First artist shortlist for the BMW Art Journey announced during Art Basel in Hong Kong. BMW and Art Basel send artists on journeys of creative discovery.

Hong Kong. During this year’s edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong, BMW and Art Basel presented the first iteration of their joint initiative to recognize and support emerging artists worldwide – the BMW Art Journey. 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.

On Saturday an international expert jury announced the following shortlist of three artists showing in Discoveries, the sector for emerging artists at Art Basel's Hong Kong show:

Mika Tajima, at Eleven Rivington, New York

Mika Tajima was born in 1975, in Los Angeles, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She employs painting, sculpture, textiles, video, sound and performance in her practice and draws on inherent contradictions in design, engineering and architecture to consider the organization and experience of collective production. Tajima has exhibited widely in the last 10 years and her solo projects and commissions for institutions include the Swiss Institute, New York; The Kitchen, New York; Bass Museum of Art, Miami; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; Seattle Art Museum, WA; and Art in General, NY. In her Art Basel project Mika Tajima presents an all-encompassing installation of new works based on an idealized workspace and showroom.

Trevor Yeung, at Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong

Trevor Yeung, born in 1988 in China, lives and works in Hong Kong. He graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2010. Yeung uses botanic ecology, horticulture, photography and installations as metaphors that reference the emancipation of everyday aspirations towards human relationships. In 2014, Yeung participated in a group exhibition at Witte de With in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and at the Shanghai Biennale, China. In his presentation at Art Basel Yeung will exhibit photography-based works from his series ‘Sleepy Bed’ and ‘Enigma.’

Samson Young, at am space, Hong Kong

Born in 1979, in Hong Kong, Samson Young studied music, philosophy and gender studies at the University of Sydney and holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Princeton. In 2013 Young was named 'artist of the year' (media artist) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Young participated in the Asia Triennial Manchester, the Moscow Biennale of Young Art, and also at group exhibitions at Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland, Today Art Museum, Beijing and Taipei Contemporary Art Museum, Taiwan. In his Art Basel project 'Pastoral Music', presented by am space, Young combined his research into Hong Kong’s involvement in the Second World War and artists’ roles in warfares in general into a setting that includes graphic musical scores and sound compositions.

The three shortlisted artists now have time until the end of April to develop their proposals of the journey of their dreams, with the winner being announced in the early summer of 2015.

The distinguished experts who conducted the judging in Hong Kong were:

Richard Armstrong , Director Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

Claire Hsu , Director Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong

Matthias Mühling , Director Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich

Shwetal Patel, Curator, India

Pauline J. Yao, Curator Visual Art M+, Hong Kong

In collaboration with the winning artist, the journey will be documented and shared with the public through publications, online and social media.

BMW has supported Art Basel’s shows in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong as a long-term partner for many years.

For further information, please visit www.bmw-art-journey.com

 A bout Art Basel

Art Basel stages the world's premier art shows for Modern and contemporary works, 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. In addition to ambitious stands featuring leading galleries from around the globe, each show's singular exhibition sectors spotlight the latest developments in the visual arts, offering visitors new ideas and new inspiration.
www.artbasel.com

  BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For more than 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko have co-operated with BMW. The company has also commissioned famous architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design important corporate buildings and plants. In 2011, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a global initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the BMW Group celebrated its world premiere in New York. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business. 

The BMW Group

With its three brands BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 30 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

In 2014, the BMW Group sold approximately 2.118 million cars and 123,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2014 was approximately € 8.71 billion on revenues amounting to € 80.40 billion. As of 31 December 2014, the BMW Group had a workforce of 116,324 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy.

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