Hong Kong’s international artist Tim Yip held an exhibition in HKDI Gallery titled Blue and the startlement is a mysterious doll ‘Lili’.
In 2001, Tim won the Oscar award for the Best Art Direction because of the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, becoming the first Chinese to receive such an accolade. Apart from being an art director, Tim is a renowned visual artist and costume designer.
The exhibition ( http://www.hkdi.edu.hk/en/hkdi_gallery/gallery.php?product_id=116 ) is taking place in the HKDI Gallery at Hong Kong Design Institute which itself is a fascinating architecture reminiscent of the mutant version of the Arch of Triumph in the district of Tseung Kwan O.
This is Tim’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong featuring his (1) original beautiful costumes and (2) thought-provoking art installations. Standing above the rest is a pale, white, pretty, slim and peculiar mannequin ‘Lili’ created by Tim. Side by side with Tim, Lili travelled to streets, cafes, bridges and trams of the different parts of the world. She weeps. She wears dark glasses and enjoys a variety of wigs and costumes. Tim said, “She occupies a psychological space into which one can project from the deeper recesses of one’s own memory. She is a mirror, cypher, device, inhabitant on the borderline with another dimension.”
Devotion to a humanlike object may rest upon 3 abstruse psychologies. It can be simply ‘Dollism’ in that the infatuation is like a girl loving Barbie or a boy loving Dragon Ball. The fondness may fleet and vanish. The second kind may be ‘Fetishism’, a deeper excitement with a doll as if the object were of supernatural and irresistible charm. Or, the figure is one of ‘Muses’, holily worshipped as a sacred deity of the myths.
Tim elaborated tenaciously on who is Lili but did not explain why and how Lili relates to him personally. The greatness of art is perhaps ‘making your unknown known’ to the others as said by the painter Georgia O’Keeffe―and of course what is known is still mystic when the revelation is obscure and concealed.
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