May 23, 2020 (Saturday) │3pm@Hong Kong Arts Centre

The Hong Kong Arts Centre has facilitated the collaboration between renowned Hong Kong comics artist Li Chi-tak and the Musée du Louvre (the Louvre) , which resulted in a comic title on the museum in French last year. The comic was formally released on the Angoulême International Comics Festival early this year in France, while the Hong Kong Chinese version was released in mid-March this year. Li Chi-tak is one of the leading comics artists in Hong Kong. In 2016, with the generous support from the CreateHK, he visited the Angoulême International Comics Festival together with Hong Kong Arts Centre, and became the first Hong Kong comics artist to hold a solo exhibition that garnered international attention there. Mr. Fabrice Douar, the curator for the BD Louvre project, also came to know Chi-tak Li’s idiosyncratic style through that exhibition. Mr. Douar thus invited him to join the BD Louvre project and visit the Louvre for information collection and research, and even made special arrangements for him to visit areas that are out of bound to tourists, such as the basement and rooftop. Li Chi-tak can even stay till midnight after the museum is closed. This truly shows how much respect the French people accord to comics as an artform.

Li Chi-tak, together with Mr. Karson Mak, Business Director of Today Publications Ltd., and Ms. Connie Lam, Executive Director of Hong Kong Arts Centre will attend the new book launch on May 23 (Saturday) at 3pm at Hong Kong Arts Centre.

The renowned classical art museum of the Louvre first initiated the “BD Louvre” project in 2003, inviting comics artists from around the world to visit and find inspiration during afterhours. Two years later, the Louvre again cooperated with French comics publication house Futuropolis to publish these works. Other than renowned French and Belgian comics artists, the masters, Naoki Urasawa and  Hirohiko Araki from Japan have previously participated in the project and published comics on the Louvre. But Li Chi-tak from Hong Kong is the first ever Chinese comics artists to be invited to publish his comics in French through the project, signifying Hong Kong comics’ one big step on the international arena.

Li Chi-tak’s new book is titled Moon of the Moon, a page-turner story on the clones. “This is a story about five decommissioned clones. They should have been dead, but two scientists revived them privately , and gave them a new life, yet, the scientists spied on them secretly. By coincidence, the revived clones met the scientists at the Louvre, and where the story begins. I tried to navigate the historic beauty of the Louvre in a fitting manner,” said Li.

In the recent decade, Hong Kong Arts Centre (Comix Home Base) has been proactive in promoting local creativity through different formats and on different platforms, while actively encouraging Hong Kong local comics artists to participate in different cultural activities, so as to explore potential collaboration opportunities. Ms. Connie Lam, the Executive Director of Hong Kong Arts Centre says, “We have many excellent comics artists and comic works in Hong Kong, they are what encourage us to promote local comics. This cooperation with the Louvre, a top-notch art institution in France, is a wonderful evidence to the artistic values of the Hong Kong comics… I believe this is a common conviction shared by the Louvre and Hong Kong Arts Centre. Exchanges between different places, styles and formats will surely bring new inspirations and perspectives”.

This new book launch is accompanied by an original manuscript exhibition of Moon of the Moon for a three days period (March 27-29), please come and feel for yourselves the magical Louvre recreated by Li Chi-tak through his own drawings.

Press interviews are welcomed, please support!

利志達 Li Chi-tak

Website: lichitak.com │Facebook: lichitakoffice

Li Chi-tak began his career in the comics industry in 1982. After working for a corporate comics publisher in Hong Kong for a month, he decided to start his own venture as a freelancer. Following on from the release of The Wisely series, he self-published Tong Men Shao Nian, a prominent title which rocketed him to fame in 1987. He has since developed a distinctive art style, creating his own visual world with eerily experimental works that broke genre rules. 

Li’s transmedia creations transcend the boundary of comics and expand into movies, experimental theatres, literature, pop music and sculptures. His idiosyncratic style has attracted the attention and commissions from local and international brands.  Li is also well-known to the international comics scene. His comics has been published in places like Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Mainland China, France and Italy since the 90s.

In 2016, the Hong Kong Arts Centre had jointly curated Li’s solo exhibition with the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France as one of the Festival’s thematic exhibitions. His French comics The Beast, a collaborative project with the famous Belgian writer Jean Dufaux, was released at the same time. This solo exhibition had given birth to another international cooperation opportunity. Li was invited by the Louvre Museum to create a new comics Moon of the Moon. The French version was released in November 2019 in Europe and the Hong Kong Chinese version by the local publisher Today Publications in March 2020.

About Hong Kong Arts Centre

Established in 1977, Hong Kong Arts Centre (HKAC) is the first independent non-profit multi-arts institution that stimulates innovation and promotes creativity. HKAC fosters artistic exchanges locally and internationally, bringing the most forward looking creations to Hong Kong and showcasing homegrown talent abroad. In the past four decades, HKAC has been dedicated to fostering the growth of the local art scene as well as facilitating cultural exchanges between Hong Kong and the rest of the world. Aiming to make art accessible to a wider audience, HKAC has presented diverse programmes covering performing arts, visual arts, film and video arts, public arts, arts education, and more.

HKAC's education arm, the Hong Kong Art School (HKAS), was founded in 2000 as an accredited institute. The School is staffed by a group of dedicated artists with the first and foremost aim of fostering new talents for the local art scene. At the juncture of its 40th anniversary, HKAC launched a rebranding and renovation project to strengthen its core concept of 'Arts at the Centre', and continue to promote locally and internationally the development of Asian contemporary arts.

Dedicated to promoting comics and animation arts and culture since 2006, HKAC has presented a diverse array of comics and animation-related programmes in different parts of the world, e.g. the Mainland China, France, Japan, Finland, to list a few. From 2013 to 2018, HKAC was also the operator of the Comix Home Base (CHB) which was the first and leading arts community for comics, animation and related media in Hong Kong. The CHB breathed new life into Hong Kong’s comics and animation scene by fostering the city’s comics and animation culture. In recent years, HKAC has been proactive in promoting Hong Kong comics to the international market.

Official website: hkac.org.hk | Facebook: Hong Kong Arts Centre | Instagram: @hongkongartscentre

About Today Publications
Today Publications is a Hong Kong publication house that publishes different kinds of novels and proses, comics and illustrated books. Aiming at young people, the publications are also well-loved by all book lovers. Today Publications has been working closely together with different writers and comics artists. We share the same conviction that physical titles still have their charm. Through them, we want to draw readers’ attentions to the styles of different comics artists and illustrators. From In the Eyes of Gods many years ago to the well-acclaimed Hong Kong Havoc, and our latest collaboration with Hong Kong Arts Centre, Moon of the Moon this year, we hope to promote Chi-tak Li’s work to more readers from all walks of life.

Media Enquiries:
Hong Kong Arts Centre
Annie Ho (Marketing & Development Director)
Tel: 852- 2824 5306 / 852- 9481 8706　　　　　　　　　　　　
E-mail: aho@hkac.org.hk
 
Zoe Tsang (Marketing & Development Officer)                        
Tel: 2582 0215
E-mail: ztsang@hkac.org.hk

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