Calligraphic graffiti of Tsang Tsou Choi, King of Kowloon, as a phenomenon of art and popular culture in China

Li Ningxuan Lecturer; Department of Oil Painting; Xinjiang Pedagogical University 102 Xinilu str., Urumqi, China, 830099 3145483921@qq.com

The art of graffiti (tuya ishu) appeared in China in the 90s. The work of rapper MC REN4 and Tsang Tsou Choi had a great influence on its formation. Their activities played a fundamental role in the spread of Western-style graffiti in mainland China in the late 1990s. Of particular interest is the work of Tsang Tsou Choi (1921-2007), the so-called "King of Kowloon" from Hong Kong. His "calligraphic graffiti" became an integral part of the popular culture of Hong Kong and at the same time had a significant impact on the artistic culture of Hong Kong in the second half of the XX – early XXI century.

The topic of Chinese contemporary graffiti art is touched upon in the study by A. Ezzi ^[1], devoted to the analysis of the work of the "Kwanyin Clan", a Beijing creative association that declared itself in June 2006. The problem of the appearance of graffiti art in Beijing and Shanghai became the subject of study by M. Valjacca ^{[2, 3]}, K. Bruce ^[4], etc. Attempts are being made to analyze Chinese graffiti art in relation to the development of public consciousness, street culture and the media ^{[5, 6]}. T. Mouna's research ^[7] is also of great interest, devoted to examining the peculiarities of the transformation of American graffiti art in China in terms of perception, status and social role. The topic of the interaction of graffiti and calligraphy in China remains practically unexplored in modern science. A. Ezzi provides fragmentary information on this issue in his publications.

Within the framework of this study, the systematization of currently available information about the life and work of Tsang Tsou Choi is carried out, the evolution of perception of his "calligraphic graffiti" is traced, the prerequisites for the transformation of the figure of King Kowloon into an icon of culture and art of Hong Kong are considered, which allows us to judge his work as a unique phenomenon of mass street art and mass culture of the country.

Since 1956, unusual graffiti made with brush and ink has appeared in many places on the streets of Hong Kong. Inscriptions that appeared out of nowhere on lampposts, outbuildings, columns, sidewalks, street furniture, garbage cans and switchboards, on the walls of buildings became an integral part of city life. Louise Lim gives her own impressions of the perception of one of the master's works: "The secret message appeared only when the wall got wet in the rain. I've been running around Hong Kong for weeks looking for these bizarre Chinese characters, but the way they materialized out of nowhere shocked me. It was an unremarkable yellow-gray stone wall in the center of the city, the political and economic center of Hong Kong. The words became visible only after the wall got wet; in this case, after a rainstorm in July 2015, as a result of which the wall turned dark and damp. Suddenly, places where the bluish-gray paint had peeled off became visible, revealing the presence of Chinese calligraphy. The inscription, executed in clumsy, uneven letters about 20 cm high, was immediately recognizable by its lack of grace, sophistication or scholarship" ^[8].

Long before the works of Tsang Tsou Choi began to appear at exhibitions and auctions in Hong Kong in the 1990s, his characteristic black ink scribbles had already become an element of the public space of the metropolis. For decades, he has been writing statements about his right to rule Hong Kong. Tsang Tsou Choi's rise from street vandal to art star was extraordinary. Even today, his figure remains largely a mystery – and not only because of the documents of his ancestors, which he probably found in 1956 and which led him to believe in a royal origin. He initially did not see himself as an artist or calligrapher. There are very few of his works created before the 1990s, which is explained by the fact that for a long time they were not considered works of art.

Most of Tsang Tsou Choi's inscriptions served as a categorical statement that his rightful position as King of Kowloon had been stolen by colonial invaders. At the age of 16, he came to Hong Kong from mainland China. He was convinced that the Kowloon Peninsula, the southernmost point of modern mainland China, belonged to his family and was stolen from them by the British in the 19th century. Later, Tsang Tsou Choi extended his claim to the whole of Hong Kong. It was in the 1950s that he began to paint graffiti in protest against the fact that the land, which he considered rightfully his own, had passed to the British. His denunciations took the form of carelessly written inscriptions, quite energetic in style, but very clumsy and chaotically organized Chinese calligraphy, where he painstakingly described his entire family tree, the entire 21st generation, comparing names with places that his relatives had lost, sometimes supplementing all this with curses like "To hell with the queen!" ^[9]. Tsang Tsou Choi was extremely selective in choosing a "canvas": he painted only on state property – walls, overpasses, electric billboards, mailboxes. His messages were almost always immediately washed away or painted over by an army of government cleaners. But during the night his inscriptions appeared again. If any of his outdoor inscriptions survived before or during the 1990s, it was because people such as art historian Lau Kin-Wai, photographer Simon Guo, and curator Joel Chang systematically photographed his work.

The recognition of Tsang Tsou Choi's work as an art phenomenon and the increased interest in it in the 1990s were the result of collective efforts. By that time, his figure had already become an urban myth, Hong Kong residents knew the king of Kowloon well as an urban lunatic, and the media portrayed him as either a mysterious eccentric or a mentally ill person. Then the Hong Kong art world took notice of him. In November–December 1992, a series of articles appeared in the local art magazine Crossover Weekly. The critical reviews were conceived as a study of the phenomenon of the King of Kowloon, while, interestingly, for the first time his street works were called "masterpieces of calligraphy". These articles addressed questions about whether Tsang Tsou Choi considers himself an artist and whether his work can be called "installation art". Throughout the 1990s, King Kowloon's inscriptions appeared at William Tang fashion shows, on album covers, in magazines and films, and even in a laundry detergent advertising campaign. The King of Kowloon has become a cultural icon of the decade.

At the 1997 Fashion Week, the last under the British administration, designer William Tan Tat-chi dedicated his entire show to the King of Kowloon. The collection was unusual in that the designer decorated each piece with recognizable calligraphy of the king. The highlight of the collection was an asymmetrical concrete-colored one-shoulder dress covered with graffiti, with a 20-meter train. At this historic moment, such events have become bold statements about Hong Kong's identity. Tsang's hurried, emotionally intense calligraphy echoed the energy and density of Hong Kong streets, and the face of the model walking down the catwalk expressed steely determination. It was a crucial moment – the time of the emergence of Hong Kong aesthetics, which conveyed how the island felt: modern, fast-paced, dynamic, hybrid, street-like, self-confident. On the wave of success, in April 1997, the infamous solo exhibition of Tsang Tsou Choi opened at the Goethe Institute in Hong Kong, curated by Lau Kin-Wai, who admired his unassuming and intuitive style.

The transformation of the Kowloon King from a local eccentric into an icon of art and culture began shortly before Hong Kong was returned to Chinese sovereignty. In those months, the atmosphere was saturated with a mixture of nostalgia, tension, excitement and anxious hope, and it was at this time that Hong Kongers began to become acutely aware of their unique identity. Against this background, Tsang Tsou Choi – outrageous, rebellious and always irreconcilable in his struggle, a deeply individualistic character – became the personification of Hong Kong as a special socio-cultural community in people's perception. During this period, the famous art curator Lau Kin-wai could often be seen with Tsang Tsou Choi. Lau Kin-wai had a subtle sense of the trends in the development of modern art, and in his eyes, the spontaneous improvisations of King Kowloon, filled with energy and power of emotion, an urgent agenda, were of great interest. He would bring Tsang Tsou Choi brushes and ink and go with him to watch him work on his calligraphic graffiti, and then take pictures of his work.

In April 1997, Lau Kin-wai decided to organize a solo exhibition of the works of King Kowloon. It would be impossible to transfer the usual "painting" of Tsang Tsou Choi – the city itself – to the gallery. Lau solved this problem in this way: he gave Tsang Tsou Choi relatively small, saleable items such as paper lanterns, glass bottles, and an umbrella to paint. The King of Kowloon responded enthusiastically to this offer, as he was extremely flattered by the attention to his work. He painted calligraphic inscriptions on the proposed objects in his characteristic style. The problem with this exhibition was that initially the curator saw in it an opportunity to place the king's works within the framework of the canons of classical calligraphy. Of course, this desire has caused a flurry of criticism from the academic community. "He's a psychopath," one fine arts professor complained in an interview with the Washington Post after the exhibition opened. "I don't see any artistic value in it."^[8] The exhibition became a sensation, the most scandalous event, the like of which no one had ever known before. Not a single piece of art was sold, but Lau didn't care. Decades later, he recalled the exhibition as a triumph.

Tsang Tsou Choi's newfound fame did not change his lifestyle, and he continued to leave his apartment every morning to paint on the streets. There was a steady stream of collectors and fans at his doorstep. Despite being declared an outsider in academic calligraphy circles, his fame and admiration for his calligraphic graffiti only grew on the streets. The King of Kowloon became a real hero for the people of Hong Kong, and his work invariably touched some deep chord in everyone's soul. Obviously, in the years leading up to the handover of Hong Kong to China, his naive activism became an expression of the general mood of the era. Perhaps the residents of the city were touched by the tenacity with which he opposed the British colonialists, his tenacity in fighting for what he considered his home, his land. In the words of one of the critics, Tsang Tsou Choi was "the last free man" in this territory. Art historian David Clarke noted his "keen sense of the topography of power in an effort to attract public attention," and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist called Tsang an "urban poet" who fought "against oblivion."^[9]

The popularity of the Kowloon King was also due to the fact that in the 1990s there was a radical restructuring of the cultural life of Hong Kong. In 1992, the Hong Kong Art Museum organized the exhibition "City Vibration" as a kind of overview of contemporary art in Hong Kong. The exhibition foreshadowed a wave of institutional criticism in Hong Kong in the 1990s, which developed in tandem with the formation of alternative art spaces made possible by the city's new funding policy and openness to outsider art. While the radical statements of King Kowloon were positioned in academic circles as going beyond any aesthetic canons of calligraphy, the cultural life of Hong Kong was rapidly and radically transformed: many Hong Kong artists and art spaces mastered new ways of playing with established artistic frameworks and, moreover, began to abandon them ^[9].

In 1997, the works of Tsang Tsou Choi were included among the exhibits presented at the exhibition "Cities in Motion" organized by Obrist and Hou. The next one was the traveling exhibition "The Power of the Word", which was devoted to artistic studies of the word and calligraphy. The works of King Kowloon were shown on a par with the works of artists such as Gu Wenda and Xu Bing. Since then, his work has been exhibited by the world's leading curators, in major galleries and institutions, and the largest auction houses have sold his bizarre calligraphy^[1], made on paper, wooden boards and T-shirts, even on a scooter, which was sold for 1.8 million Hong Kong dollars. In 2003, the King of Kowloon became the first Hong Kong resident to represent the city at the Venice Biennale. Finally, the exhibition entitled "They Would be Kings" put Zahn on a par with international graffiti legends - from Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat to Banksy. The release of the work of King Kowloon to the international level led to a shift in emphasis: they began to see him not so much as a calligrapher, but as a graffiti artist.

For Hong Kong residents, Tsang Tsou Choi has become something of a folk hero. With his statements about royalty, he embodied the identity of Hong Kong, while his relentlessly emerging activist graffiti, subversive ideas brought politics to the streets, showing the way that decades later protest movements that swept the city followed. In 2007, the King of Kowloon died, but in subsequent years the city was shocked by the periodic appearance of his next calligraphic graffiti. In 2019, around the time when 2 million people took to the streets as part of the largest demonstration ever seen in Hong Kong, the paint peeled off on the support of the overpass near the Central Peak tram stop, exposing the hieroglyphs of the unusual and original calligraphy of Tsang Tsou Choi hidden under it.

For the king himself, his calligraphic graffiti may have simply reflected personal aspirations, but for Hong Kong residents they became a discovery and inspiration, they inspired perseverance and determination in the struggle for their ideals in an era of great change. It is also important the fact that his uneven inscriptions embodied a unique collective memory: the works touched on topics that traditionally remained unspoken, such as, for example, the history of mass dispossession. They became a statement that nothing is forgotten. Thus, the figure Tsang Tsou Choi gained importance not so much as a calligrapher, but as a pioneer of political graffiti. His calls for protest did not just penetrate into urban life. In 2014, when protesters filled the streets of the city, they largely adopted the methods of the king.

^[1] His calligraphy on fabric has been repeatedly auctioned at Sotheby's.