Hong Kong — Trevor Yeung
Hong Kong’s collateral exhibition for the 60th Venice Biennale is presented by M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and will feature a solo show by Hong Kong artist Trevor Yeung (b. 1988, Dongguan) curated by M+ Assistant Curator Olivia Chow. Yeung’s practice centres around human relations and the logic behind them, by investigating the conditions in which human behaviour and emotional responses take shape. The artist’s particular fascination with botanic ecology and horticulture has led him to explore notions of artificial nature by staging objects, photographs, animals and plants in mixed media works. His scenarios function as fables that translate into personal social experiences exploring the nature of failure and imperfection in human life. Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator, M+, said of the artist:
Trevor Yeung’s examination of everyday, evanescent existences and sustained human relationships with the nature are expressed through imaginative and lyrical installations evoking poignant senses of tenderness and fragility, and resonate deeply with his audiences. His work speaks very much to our time and our sensibilities …
Japan — Yuko Mohri
The Japan Pavilion will present a solo exhibition by Tokyo-based multimedia artist Yuko Mohri (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan), curated by Dr Sook-Kyung Lee, Director at The Whitworth, The University of Manchester (formerly Senior Curator, International Art at Tate Modern, London). Mohri’s practice explores the nature of phenomena and the constant shifting and changes that govern our environment. The artist works with installation and scultpure, and recently also video and photography. In a statement about the upcoming project, Mohri brought to mind the climate activists’ attack on Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888) at the National Gallery, London in 2022, and the fact that there had been more attention given to the artwork in question than to the reason behind the attack.
The fundamental question posed was “Which is more valuable, art or life?” Reading about this event sparked an interest in the artist about “how a crisis, paradoxically, sparks the highest levels of creativity in people”. From railway workers in Tokyo ingeniously employing everyday items to stop water leaks at a station, to the life changes brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, to Venice’s significant, catastrophic flood in 2019, Mohri sensed it was “the beginning of a fresh era of response to global challenges”. Her new project will attempt to present an “innovative vision that opens a new path to the future”.
Philippines — Mark Salvatus
The Philippine Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale will present “Kabilang-tabing ng panahong ito (Behind the curtain of this age)”, a solo exhibition by Quezon City-based artist Mark Salvatus and curated by Carlos Quijon Jr. Salvatus’s work creates direct or indirect engagements with the audience to reinterpret everyday urban politics and narratives of national history, a practice the artist calls “Salvage Projects”. According to the press release, the project “simultaneously explores currents of mysticism and modernity, the deep past and the looming future, as well as the coincidence of the cosmopolitan and the vernacular”.
The exhibition revolves around the ethno-ecologies of Mt. Banahaw, a three-peaked forested mountain located at the boundary between Laguna and Quezon, and Lucban, the artist’s hometown. The inspiration for the project comes from the way in which Mt. Banahaw has shaped the music and faith of the people living in the area. The title comes from the words of radical spiritual leader of Lucban’s people Apolinario de la Cruz or Hermano Pule, who led the resistance against the discriminations of the Spanish Catholic Church.
Singapore — Robert Zhao Renhui
Organised by the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the Singapore Pavilion will feature a solo exhibition by interdisciplinary artist Robert Zhao Renhui, curated by SAM Senior Curator Haeju Kim. Zhao’s practice—spanning installation, photography, video and scultpure—explores the complex relationships between nature and culture. His interdisciplinary approach aims to construct layered narratives of the natural world, in an attempt to uncover the experiences of the myriad living beings that populate the world.
The project at the 60th Venice Biennale takes the title of “Seeing Forest”, and offers an evocative exploration of secondary forests—forests regrown from deforested land due to human intervention such as development and plantation. These liminal spaces between primary forests and urban areas have often been taken over by invasive plant and animal species that were introduced to Singapore during the 19th century. Through these landscapes, Zhao explores the complex web of human and non-human co-existence, uncovering stories of intersection—of colonisation, migration, sustainability, and co-dependence between the natural and the human worlds.
South Korea — Koo Jeong A
The South Korea Pavilion will present “Odorama Cities”, a solo exhibtion by Koo Jeong A (they/them), and curated by Seolhui Lee and Jacob Fabricius. Koo works with a wide range of media, from architectural elements, texts, drawings and paintings, to sculptures, animations, sound, film, words and scents. Their work creates immersive experiences that are also intimate and personal. Immaterialism, weightlessness, endlessness and levitation are key words to their practice, and are all going to be part of the presentation at the 60th Venice Biennale.
The Pavilion combines some of the key subjects and sculptural elements that Koo has worked with during the last three decades. In the exhibition, Koo explores spatial encounters and investigates the role that odours, smells and scents play in creating our memories of places. In addition to the physical, material works in the exhibition space—including floating wooden möbius-shaped scultpures and a levitating, scent-diffusing figure—scents will play a central part in the space. The Korean Pavilion team ran an open call asking “what is your scent memory of Korea?” The results were curated into a collection of stories and keywords distilled by a perfumer to create 26 scents experiences that will diffuse throughout the Pavilion.
Taiwan — Yuan Goang-Ming
Taiwan’s collateral event for the 60th Venice Biennale will present a solo exhibition by Taiwanese new media artist Yuan Goang-Ming, curated by Abby Chen. The project, titled “Everyday War”, will see Yuan’s signature video art and spatial transformation, turning the palazzo into a space with an “everyday” domestic feel, contemplating the present-day realities of life, as well as the hidden threats that underlie “the difficulty of dwelling poetically”. The show will include five video artworks and a kinetic installation—with two new works among them. The new piece, titled Everyday War, is a single-channel video presenting before-and-after scans of a domestic space as it is destroyed in a war-like scenario, and then slowly returns to its original state.
“Everyday War” continues Yuan’s past audio-visual vocabulary, and explores themes of “home,” “dwelling” and “an uncanny tomorrow”. His works project anxieties about the current political and social environment. As Yuan Goang-Ming says,
This solo exhibition will try to metaphorically explore the hidden fears and threats of Taiwan in its current state of existence, and by asking questions about the future, it will re-examine the realities of the present, considering ‘war as part of normal life’ and ‘war becoming the new normal.’
C. A. Xuân Mai Ardia
“Foreigners Everywhere”, the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, will run from 20 April to 24 November 2024 at the Arsenal, Giardini and other venues across the floating city of Venice, Italy.