Hu Xiaoyuan’s first solo institutional exhibition in Hong Kong, Hu Xiaoyuan: Veering, presented by Tai Kwun Contemporary. The exhibition will feature twelve works, all newly commissioned by Tai Kwun Contemporary, across seven series that weave together installation, sound, painting, video and literary creations to reveal the complex relationship between human destiny and natural evolution, addressing ultimate questions of individual survival and the meaning of life.
Organic materials such as shells, insect wings, plants, different types of silk, and wool from sheep that have never been in captivity are combined with metal, stone, and other mediums typically used in traditional plastic arts in Hu’s unique visual narratives, in which literary fiction and natural knowledge are woven together. Through translucent drapes and lighting design, she creates unique pathways that blur the line between day and night, creating an ambiguous spatial experience. This setting guides visitors to reflect on enduring themes such as time, materiality, existence, and consciousness.
Hu Xiaoyuan (b. 1977 in Harbin, China) currently works and lives in Beijing. Her works include installations, videos, sculptures, and paintings, which use found materials and everyday experiences as her creative starting point. Through reading philosophy and natural history and the continuous polishing of her own artistic language, she has developed an abstract visualisation of time and space, reality, migration, and passing through, and an implicit equality in the context of “existence’. Hu Xiaoyuan’s most recent major solo exhibitions include a five-year cooperation between the West Bund Museum and Centre Pompidou: Paths in the Sand (2022, Shanghai West Coast Art Museum) and The Sand from the Urns (2021, Beijing Commune). Her works have also been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; the West Bund Art Museum, Shanghai; M+, Hong Kong; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; ESEA Contemporary, Manchester; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2019, Hu Xiaoyuan was nominated for M+’s first Sigg Prize.
Exhibition period from 24 January to 13 April 2025
