The Scariest Opening Party in Town: “Them That Glide Past Our Windows”

A crowd of art-lovers streamed into our Moganshan space yesterday, 26 May, for our opening party held in conjunction with m50′s joint gallery opening.

One week prior, and mostly the night/afternoon before, the team embarked on a flurry of pre-show preparations – cleaning, scrubbing, techno-jargoning, spraying, arguing and of course, copious drinking.

We were especially excited about the installation of our digital pond – the repurposed Chili Qi Fries, picturesquely laid out in a bed of bone-white stones. The red LEDs danced on the stark white of the pebbles like blood stains – perfect for our ghostly show!

A digital-zen pond... blowing your mind already?

In addition, we fussed about with a smoke machine. Yes, THAT infamous smoke machine of cheesy wedding dinner fame. We were hoping to enhance the fear factor of our newly-constructed ghost house atmosphere, but the antique machine we procured gave off puffs smoke with a loud farting hiss, more comical than creepy. Oh well. At least it made for some good shots.

Smoke gets in your eyes

pooooop!

Our guests didn’t seem to mind. Most of them were fascinated with the jets of theatrical smoke issuing from what appeared to be a little monster behind the wall. Of course, with a handy remote control, we managed to make it blow noxious clouds into the face of one not so focused visitor… It’s about the artworks, man!

The New Life of Li Xiufang

All in all, though, our guests thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They ran through all our (21!!) prosecco bottles, chicken wings, chips, and petitis fours. One person proclaimed it “the best show I’ve seen so far!” and another said “this is my favorite”. Both were drunk, though (as was everyone else). We did have some lovely, esteemed guests – Massimo Torrigiani (the art fair guru and organizer of SH Contemporary) dropped by to say hello, and our latest partner-in-crime, Philippe Staib of Philippe Staib Gallery was also making merry with us.

Massimo Torrigiani comes by

Philippe Staib makes merry

 And what a lovely afternoon it turned out to be! We met so many fabulous people – art lovers, friends old and new, fans and well-wishers, who turned out in force on a balmy grey Saturday afternoon to say hi and check out our new show. Liu Dao and island6 would like to send all these wonderful folks our biggest hugs and kisses for coming by. We loved seeing you! It’s certainly been too long.

We also said goodbye to one of our LED-inspired paintings, Putuo Itch. It was a sad/happy occasion. Sad because Putuo Itch was one of our first LED-inspired oil-on-canvas, an ironic attempt to use a traditional medium to depict a very digitised image, and we all love it to bits. Happy because it has a beautiful new home, and of course, we are in the business of selling art after all.

Finally, at 6.30pm, the evening started winding down, and we could indulge ourselves in what we do best – malarkey, irreverance and drunken revelry!

Vee for Vi-ta-gen!

Once again, thank you for coming by, and please drop by again soon – we are in the midst of planning our artworks for Dripping With Aurum, our next show in Hong Kong, which will be a luxe, sexy affair. Some of the earlier artworks will be on the walls for test runs. Do come by and catch them before they cross the Straits into the buzzing dynamic city of Hong Kong!