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 50th 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
50th 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.
