signals . . . 瞬息
Para Site, Hong Kong

Small and midsize art institutions survive in precarious conditions, buoyed by artistic energy yet at risk of capsizing amid cruelly indifferent waves of support. Twenty-seven years into its existence, the Hong Kong nonprofit Para Site marked a self-declared “new direction” with the six-month-long, three-chapter exhibition project “signals . . . 瞬息,” helmed by director Billy Tang and curator Celia Ho. Taking cues from the short-lived international artist-run Signals Gallery in mid-1960s London, Greek artist Takis’s eponymous antenna-like sculptures, and forms of kinetic art, Para Site’s curators adopted contingency and exigency as core concerns, reflected in projects by more than 25 artists and collectives, some of whose works evolved across the multiple chapters: “signals . . . storms and patterns” (from March to May); “signals . . . folds and splits” (June through July); and “signals . . . here and there” (August through September).