As a new edition of Art Basel Hong Kong is unveiled in the enchanted city, we’re illuminating the best Hong Kong exhibitions by premier galleries and museums including Pace, David Zwirner, K11 Musea, Lèvy Gorvy Dayan & Wei, and Ben Brown Fine Arts.
Kylie Manning’s “Sea Change” at Pace Gallery
March 26—May 9, 2024
Kylie Manning, “Undertow,” 2023, oil on linen, 177.8 cm × 70 x 90 in.; © Kylie Manning, courtesy of Pace Gallery.
Brooklyn-based painter Kylie Manning debuts an inaugural solo show in Hong Kong at Pace with “Sea Change,” offering a prismatic and expressive suite of new works. Through her signature use of abstract figures and lit-from-within landscapes, the visionary here unveils five sweeping paintings and correlated drawings that evoke moments and memories from her stirring collaboration last year with choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and the New York City Ballet.
Having produced vivid scenography and surreal costumes for Wheeldon’s luminous production From You Within Me, Manning was energized to honor the partnership with sketches named after revered Ballet’s dancers, as well as with paintings whose languid movements capture a parade of riveting rehearsals witnessed by the artist. Undertow (2023) intermeshes chaos and tranquility within Mother Nature’s evolving narrative, while Metronome (2023) illuminates the evocative human visage and its earthy gestures.
Wolfgang Tillmans’s “The Point is Matter” at David Zwirner
March 25—May 11, 2024
Wolfgang Tillmans, “Filled with Light, a,” (2011); courtesy David Zwirner, New York/Hong Kong; Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne; and Maureen Paley, London.
Distinguished German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans unveils a solo presentation of transcendent works at David Zwirner, spanning two floors of the Hong Kong gallery space. Rooted in nearly four decades of intimate social and spiritual awareness and questioning, the artist’s latest explorations puncture traditional notions of time and atmosphere, releasing mesmeric natural wonders and experiential portraiture.
Visitors will be confronted with compelling and evolving subject matters from one corner of the gallery to another, and a singular dialogue between the physical and emotional realities of the artist and audience will unfold. Pieces created from Berlin, to Mongolia, to Hong Kong offer a compassionate view of contemporary life on earth. In addition, innovative video work features tracks from the upcoming album Build From Here alongside rapturous footage of the artist himself.
“Boundless Reverie: Chinese Savoir-Faire and Contemporary Art” at K11 Musea
March 26—May 19, 2024
Vincent Cazenueve, “Untitled,” 2023, Dimensions variable; courtesy of the artist and K11 Craft & Guild Foundation.
On the occasion of Hong Kong Art Month, K11 Art Foundation and K11 Craft & Guild Foundation rejoice in blossoming cultural and artistic exchange with the vibrant exhibition “Boundless Reverie: Chinese Savoir-Faire and Contemporary Art.” Bringing together both treasured, Chinese antiquities and leading-edge, modern creations, the show offers a dazzling conversation between past, present, and future.
Radiant, gilt-decoration craftsmanship—first seen during the 15th century’s sea trade between Europe and China—-is made newly visible to international visitors. All ages will marvel at the extraordinary artifacts within this collection, from rare 18th-century jewelry cabinets to opulent 19th-century hand-painted fans. Lush works of emerging contemporary artists, including Dominique Fung, Sun Yitian, Ziping Wang, Vivien Zhang, and Jes Fan are collaged as voices of an ever-changing world balancing personal identity and collective tradition. Upon the presentation’s opening, the K11 Artist Prize will be announced at a jubilant gala ceremony in embracement of a new era of visionary creatives.
“Color Form” at Lèvy Gorvy Dayan & Wei
March 21—May 31, 2024
Pierre Soulages, “Peinture,” (2015), Acrylic on canvas, 39 3/4 × 51 3/16 in., © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris, courtesy the artist and Lévy Gorvy Dayan.
Lèvy Gorvy Dayan & Wei shine light on the fundamental characteristics of painting in the extensive show “Color Form,” creating new synergy and revelation through masterpieces by a group of pioneering artists during the Atomic Age of the 1950s and 60s. The shimmering rapport between energy, space, light, and matter is brought to the surface through past explorations by American luminaries such as Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, as well as by European avant-garde creatives Pierre Soulages, Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, and more.
On one hand, the gripping, pictorial abstractions of Chinese artists Zao Wou- Ki and Chu Teh-Chun fuse elements of their homeland’s traditional painting techniques with abstract Western styles of color-form experimentation. On the other, Soulages’s Outrenoir (“beyond-black”) pieces reveal luminosity and texture through intense single color study. “I found that the light reflected by the black surface elicits certain emotions in me,” explained the artist. “These aren’t monochromes. The fact that light can come from the color which is supposedly the absence of light is already quite moving, and it is interesting to see how this happens.”
“Celestial Mechanics: Form and Future in the Work of Gerhard Richter and Sean Scully” at Ben Brown Fine Arts
March 23—June 29, 2024
Gerhard Richter, “20. November 2014,” (2014), Oil on colour photograph, 5 7/8 x 4 in.; courtesy of the artist and Ben Brown Fine Arts.
Curated by eminent art historian Joachim Pissarro, “Celestial Mechanics: Form and Future in the Work of Gerhard Richter and Sean Scully” is a groundbreaking presentation that unfolds within both Ben Brown Fine Arts and Asia Society Hong Kong Center simultaneously. A meticulous collaging of works on paper and paintings by Scully, alongside abstract paintings, overpainted photographs, and works on paper by Richter, elucidate the shared pathways of two of the most highly regarded artists of our contemporary times.
Both artists grew up during the anguish of World War II. Richter’s personal experiences leaving communist Germany and Scully’s memories of departing from Ireland as treacherous tensions with the North erupted—each one searching for new life and meaning—deeply shaped their creative visions. Still, bittersweet hopefulness thrives in their oeuvres, from the luminous bath of color in Richter’s 20. November 2014 (2014), to the anticipatory building blocks of Scully’s Landline 4.20.20 (2020).
