At this time Oscar Ho was Exhibitions Director at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. In addition to his identity as an artist (he trained in Canada and the United States) he became extremely active as a curator in Hong Kong. At a later stage of his career he became an academic, teaching cultural management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
I collaborated with Oscar Ho to co-curate the exhibition 'In Search of Art' at the Pao Galleries of the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 1990. That exhibit invited Hong Kong residents to show their personal art collections to the public - bringing people and objects normally excluded from the 'white cube' of gallery space into contact with it. It also turned out to be an investigation into Hong Kong cultural identity. There are two short essays about 'In Search of Art' in my book Art & Place (1996).
I write about Oscar Ho's art in various places, such as my book 'China Art - Modernity' (2019) and my essay 'Encountering alterity: linguistic opacity in modern and contemporary art', Word & Image, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2023, p. 453-466.
Oscar Ho and I were amongst the artists who took part in and organized the Mobile Art Show in 1988. Taking place over two weekends in December that year, this was a public art project presented by the Hong Kong Arts Centre, and taking place at four different locations: Yan Oi Square, Tuen Mun; MacPherson Playground, Mongkok; Victoria Park, Causeway Bay; and Chater Road, Central.
More information on permitted free uses of this website and its photos, and on how to obtain full-resolution versions of images and copyright clearance to enable their use:
All images and texts on this website are © David Clarke, 2020. Access to the website is without charge, and individual users may download up to 100 low-resolution images from the archive for personal not-for-profit uses such as private study. Institutional users (such as schools) are also limited to the 100 image total and the not-for-profit condition (and other conditions given here). You may print out images you have downloaded at a size up to maximum dimension 10 inches, but you may not sell them, hire them out (either as prints or as digital files), or utilize them for any commercial purpose. You must also ensure that anyone you share or give them to understands this and other conditions of use stated here. Only images printed by or for the photographer himself from high resolution originals (or negatives as appropriate), and approved by him, can be regarded as original artworks by David Clarke. You may link to the website, and may reproduce images you have downloaded from the Hong Kong in Transition archive (up to the 100 images limit) on not-for-profit websites that are open to general public access without payment, but if you do so you must clearly identify David Clarke as both the photographer and the copyright holder, and provide a link to the Hong Kong in Transition archive. Images must not be cropped, overprinted or otherwise altered - if you have a particular reason for wishing to do so you must contact us for permission in advance.
Users wishing to publish photos from this archive in print publications (or in electronic publications equivalent to books or journals, or on websites which are for-profit or with access requiring payment or closed to the general public) must obtain in advance both higher resolution images (where available), and written permission to use the images. No charge will normally be made for non-profit or educational and research usage of images. Charges and conditions for other uses, where permission is granted, will be determined on an individual basis at our discretion. Please provide full information concerning the intended usage when you contact us, including details of publisher, title, print run, expected date of publication, size of printed reproduction and other relevant details. For other usages of images not mentioned here, or to seek waiver of the terms mentioned in respect of special cases, please contact us with full details.
