Samson Young’s Mastery of Language

Text by Huzan Tata. Images courtesy of the artist and Experimenter.

The Hong Kong-based artist’s first solo show in India has works rooted in western classical music, compositions and orchestrations

(Click on any image to view in larger gallery.)

Mozart was a musical genius. So was Bach. And then there are those, who combine music and art to create a different kind of magic. In his first solo show in India, artist Samson Young, a native of Hong Kong, explores aspects of cultural politics and communal structures through his works on paper, video, and his performances and orchestrations. Young also portrays what it means to be an Asian artiste working in Western classical music. Creating artworks by altering manuscripts of original compositions using mixed media, Young ‘offers a new lens into an appropriated reading of the visual and aural language represented by the altered drawings’.

5 Questions with the artist, Samson Young

Artistic motivations “I just really enjoy creating things. It’s how I process the world.”
Inspirations “The artists and composers I am drawn too are often visionary but somewhat inconsistent.”
On the wall at home “I’d really like to own a few John Cage drawings, and maybe a couple of Bach original manuscripts.”
Concerns that find a place in your art “We need less bites, and more communicative nuance. And we are in desperate need of a theory of conversation.”
If not an artist, you would be… “An academic.”

Mastery of Language Affords Remarkable Power is on display at Experimenter, Kolkata (2/1 Hindustan Road) until October 29, 2016.