BMW Art Journey artist shortlist 2021 announced. Julien Creuzet, Kelvin Kyung Kun Park and Alice Wang nominated.

Hong Kong. During this year’s Art Basel in Hong Kong, the BMW Art Journey, a joint initiative of Art Basel and BMW to recognize and support emerging and mid-career artists worldwide, is continued with the announcement of the next shortlist. Like a mobile studio, the BMW Art Journey can take artists almost anywhere in the world to develop new ideas and envision new creative projects. The initiative is part of BMW Group’s global cultural engagement celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year. Committed in the fields of modern and contemporary art, classical music, jazz and sound as well as architecture and design, the BMW Group has been an integral part of culture on a global scale.

Today, the shortlisted artists for the BMW Art Journey 2021 were announced at the BMW Wanchai Showroom in Hong Kong:

Julien Creuzet
born in 1986; lives and works in Montreuil; represented by High Art, Paris.

Kelvin Kyung Kun Park
born in 1978; lives and works in Seoul; represented by Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai.

Alice Wang
born in 1983; lives and works in Los Angeles and Shanghai; represented by Capsule Shanghai.

In recognition of the ongoing exceptional circumstances caused by the pandemic, the international expert jury conducted its selection process online. Artists and their galleries were invited to submit digital applications, including a short video by the artists explaining their work and artistic process. Since 2020, the circle of eligible artists has broadened and includes not only emerging and mid-career artists from the Discoveries sector, but also artists represented by galleries founded no more than ten years ago at Art Basel’s show in Hong Kong.

The shortlisted artists are now invited to develop the proposal for their ideal journey, with the winner to be announced in summer 2021.

Members of the international expert jury are 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. 

“We were deeply impressed with the group of artists we reviewed, and those we selected. Their profiles are very different in terms of practice, research, and expressive modality, and this infuses a great richness to the group. Together, their varied perspectives and ways of working the artistic horizon of the BMW Art Journey,” stated the jury in its unanimous decision.

“The Paris-based French-Caribbean artist Julien Creuzet is a traveler between genres and cultures. His hybrid practice includes film and animation, music, poetry and sculpture. His multi-layered assemblages explore different cultural heritages. His gaze on history and on different geographies, on minor and forgotten tales, is important for building new collective scenarios. South Korean Kelvin Kyung Kun Park’s multi-disciplinary work deals with notions of the individual versus the collective, nature versus conditioning – topics that have tremendous potential in generating a research journey across time and culture. His videos, performances, and photographs explore the fundamental structures of those mediums, and of contemporary society. Alice Wang, who lives and works between Shanghai and Los Angeles, makes sculptures and films that take us on epic journeys unfolding across space, time and materials to bring us closer to understanding our place in the universe. Each work tells a different story that transverses the surreal and sublime, leaving us to question what is in fact truth and what is fiction,” notes the jury.

Works of this year’s shortlisted artists can be viewed following the announcement in a virtual showroom at “Art Basel Live: Hong Kong” the digital overlay of the fair. As official partner of the show, BMW will host a virtual partner room at “Art Basel Live: Hong Kong” showcasing works and documentations of previous BMW Art Journey winners.

Launched in 2015, the BMW Art Journey is a collaboration between Art Basel and BMW, created to recognize and support emerging and mid-career artists worldwide. Past winners of the BMW Art Journey include sound and performance artist Samson Young (presented by a.m. Space, Hong Kong at Art Basel's Hong Kong show in 2015); video artists Henning Fehr and Philipp Rühr (presented by Galerie Max Mayer, Dusseldorf at Art Basel's Miami Beach show in 2015); Abigail Reynolds (presented by Rokeby, London at Art Basel's show in Hong Kong in 2016) as well as Max Hooper Schneider (presented by High Art, Paris at Art Basel's Miami Beach show in 2016), Astha Butail (represented by GALLERYSKE, New Dehli, Bangalore at Art Basel´s Hong Kong show in 2017), Jamal Cyrus (represented by Inman Gallery, Houston at Art Basel’s Miami Beach show in 2017), Zac Langdon-Pole (represented by Michael Lett, Auckland at Art Basel’s Hong Kong show in 2018), Lu Yang (represented by the gallery Société, Berlin at Art Basel's Hong Kong show in 2019) and Leelee Chan (represented by Capsule Shanghai at Art Basel's Hong Kong show in 2021).

In collaboration with the winning artist, the journey will be documented and shared through publications, online and via social media. For further information about the artists and the project, please visit: www.bmw-art-journey.com

During this year’s Art Basel in Hong Kong the BMW Wanchai Showroom hosts a documentation of Leelee Chan (Capsule Shanghai), BMW Art Journey winner 2020, and her project “Tokens from Time”. Additionally, and on the occasion of 50 years of BMW Group Cultural Engagement, visitors can not only view the miniatures of the BMW Art Car Collection but also contributions and background information about the 50^th anniversary. To visit the exhibition that runs until May 23, 2021, please register here.

BMW has supported Art Basel’s shows in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong for many years.

For further questions please contact:
Prof. Dr Thomas Girst
BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs
Head of Cultural Engagement
Telephone: +49 89 382 24753
Email: Thomas.Girst@bmwgroup.com

www.press.bmwgroup.com
Email: presse@bmw.de

Sarah Degen
Art Basel
Senior Media Relations Manager
Telephone: +41 58 206 2706
Email: press@artbasel.com

About Julien Creuzet (represented by High Art, Paris)
Julien Creuzet (b.1986) lives and works in Montreuil, France. In his work he creates protean artworks incorporating poetry, music, sculpture, assemblage, film and animation. Evoking trans-oceanic postcolonial transactions in relation to multiple temporalities the artist places his own inherited past, present and future at the heart of his production. Eluding generalized narratives and cultural reductions, Creuzet’s work often spotlights anachronisms and social realities to construct objects of irreducibility. Recent solo exhibitions of the artist include Camden Arts Center, London (upcoming); Palais de Tokyo, Paris and Fondation d'entreprise Pernod Ricard, Paris. His work was on display at group exhibitions at Manifesta 13, Marseilles; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Musée d’Art moderne de Paris and Centre Pompidou, Paris. Creuzet is currently nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2021.

About Kelvin Kyung Kun Park (represented by Vanguard Gallery, Shanghai)
Kelvin Kyung Kun Park (b. 1978) lives and works in Seoul, Korea. He is an award-winning filmmaker and visual artist who works primarily in film and video, photography and installations. His work frequently takes inspiration from the cultural anxieties, myths and narratives that form South Korea’s identity. His first full-length film, “Cheonggyecheon Medley” from 2010, has been screened at various international venues, including the Berlin International Film Festival and the Los Angeles Film Festival. His second film “A Dream of Iron” also premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2014. It won the NETPAC Award and subsequently played at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2018, he won the BIFF Mecenat Award and was nominated for “DOK Leipzig 2019”. His recent solo exhibitions include Shanghai Museum of Glass; Sin Ricoh Gallery, Seoul as well as Gallery Hyundai, Seoul. Furthermore, his work was on view at group exhibitions at Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul; Busan Biennale 2018, Korea; Buk Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul.

About Alice Wang (represented by Capsule Shanghai)
Alice Wang (b.1983) lives and works in Los Angeles and Shanghai. The artist works at the intersection of film and sculpture, two independent and simultaneous practices, where one medium decenters the other. Over the past several years, Alice Wang has been working with a mantra stating that the planet Earth is plummeting towards the Sun while just missing it. Bringing together physics, geology, astronomy, and ecology with phenomenology, Eastern metaphysics and the practice of meditation and yoga, Wang examines ontological questions related to the nature of being through a materialist conceptual approach in the exploration of sculpture. Alice Wang has presented solo exhibitions at Capsule Shanghai as well as 18th Street Arts Center, Los Angeles and participated in group exhibitions, screenings, and performances at the K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; the Moscow Museum of Modern Art; Taikang Space, Beijing and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. She is an assistant professor of arts at New York University Shanghai, and co-organizes The Magic Hour, an outdoor exhibition platform in the Mojave Desert in California.

About Art Basel
Founded in 1970 by gallerists from Basel, Art Basel today stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary art, sited in Basel, Miami Beach, and Hong Kong. Defined by its host city and region, each show is unique, which is reflected in its participating galleries, artworks presented, and the content of parallel programming produced in collaboration with local institutions for each edition. Art Basel’s engagement has expanded beyond art fairs through new digital platforms such as Art Basel’s Online Viewing Rooms and new initiatives such as The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report and The BMW Art Journey. Art Basel's Global Media Partner is The Financial Times. For further information, please visit artbasel.com.