Kwok Mang Ho

During the late 60s, Kwok began on experimenting the possibility of contemporary art. He worked on ready-made objects, mixed media and collage in repeated manner. “To me, art is life and life is art” he said. The boundary between art and his life is blurry and interdependent. He is considered to be an eccentric artist whose work is intuitive with chaotic expression and experimental spirit.[10] He emphasizes the spontaneous imagination, improvisation, interaction and participation. During the exhibition of 9 Million Works and Frog Fun Lum, he did some improvisation performances entitled “One Second Body Installation” and “One Second Live Art” with the audience.[11] The iconic motifs in his works are the graffiti-style frog's face and a pair of eyes as the symbol of a bridge or boat, which both represents the perpetuity and the cycle of life. “Frogtopia”, refers to the Utopia of his artistic space, which is embodied by the construction of his collage, mixed media art and installation.[12]

In an interview with a CNN journalist Doug Meigs,[13] Kwok revealed that his attachment toward frogs had taken a significant part during his growing up. For instance, according to the article, when he was about 5 years old, he usually climbed up a huge rock called "Big Froggy Rock" in Happy Valley so as to watch the horse races; later in his teenage years, he refereed himself as the "Frog Prince" when approaching girls.

After staying abroad for more than a decade, Kwok absorbed notably western cultures and mindsets. Thus so, he developed a more mature and in-depth perception toward frogs. With the multi-cultural background he has, he relates himself to frogs which are amphibians that could live vividly either in water or on land and explore freely the two different worlds.

In the late 1970s, Kwok started using plastic bags as the major medium in his creative projects. The Plastic Bags Project, was first introduced in 1978, which he attached plastic bags in circles to create a 3-dimensional installation in a public space in Toronto.[5] The concept behind was to sculpt air and plastic bags was for him the perfect malleable container.[14] This specific choice of this uncommon elemental material led him the pioneer in Hong Kong art scene.[15]

Through this piece of work, Kwok expects to put people's garbage, problems, anxiety and those are not to be seen inside the bags. He aimed to turn the use of plastic bags of creating 'air sculpture' into a meaningful act, rather than only as an contention against the unconscious action of concealment; he wanted to it to be a new form of art.

After the success, Kwok intrepid art performances of tying plastic bags in Tiananmen Square and Great Wall shocked the conventional contemporaries.[16][17] This Great Wall plastic bag action, named the Plastic Bag Happenings in China(1979), which is also referred as the Plastic Bag Installation Along The Great Wall, was part of the “Kwok in Beijing” project created during his visit to Beijing in April, 1979. It was his earliest performance art, and was simultaneously the earliest documented performance art in China in the late 70s.[16] He continued to work on the Big Plastic Bag Action collaborating with students from Tsuen Wan Hoi Pa Street Government Primary School.[18]

• 1967 One Man Show, Grantham College of Education, Hong Kong
• 1970 “Blue Turtle” One Man Show, Environmental Sculpture, St.John Ambulance Assn, H.K.
• 1978 ‘Park Environmental Sculpture’ Harbour Front Gallery, Toronto, Canada (plastic bag)
• 1979 Modern Art in Hong Kong Frog King Live Art Project
• 1979 Live Performance & Installation
• 1979 Great Wall, Beijing (plastic bag)
• 1979 Summer Palace, Beijing (plastic bag)
• 1982-84 Kwok Gallery, New York
• 1982 NYC SoHo Street Installation
• 1983 Frog King Live Art New York
• 1984 Frog Concept
• 1986 ‘Gods Party’ Installation, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, USA
• 1992 'The Art Mall: A Social Space,' New Museum, New York.[19]
• 1995 ‘Traveling Frog Installation’, Central St. Martins, London, UK
• 1995 East Village Nyc
• 1997 ‘Reunion & Vision’ Hong KOng Museum of Art, Hong Kong
• 1997 ‘Frog Column’ Fung Ping Shan Museum HK 1997
• 2001 Frog King's Colour Calligraphy
• 2002 Busan Biennale Live Performance, Seoul
• 2003 Transbourder Language, Beijing 798 Art Zone
• 2008 Artist-In-Residence Program ‘Tomi-Saruku’ Riverpal Gokasegawa, Miyazzaki, Japan
• 2011 “Frogtopia-Hongkorucopia”, Hong Kong Representative, 54th Venice Biennale
• 2014 “Frogtopia-Hongkorucopia”, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Hong Kong
• 2018 Booth at Art Basel Hong Kong

• 1971 The seven Columns
• 1971-78 Light sculptures, columns sculpture
• 1976 ‘Perpetuity’ Metal Steel Sculpture/Fire Relief Wood, plastic pipes
• 1976 Bamboo, basket sculptures City Hall
• 1976-77 ASSEMBLAGE Basket, bamboo, charcoal, light sculpture

• 1977 Kwok at Hong Kong Art Center VAS Annual Show
• 1977 Hong Kong Polytechnic Experimental Calligraphy Big Action ‘The Art of Water’

• 1989 ‘Frog’ ,Mixed Media on paper
• 1997 Acrylic on canvas
• 2010 ‘Frog Garden’
• 2010 ‘Frogscape’