Mobile M+: Inflation!: a (con)temporary sculpture park
25 April–9 June, 2013
West Kowloon Cultural District Promenade
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tuesday–Thursday 12pm–7pm,
Friday–Sunday 11am–8pm
closed Mondays
During Art Basel Hong Kong: 10am–8pm
Free of charge
www.wkcda.hk/en/museum
www.wkcda.hk/mobile-mplus
The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and Mobile M+ are pleased to present Mobile M+: Inflation!, an outdoor exhibition of inflatable sculpture positioned adjacent to Hong Kong’s future museum for visual culture. Featuring selections by internationally renowned artists Choi Jeong Hwa, Jeremy Deller, Jiakun Architects, Paul McCarthy, newly commissioned artworks by Cao Fei and Tam Wai Ping, and a performance/installation by Tomás Saraceno; Mobile M+: Inflation! is an exhibition that looks at the nature and potential of art and architecture in public space. It takes as its departure point the synthetic and impermanent qualities of inflatable forms, and explores notions of nature and artifice, intimacy and monumentality, as well as beauty and the grotesque in the context of public art and its role in the constructed landscape.
Situated on a 30,000-square-metre plot of reclaimed land next to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor, Mobile M+: Inflation! occupies the future site of the Park—a fourteen-hectare-area of green space that will feature multi-disciplinary arts programming such as music festivals, large-scale sculpture and semi-permanent installations. Mobile M+: Inflation! emerges from thinking about the character and potential of this site—a place that stands as neither entirely natural nor man-made, and encourages reflections on human relationships to the built environment and to the natural world.
By inviting members of the public to interact firsthand with these large-scale inflatable forms, Mobile M+: Inflation! is designed to question the nature of public art and the ways in which audiences might engage with it. Many of the works derive from everyday objects that have been inflated to outsize proportions as a way of rendering the familiar unfamiliar, and transforming the recognisable into something uncanny, ephemeral and fantastic.
Participating artists: Cao Fei (China); Choi Jeong Hwa (South Korea); Jeremy Deller (UK); Jiakun Architects (China); Paul McCarthy (USA); Tomás Saraceno (Argentina); Tam Wai Ping (Hong Kong)
Inflation! is a part of Mobile M+, a series of pre-opening ‘nomadic’ exhibitions curated by M+ that aim to engage the public ahead of the opening of the museum, scheduled for completion in late 2017. Mobile M+: Inflation! will be accompanied by a series of on-site events ranging from artist talks, workshops, guided tours to performances, as well as a 120-page exhibition catalogue designed by Studio Hato featuring essays by M+ Curator Tobias Berger, Michaela Crimmin, Ho Siu Kee, and Marisa Yiu.
M+ is the new museum for visual culture in Hong Kong, as a part of the West Kowloon Cultural District, encompassing 20th- and 21st-century art, design, architecture and the moving image from Hong Kong, China, Asia and beyond. M+ has already embarked on a number of public programs and exhibitions, and has begun to assemble its permanent collection, in the run-up to the planned 2017 opening of its 62,000-square-meter (670,000 square-foot) building overlooking Victoria Harbour.
The West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong is one of the largest arts and cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to provide a vibrant cultural quarter for the city; a vital platform for the local arts scene to interact, develop and collaborate; and major facilities to host and produce world-class exhibitions, performances and arts and cultural events. The District will include up to 17 core arts and cultural venues in a low-density development, providing 23 hectares of open green space and two kilometres of vibrant harbour-front promenade.
Press enquiries:
Debbie Ho, Assistant Public Relations Manager, WKCDA
T: (852) 2200 0210/ (852) 6608 0909
debbie.ho [at] wkcda.hk
Tamsin Selby/ Phoebe Moore, Sutton PR Asia
T: +852 2528 0792
tamsin [at] suttonprasia.com / phoebe [at] suttonprasia.com
