Kiang Malingue is pleased to present Samson Young’s first solo exhibition at the gallery’s Hong Kong space. Titled Music for selective hearing, or assisted living, this exhibition will feature five sets of artworks created by the artist in the last two years. Known for exploring the fabric of the socio-political by examining the history and contemporary conditions of sound and music, Young considers in the exhibition the complicated nature of ‘sound conditioning’ – the active control of ambient sounds, as exemplified by such devices as white-noise sleep aids – as self-care and recuperation, but also as self-imposed isolation, control, and wilful disengagement.

Included in the exhibition is Samson Young’s collaboration with his long-time friend, violist William Lane. The installation Often easy, sometimes impossible (2021 – 2022) consists of a two-channel video, in which Lane performs Young’s original composition that was scored for a triangle, a viola, and a synthesised glass harmonica — three high-pitched musical instruments that were once considered harmful to mental health in late 18th century Europe, due to their “over-stimulating” sonic properties. By revisiting histories in which panic was transformed into panicked-policing and censorship, and by reflecting on the nascent, overwhelming “freedom” to disengage through acoustic, orphic means, Young problematises the psychiatric rhetoric of “dangerous tunes.”

Gallery address: 13/F Blue Box Factory Building, 25 Hing Wo Street, Aberdeen