The Principle of Hope Conversation, Xper.Xr: Noise in the Dark

This Saturday at 8pm, Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum is organizing an online talk for the exhibition The Principle of Hope. We will invite two guest speakers Alexander Lau (curator, director of Empty Gallery) and Edward Sanderson (art critic, scholar) to have a conversation on Xper.Xr, the participating artist of our exhibition. The event will be online and in English, and it will be moderated by Huang Wenlong.

Born in 1970, Xper.Xr is one of the pioneers of noise musicians in Hong Kong. He released Murmur in 1989 arguably the first industrial noise recording in the field. He is also a passionate car racer and experimental artist. In the 1990s, he studied at the Goldsmiths Art School in which his graduation project was to reveal the conspiracy between the art market and the art school. His work includes composition, sound, performance, installation, painting and so on, which manifests his disregard and revolt against all kinds of authoritarian power. The art world has always kept silent on his radical work, and he travels between London, Paris and Hong Kong to find space for his practice.

The talk will start with Xper.Xr’s works exhibited in the Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum, and will then move on to Xper.Xr’s solo retrospective show Tailwhip in Hong Kong, we will then discuss about his work in the Hong Kong art environment and abroad, his relationships with the art world, and how he engages with and critiques the art system in his works. The exhibition The Principle of Hope does not refer to an optimistic sentiment, but something to introspect and action proactively, which is the beginning of everything.

Please feel free to participate in our online discussion!

Xper.Xr, Voluptuous Musick, CD, 1992, Dimension variable, Courtesy of the artist and Empty Gallery

Xper.Xr, Cacophone, Zine, 1992, 16.4×27.2cm, Courtesy of the artist and Empty Gallery

The Principle of Hope Conversation

Xper.Xr: Noise in the Dark

Speakers: Alexander Lau and Edward Sanderson

Moderator: Huang Wenlong

Voov Meeting ID: 661 466 318

Beijing 2022.1.15 8:00 – 9:30 pm

New York 2022.1.15 7:00 – 8:30 am

Meeting QR Code: 

Streaming: https://meeting.tencent.com/l/SVTDlDAPkRI5

Speakers’ Bio

Alexander Lau

Alexander Lau is a curator, writer, and former filmmaker based in New York. He is currently director of Empty Gallery and its associated record label, Empty Editions. He has organized or participated in events in partnership with organizations such as Tai Kwun Contemporary, Videotage, Triple Canopy, Printed Matter, and Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Lau also sits on the board of NYC-based arts non-profits Primary Information and Blank Forms.

Edward Sanderson

Edward Sanderson is an art critic and curator, and PhD Candidate at Hong Kong Baptist University Academy of Visual Arts. His research and writing focus on sonic culture in Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong.

Moderator’s Bio

Huang Wenlong

Huang Wenlong has been working in the research and curatorial department at the Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum since 2019. She worked as assistant curator in the exhibitions Waves and Echoes: A Process of Re-contemporarization in Chinese Art Circa 1987 Revisited and Waves and Echoes: Postmodernisme and the Global 1980s.