Richard Fung Commissaire : Thomas Waugh Good, Clean Fung: Retrospective of Richard Fung’s video work
Richard Fung, still from the video Chinese Characters, 1986
Opening on Wednesday, October 29, at 8 pm
Curator: Thomas Waugh
This first Québec retrospective of the work of Richard Fung, one of English Canada’s most distinguished video artists, assembles nine major tapes produced over the last thirteen years.
Very short and very long, cool and hot, sexy and cerebral, activist and introspective, the tapes show an astonishing versatility. They range from the realist documentary format of Out of the Blue (1991) to the postmodern hybridity of Chinese Characters (1986) and Dirty Laundry (1996), from the inventive autobiography of Fung diptych on his parents, The Way to my Father Village (1988) and My Mother’s Place (1990), to the most exciting safe sex agitprop ever shot in a Toronto bathhouse (Steam Clean, 1990)!
Although we certainly have in Montréal a tradition of social activist video dating from the late 60s, few of our video artists – certainly those working in French – have policized sexuality and race to the degree that Fung does, and certainly never at the same time. Fung’s politics is not a politics of confrontation, but of soft voices, tender and brave, of quiet irony and humour, of desire and passion, of personal and collective memory, of strength from community.
This long overdue retrospective is entitled Good, Clean Fung in honour of Fung’s fondness for puns on the laundry trade that was the historical destiny of generations of Chinese Canadians.
Richard Fung, still from the video Chinese Characters, 1986
La pratique de Richard Fung est interventionniste. Son travail s’inspire de la tradition du documentaire. En tant que gai d’origine sino-trinidadienne, il explore avec grande finesse les politiques identitaires de la sexualité et de la race. Fung produit des oeuvres vidéo indépendantes depuis les années 1980. Il a publié de nombreux essais critiques dans des revues et des anthologies. Il a été particulièrement actif au Canada dans les discussions entourant les notions d’équité et les politiques culturelles. Il vit et travaille à Toronto.
Thomas Waugh est professeur en Études cinématographiques à l’Université Concordia depuis 1976. Il dirige aussi des séminaires interdisciplinaires sur les représentations gaie et lesbienne, l’épidémie du VIH et les arts au Canada. Il a publié en 1984 Show Us Life: Towards a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary, et en 1996, Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from their Beginnings to Stonewall.