance, and installation. His practice has been highly-acclaimed both domestically and internationally, and he was selected for the Hong Kong pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017.

For The World Falls Apart Into Facts (2019), the video installation featured in this exhibition, Young conducted a research project on music from both historical and political perspectives. This research follows the genealogy of the Chinese folk song Molihua (Jasmine Flower), the melody of which can also be heard in the opera Turandot. Molihua was imported into Europe through the British Empire's encounter with the imperial Qing court, and after a period of propagation and rearrangement in Europe, the tune was 're-imported' back into China. Young compares and contrasts the song's transmission history with that of the melody of Japanese Togaku - court music that was imported into Japan from China during the Tang dynasty, which has since become as one of few extant sources of Tang music. In the video, we hear an original composition that is played by, among other instruments, a touristic souvenir-instrument. Through the work, Young examines the interactions that occur when a piece of music crosses cultures, to consider what it means to hear with the ears of another, and questions the notions of cultural purity and authenticity at large.

We hope to invite you to experience the worldview of Samson Young, where the humorous visual on the screen and the contrasting in-depth research co-exists as one.

Special thanks to Edouard Malingue Gallery