K11 Art Foundation is pleased to announce that in an inaugural collaboration with ArtReview, one of the world’s leading international contemporary art magazines, the exhibition Breaking the Waves will be showcased in Hong Kong. The exhibition title, Breaking the Waves, refers both to persistence, the endlessly repeating climax of waves breaking on a shore, and the act of swimming against the tide, or coming up for air. In the current moment, it also seeks to convey optimism about the latent potentials for renewal as we slowly begin to re-enter a world reshaped following the COVID-19 pandemic. As a celebration of art’s propensity for thinking differently and going against the grain, the exhibition seeks to speak to community, solidarity and the inspiring, sometimes challenging, visions of new futures and new possibilities that art is uniquely placed to offer.
Featuring a mixture of both static and interactive works, the audience is invited to become a ‘fellow traveller’ on a journey that is staged to highlight both the development of individual points of view and the operations of a shared vision or a collective social consciousness. Cumulatively, the exhibition teases out the ways in which the personal becomes public and the ways in which art allows the individual to adopt the perspective of the other—the very basis around which equitable social dialogue is founded, bridging generations and cultures, linking, contrasting and exploring new or renewed waves of creativity.
First Wave – Artwork that Sings
One of the works, Superwoman KTV by Eisa Jocson, will be exhibited at K11 MUSEA’s Gold Ball from 3 to 18 December 2021, allowing the audience to have a sneak peek of the exhibition Breaking the Waves.
Superwoman KTV stars The Filipino Superwoman Band, an ensemble who performs a choreographed routine to the song Superwoman. The song, originally sung by American singer Karyn White, became a hit when the Filipino singer Janine Desidario re-released it with a new title Hindi Ako si Darna (I am not a superwoman). At Gold Ball, the exhibition space has been transformed into a karaoke room, where the audience can immerse in the space and experience the work by listening to the music. With a sense of playfulness, the work tells the story of female
affective labour and reflects the struggles of Filipino migrant workers.
Second Wave – Dialogue with world-renowned artists
The full exhibition, Breaking the Waves, will be launched on 17 December 2021 and on view until 23 January 2022 at K11 HACC, bringing together the works of 14 highly acclaimed artists and artist collectives from around the world.
The exhibition explores discussion and dialogue as a cornerstone of contemporary art, and highlights the role of communication and social interaction in contemporary practice. The exhibition also examines the vast potential of art as a means of social development, communication and connectivity with the world through art.
K11 Art Foundation has been actively establishing partnerships with leading art and cultural institutions and experts around the world to create impactful cross-cultural exchange, and contribute to the expanding global contemporary art discourse. The exhibition is curated to highlight dialogue and mutual influence, by staging each work as a form of ‘conversation’.
Eisa Jocson, Superwoman KTV, 2019. Digital video (colour, sound), 8 min.
Courtesy the artist
Balancing the poles of work and play, the art on show tackles relationships between humans and nature, conditions of migration and mobility, exploitation and cooperation, the potentials of new technologies, and the ways in which artists collaborate or enter into dialogue with the work of their peers. More than anything; however, it examines the many ways in which art allows us to view the world and locate ourselves within it through a fresh or alternative lens. Wave upon wave – Exhibition and activities To accompany the exhibition, K11 Art Foundation will present a series of events, including workshops, and online and offline guided tours.
.jpg){kind=tracking}