{"id":68430,"date":"2026-07-13T22:43:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=68430"},"modified":"2026-07-13T22:43:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T14:43:50","slug":"review-hong-kong-artist-ellen-pau-looks-at-political-promises-and-cynicism-in-new-york-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=68430","title":{"rendered":"Review | Hong Kong artist Ellen Pau looks at political promises and cynicism in New York show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">New Yorkers used to their city\u2019s relentless noise and movement will find a familiar urban pace and intensity reflected in the works of Hong Kong video artist <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">Ellen Pau<\/span>.<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">At the video pioneer\u2019s first North American survey, now on view at New York\u2019s SculptureCenter, her poignant exploration of unfulfilled pledges also has resonance amid mounting cynicism about politics in the US and beyond.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cShe Moves\u201d, curated by Freya Chou, features 15 major works dating from 1988 to the present, and charts how Pau documents everyday urban life and Hong Kong\u2019s shifting political and cultural landscape through an ambiguous yet poetic lens.<\/p>\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">The 65-year-old artist\u2019s stateside debut \u2013 accompanied by the screening of major works and a talk at the Museum of Modern Art in May \u2013 is long overdue. Born in British Hong Kong in 1961, Pau has been a tireless champion of the city\u2019s experimental video art scene for decades, and continues to do so long after <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">the 1997 handover to China<\/span>.<\/div>\n<div class=\"image-inline-container e1a5rv550 css-1llrc1m e1yqhwb40\" data-qa=\"Component-renderMap-StyledDiv\">\n<div class=\"image-inline caption e1fvabeq0 css-19sk4h4 ea9pn0s0\" data-qa=\"Component-Container\">\n<figure class=\"image-inline caption ea9pn0s1 css-e2hhhf e1gf69pb0\" data-qa=\"ArticleImage-ArticleImageContainer\">\n<div data-qa=\"ArticleImage-handleRenderImage-ImageContainer\" class=\"css-bjn8wh e1gf69pb3\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Hong Kong artist Ellen Pau (right) and curator Freya Chou during their talk about Pau\u2019s practice at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on May 18, 2026. Photo: courtesy of Ellen Pau\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/img.i-scmp.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto\/sites\/default\/files\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/07\/13\/d03d78be-4869-43a7-9a32-1ffd50e20427_150d1b7a.jpg\" title=\"Hong Kong artist Ellen Pau (right) and curator Freya Chou during their talk about Pau\u2019s practice at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on May 18, 2026. Photo: courtesy of Ellen Pau\"\/><\/div><figcaption data-qa=\"ArticleImage-DescriptionContainer\" class=\"css-1bj5zno e1gf69pb1\">Hong Kong artist Ellen Pau (right) and curator Freya Chou during their talk about Pau\u2019s practice at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on May 18, 2026. Photo: courtesy of Ellen Pau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A largely self-taught artist who produced her first Super 8 film in 1984, she co-founded Videotage, a pioneering media art collective, in 1986, and later established the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival in 1996. Alongside her prolific art career, she worked as a radiographer at Queen Mary Hospital for nearly 40 years. This background in medical imaging fundamentally shaped her sensitivity towards capturing, manipulating and interpreting electronic images.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/article\/3360306\/hong-kong-artist-ellen-pau-looks-political-promises-and-cynicism-new-york-show?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Yorkers used to their city\u2019s relentless noise and movement will find a familiar urban pace and intensity reflected in the works of Hong Kong&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1785,26442,21339,3569,5231,14741,4658,10074,28,616,3156],"class_list":["post-68430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-artist","tag-cynicism","tag-ellen","tag-hong","tag-kong","tag-pau","tag-political","tag-promises","tag-review","tag-show","tag-york","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/68431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}