For over ten years Leung has worked predominately with scores, short written descriptions interpreted by the exhibitor, and dependent on the architectural, structural and social context of the exhibition. As standard there are no objects assigned to the scores, and each instantiation of the work is different, there being no set precedent beyond the score itself. As artworks, the scores’ permanence lies not in their fixity as objects but their cyclical ability to be reproduced, reproduced in variation, and perpetuity. For Leung, engagement in this vulnerability and volatility of the work, came not only from a formal inquiry but very real material limitations and concerns. Scores allowed Leung to reckon with the contemporary conditions of artistic production - to work without studio, storage or shipping, to avoid the expense and exhaustion of travelling, mostly unpaid, to oversee every installation and exhibition. It is perhaps this defiance, her refusal to prioritise productivity and control over all else, her attempt to live limits inclusive, that defines much of Leung’s art. Her scores constitute a way, not only to make art, but to continue to be able to do so.

Since 2020, and the birth of her daughter, Leung’s work has shifted from not only a refusal of dominant models of productivity but an affirmation of reproductive labour in its own right. Unable to travel for install or attend her own openings, Leung had to not only allow her Scores to work harder, but reflexively shift her contextual parameters. Her works expanded to engage in her own emotional, economic material limits; the difficulties of continuing to be an artist, a mother and working multiple jobs in order to do so. Works increasingly dealt with time management, administration, maintenance, situating the work’s multivalenced identity within her own. What began as Leung’s absence became an active withdrawal, one constitutive to the work’s implementation and necessary for its production; in terms of both the Scores’ interpretation, and Leung’s ability to keep working as an artist. As demand increased Leung decreased involvement, always maintaining exhibition making but refusing many other moments of visibility. Leung rarely attends her own openings, and has no photos of herself in circulation, but remains heavily engaged in reproductive work such as teaching, talks and writing.

In the two exhibitions titled Reproductions that Leung has produced this year, the first was at n.b.k. in Berlin, the second here at Cabinet Gallery, the artist has expanded her insistence on reproductive labour even further. The works at n.b.k. specified that the gallery was left as it was from the previous show, that the exhibition budget was displayed, that items no longer in n.b.k.’s use were shown. Reproductions at Cabinet extends further to encompass the artist’s concerns with the commercial model of production. In Budgets it is noticeable that there is no artist fee, a standard procedure in commercial gallery work. The artist will only be paid if the work sells, and this is true for the gallery also. As is evident in the work Prices, the economy both artist and gallery enter into is precarious. Leung’s response to this, is to further withdraw her labour and in doing so simultaneously expand the work’s remit. Reproductions allows for a reproduction of any of Leung’s works to be shown. The objects in the gallery are not the work, they are the result of an action and labour that is. Each artwork’s appearance here is dependent on the priorities and demands of these working conditions. Burrs, bleeds and imperfections inclusive, it is the work. Like all of Leung’s works, their value lies in a refuting of those very terms, the systems that structure them, and us with them.