Check House’s Check & Mate

  • YIP Kai Chun (Hong Kong)

    Yerevan, Armenia
    May 20-June 20, 2016

YIP Kai Chun is an artist-curator born, bred and based in Hong Kong. He studied Critical Intermedia Laboratory (2003-6) and Cultural Studies (2006-8). His interest lies in the intersections of culture, history, and identity, viewing from local and personal perspectives. With his art, he aims to unravel the taken-for-granted and neglected, re-create lost connections, and re-imagine alternatives. His process-oriented practice draws on theories and methodologies from multiple disciplines.

Yip’s artistic creation blends documentation and narrative without limit on media, ranging from video to installation. Often, he employs sound, video, photography and found objects in his works. He is interested in locations usually not reserved for art. During his one month residency program at the ‘Art Commune’ AIR Program (ACSL). In his one-month residency at the ‘Art Commune ‘AIR Program (ACSL), Yip Kai Chun launched a series of research touches upon the possible meanings and importance of Soviet modernist architecture in contemporary Armenia, which signifies the roles of the Soviet past in the formation of Armenian identity.

The artist directed his interest towards a historic and cultural monument the ‘Chess House’ named after Tigran Petrosyan in Yerevan with evolving his research into spatial, architectural and historical issues, investigating the transformation of outlook and usage of the Chess House in Yerevan. The artist introduced a handmade “chess” based on the principle and rules of the ‘Revercee’ game where opponents and their moves with special patterns symbolize, on one hand, the status quo of the nowadays Chess House in Yerevan and, the other hand, the newly commercial intervention and privatization of a big part of the Chess House building by the ‘Tashir’ private restaurant.

The project has been initiated under the framework of ‘The Tbilisi Chess Palace’ by GeoAIR, Tbilisi, Georgia (www.geoair.ge/project/tbilisi-chess-palace) and continued at the ‘Art Commune’ International Artist-in-Residence Program.

The project is supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council and the Arts Development Fund of the Home Affairs.