Danny Chin-Fai Lee

Acquired by the present owner directly from the artist

Hong Kong, City Hall, Urban Karma: Works by Danny Lee, October 2006

This work is in excellent condition overall. There are no visible condition problems with this work.
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Contemporary Hong Kong is a city of contradictions, where tradition and modernity, the old and the new permeate the living environment and constantly bump into each other.  This kaleidoscope of the past, present and future inspires Danny Lee's sculptural work. 

Rock #2, from the artist's stainless steel series, delivers the classic and much-beloved scooter in the fleshy, molten-metal form of Hollywood special effects.  Harkening back to icons of early Italian Futurism such as Umberto Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913), Lee takes up not man but machine in his celebration of the utilitarian vehicle as slick, shiny and unabashedly sexy object of visual and tactile desire.  While its metallic gloss literally reflects contemporaneity, Rock #2 draws upon our collective memory of the scooter's cultural resonance.  This otherworldly Vespa seems custom-made for a machine-tooled superhero in a futuristic remake of Roman Holiday.  Remarkably rich in its cultural references and connotations, Rock #2 also embodies the imaginative vision and accomplished craftsmanship characteristic of this fascinating Hong Kong artist.