Leelee Chan was announced as the winner of the BMW Art Journey 2020 on 18 June, after a careful selection process by an international jury conducted unanimously and online. The winner of the latest BMW Art Journey is announced as Art Basel in Basel’s online edition kicks off, marking the second Art Basel fair to go entirely live in the digital world.
The BMW Art Journey is a collaboration between Art Basel and BMW, launched in 2015 to recognise and support emerging artists worldwide. Since 2020, eligible artists include emerging and mid-career artists originally participating at Art Basel in Hong Kong represented not only by galleries in the Discoveries sector, but also by galleries that were founded no more than ten years ago.
Usually selected from artist presentations on the ground at Art Basel in Hong Kong, this year’s BMW Art Journey had to go virtual like the actual art fair, which saw its inaugural online edition last March due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The jury conducted its selection process online, inviting artists and their galleries to submit digital applications, including a short video by the artists explaining their work and process. The panel of internationally renowned experts first selected a shortlist of three artists, who were then invited to submit proposals for a journey aimed to further develop their ideas and artistic work.
The international jury for this edition of the award included Claire Hsu, Director, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; Matthias Mühling, Director, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich; Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, President, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Philip Tinari, Director, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; and Samson Young, artist and winner of the first BMW Art Journey. The jury selected the winner among a shortlist that included Jes Fan (represented by Empty Gallery, Hong Kong) and the duo Amy Lien and Enzo Camacho (represented by Empty Gallery, Hong Kong). Chinese artist Lu Yang, represented by the gallery Société, Berlin was the winner of the BMW Art Journey at Art Basel in Hong Kong 2019, and has recently completed the first leg of the tour for her Human Machine Reverse Motion Capture Project.
Represented by Capsule Shanghai gallery, Leelee Chan (b. 1984) lives and works in Hong Kong, and holds an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) (2009) and a BFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago (2006). Chan creates scultpures with discarded materials, such as dumpster detritus, household ephemera and everyday objects that have no value – affective or otherwise. Her works reflect her experience with Hong Kong’s extreme urbanisation, and explore the transformative potential of the items she employs.
Her BMW Art Journey takes the title of Tokens From Time, and continuing on the artist’s interest in objects from our daily life, intends to trace material culture from the past, present and future. Talking about her winning the BMW Art Journey, quoted in the press release, Chan says in this respect:
I am beyond excited to be selected for the BMW Art Journey. Material objects have always been at the core of my practice. The journey will allow me to dig much deeper by discovering new processes, by encountering the people who work with them in their everyday lives, and, thereby, to make them meaningful for me as a sculptor working in this current uncertain moment.
Along her journey, Chan plans to visit destinations in Europe, Japan and the Americas. Her final travel itinerary will be determined in observance of current travel and health regulations tied to the Covid-19 pandemic. The artist will visit artisan families that practice ancient craftsmanship techniques using a variety of materials including copper, silver and marble, some of which are part of Chan’s own sculptural practice. The artist will also engage in dialogues with scientists and experts to understand how natural materials may be substituted by synthetic materials in the future, through the emerging fields of nanotechnology and biotechnology.
Leelee Chan’s BMW Art Journey project thus proposed to look at the evolving relationship between people and materials, and also touches on contemporary debates surrounding ecological and cultural sustainability. Her investigation into materials will span from the hand-crafted to the industrial and the post-industrial, and ultimately asks the question: “What does it mean to be a sculptor today?” As quoted in the press release, the jury stated about Leelee Chan’s winning project proposal:
Leelee Chan’s journey spans across time and space to consider the stories of materials, including metal, stone and crystals, and explore how they have shaped our human experience. From ancient crystal caves in Mexico to marble workshops in Italy to high-tech synthetic quartz factories in Japan, the artist plans to investigate materials with the help of experts and craft practitioners, both as a source of raw material and as an inspiration for reflection. We were impressed by how Leelee Chan engages with materials that are charged with needs, values and ideas, to ask what it means to be a sculptor working today and tomorrow.