Whether you are an art novice or a connoisseur, up your art ante with these stimulating summer shows in Hong Kong
Looking for your next culture fix? This summer, Hong Kong’s talented art community is staging multiple art exhibitions across the city that will surely appeal to a wide range of tastes. From ostensibly shiny objects that throw shade at materialism through their tacky allure to minimalist or mixed media installations that evoke nostalgia, there’s something for everyone.
Even if you don’t “get” art and are just looking for an air-conditioned space to hide from the sun for a few hours (we’re not judging), these exhibitions will provide enough stimulation for the eyes and brain, we’re sure you’ll enjoy spending time soaking in the art even if you are just casually wandering through.
In case you missed it: Piece of work: How is Méret Oppenheim’s ‘Object (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure)’ art?
1. ‘Found in Translation’
Enter Art Intelligence Global’s (AIG) gallery space this summer for the Found in Translation exhibition, and you’d be forgiven if you think you’ve walked into the middle of a murder scene in a glamorous hotel room. The New York-based artist Kayode Ojo’s glittering sculptures evoke the sense of a wild party gone wrong—take for example, the shiny gold boots stuffed with liquor bottles and bound by handcuffs on top of a red briefcase, and white fur coats flung over a stand placed over a white carpet on which a glass pistol also lies discarded.
Elsewhere in the show, another New York-based artist Cynthia Talmadge’s intricate sand renderings of old Hong Kong hotel stationery evoke nostalgia and highlight a lost form of correspondence—letter writing with pen pals.
Also featured in this exhibition is Talmadge’s longtime friend, NGO Asia Art Archive’s executive director Christopher K. Ho, whose glossy and reflective sculptures, while ambiguous in interpretation, comment on the monotonous aspect of hotel sculpture or hotel art.
The exhibition, which focuses on the experiences and feelings that one encounters at a hotel, is titled Found in Translation as a spin on the 2003 film Lost in Translation, starring Billy Murray and Scarlett Johansson, in which two strangers crossing paths in a hotel. The exhibition explores the idea of a hotel as a liminal space that can be both familiar and foreign, public and private. With the gallery itself being located in the same building as the Arca, a hotel in Wong Chuk Hang, this lends further layers of nuance to the viewing experience.
While the exhibition is staged at AIG, the show is co-presented and organised by Eleanor Rines, founder of 56 Henry, a New York-based gallery. Works by David Roy, Jo Messer, Kevin Reinhardt, Kevin Zucker and Laurie Simmons are also on view.
Until August 25, Suite A, 1/F, TS Tower, 43 Heung Yip Rd, Wong Chuk Hang
