Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief

M+ at the West Kowloon Cultural District and Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) are proud to announce the solo exhibition Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief, Hong Kong in Venice as Collateral Event of the 57th Venice Biennale. As the third collaboration between M+ and HKADC, this exhibition presents a major milestone of Hong Kong contemporary art at one of the most important international platforms. The curatorial team consists of Ying Kwok, a respected Hong Kong curator, as the Guest Curator, with Doryun Chong, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of M+, serving as the Consulting Curator.

For the 57th edition of the Venice Biennale, Young will create a new body of work that attempts to reframe the popularity of “charity singles”—purpose-made recordings for charitable causes, featuring super-group artists—as historic "events" and a culturally transformative moments in time. Charity singles were most widespread in the 1980s, and coincided with the rise of neo-liberalisum and the globalisation of the popular music industry. However questions were raised about their appropriateness when "We Are the World" was remade in recent year. A perceived strangeness in the setup left a mark on Samson’s consciousness, setting him on a journey of rediscovery that informs this exhibition.

Through a deliberate repurposing and creative misreading of such iconic songs as "We Are the World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas," the artist will generate a series of drawings, objects, video, spatial sound installations and site specific works that together constitute a unique audio-visual experience. The exhibition is conceived as an album unfolding in space to be experienced in person.

Samson Young (b.1979, Hong Kong) is an artist and composer based in Hong Kong. Young's diverse practice draws from the avant-garde compositional traditions of aleatoric music, musique concrète, and graphic notation. Behind each project is an extensive process of research, involving a mapping of the process through a series of "sound sketches" and audio recordings. His drawing, radio broadcast, performance and composition touch upon the recurring topics of conflict, war, and political frontiers.

Young was the inaugural winner of the BMW Art Journey Award at the Art Basel Hong Kong 2015. His recent solo projects include Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2015); Team Gallery, New York (2015); Para Site, Hong Kong (2016); Experimenter, India (2016); and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2016).

For further information please contact:
Hong Kong:

West Kowloon Cultural District Authority
press@wkcda.hk

Hong Kong Arts Development Council
emily_hui@hkadc.org.hk

International:
SUTTON
wkcda@suttonpr.com