Interval in Space, from Scuol to Hong Kong
In early July, a group of young Hong Kong artists has travelled to the village of Scuol in the picaresque Engadin valley in south-eastern Switzerland in order to take part in a residency program and to share information about their artistic practices with a group of artists from Switzerland and Austria.
The five participating artists from Hong Kong are Au Hoi Lam, Nadim Abbas, Sarah Lai, Lee Kit and Kingsley Ng. The artists from Switzerland and Austria are Beat Feller, Zilla Leutenegger, Matthias Liechti, Boris Rebetez and Judith Fegerl.
Media contact
Shawn Tang (Osage Hong Kong)
shawntang@osagegallery.com
+852 2172 1696
+852 5131 4315
The project is presented by the Osage Art Foundation and the Fundaziun NAIRS Contemporary Art Centre (NAIRS Foundation) and is co-organised by the Consulate General of Switzerland in Hong Kong.
The project is curated by Harald Kraemer (Switzerland / Hong Kong), Janine Stoll (Switzerland) and Charles Merewether (Hong Kong).
The project includes an exhibition in Switzerland from 21 July 2017 to 29 October 2017 and then later in the year will continue in Hong Kong with a residency for the Swiss and Austrian artists and an exhibition at Osage Hong Kong from 15 December 2017 to 28 January 2018.
Scuol in Switzerland is a centre for the rich Romansch culture that is a descendant of the spoken Latin language of the Roman Empire. During their stay, the Hong Kong artists will explore this culture and later reflect upon their experiences for their exhibition in Hong Kong.
In Switzerland, the Hong Kong artists will show work that they hope will resonate with their hosts. Nadim Abbas will show an animated crashing waterfall but as seen through a typical Hong Kong apartment window. Kingsley Ng will show a work that is a reflection on the supply of water. Sarah Lai will show work that comments on the crowded nature of Hong Kong. Lee Kit’s interest is to redefine how we identify with the everyday by staging communal activities with his artworks and to seek an uncanny interpretation of an object. Au Hoi Lam will explore the nature of language with an installation that examines the process of translating a Cantonese pop song into English, French, German, Italian and then into a dialect of Romansch.
The project is generously supported by Presence Switzerland; Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council; City and Kanton Bern; Kulturpauschale Kanton Basel-Stadt; Stiftung Temperatio; City University of Hong Kong and the School of Creative Media; The Hong Kong Arts Development Council and the Arts Development Fund of the Home Affairs Bureau, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
About the curators
Janine STOLL
Doctorate in Art History at the University of Bern on Marcel Broodthaer’s Conceptual Art Work La Salle Blanche, (1975). Curatorial practice and cooperation with the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Museum Franz Gertsch etc. Since 2012 co-management of the off-space ‘lotsremark Projekte’, where she realized exhibitions and different mediation projects. (M. Broodthaers, G. Steinmann, S.A. Swope). Teaches pictorial design, art and cultural history. Lives in Basel.
Harald KRAEMER
Dr. in art history (Trier) / Dipl. In museum and exhibition (Vienna) / art and media scientist, curator, creator of media in museums / co-founder of TRANSFUSIONEN in 1999 and lotsremark Projecte in 2012. Lecturer in Dept. Design of the ZHdK. Since 2014: Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Head of the MA program Curating Art and Media Exhibitions: ISEA2016 Hong Kong Cultural R> Evolution; The Age of Experience Hong Kong 2015 / Vienna 2016. Lives in Hong Kong and Basel.
Charles MEREWETHER
Ph.D. in Art History (Univ. Sydney) / independent curator and writer on modernism and contemporary art / Collections Curator at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles from (1994 to 2004) / Artistic Director and Curator for the 2006 Sydney Biennale / Deputy Director for the Cultural District, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi (2007 to 2008) / Director at Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore and LASALLE College of the Arts (2010 to 2013). Lives in Tbilisi and Hong Kong.
About the Swiss artists
Beat FELLER
Educated sculptor.
Artist in Residence: 2009 New York Canton of Berne
Exhibitions: 2016 Kunsthaus Interlaken, Galerie Krethlow, Berne, Stadtgalerie Bern; 2016/14 Cantonale Berne Jura, 2015, Art Museum Thun, Center Pasquart, Biel, 2015, Kunsthalle Bern. Beat FELLER transmits his open understanding of sculpture to other media and thus makes the idea of the sculptural in other genres visible. He interviews the interaction of different forces in varying contexts.
Zilla LEUTENEGGER
1995-1999 Zurich University of the Arts Awards: 2001, 2002, 2004, City of Zurich, 2004 Manor Chur, 2005 Federal Art Prize, 2016 Art Prize of the BEWE Foundation Individual exhibitions: 2015 Haus der Kunst, Munich; 2014 Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf.Since Zilla Leutenegger revamped the medium of drawing with two innovative video works in 1999, she devoted herself in variations to the combination of different media: drawing, video projection and object. In her looped videos, time and the repetition of an action becomes a work-constituting element, the same interval in space. Instead of stories, the artist repeatedly surprises with newly created movement studies, which are taken from everyday observations and rituals.
Matthias LIECHTI
Awards: Art Award Riehen, 2015, Kiefer Hablitzel Award, 2014. Matthias Liechti has emerged in the last few years through the unusual handling of two- and three-dimensional spatial structures. Liechti conceived his work as an experimental arrangement for a longer discussion on topics such as perception and conventions. Matthias Liechti has held a dual-exhibition “I CANNOT SEE” at V Space in West Bund Shanghai back in Sept. 2016.
Boris REBETEZ
1989-1990 / 1991-1994 School of Design, Biel / Basel; 2001-2011 Lecturer ETH Zurich Artist in residence: 2001 Christoph-Merian Foundation in Edinburgh; 2008 Istituto Svizzero, Rome / 2006 Manor art prize Basel Solo shows: 2015 Vitrine Gallery, London; 2014 Kunsthaus Baselland. In his artistic work, Boris Rebetez deals with sculptural forms at the interface to architecture, public space and landscape. He transfers these findings into the interior and thus counteracts the original function. Boris Rebetez takes an alienation into the architectural context: fragments imitate architecture, supposedly static elements reveal themselves as ornamental work.
(Banner photo courtesy Ralph Feiner, NAIRS Foundation and Osage Art Foundation.)
