The Opening Ceremony of Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Attachments, Hong Kong in Venice, Collateral Event at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia held on 19 April 2024
The guests at the Opening Ceremony of Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Attachments, Hong Kong in Venice. Photo: Winnie Yeung @ Visual Voices. Courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) co-hosted the Opening Ceremony on 19 April 2024 for Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Attachments, Hong Kong in Venice, Collateral Event at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. This solo exhibition of Hong Kong–based artist Trevor Yeung is curated by Olivia Chow, Assistant Curator, Visual Art, M+. The exhibition opens to the public from 20 April 2024 to 24 November 2024 in Venice.
The opening ceremony on 19 April 2024 was officiated by Kevin Yeung, Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; Kenneth Fok, Chairman of Hong Kong Arts Development Council; and Bernard Chan, Chairman of the M+ Board. Zhang Lingxiao, Culture Counsellor of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the Republic of Italy, Trevor Yeung, Olivia Chow, representatives of HKADC, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and M+, as well as stakeholders of the international arts community attended the ceremony.
Kevin Yeung, Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, says, ‘The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region supports the development of arts and culture. We are committed to nurturing our local arts and cultural institutions and artists and helping them go global. This is one of our strategies and action agendas in fortifying our role as an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange, a position that our country has given us. Venice Biennale is one of the world's most prestigious platforms for international contemporary art and Hong Kong has been participating in it since 2001. Being an important platform to showcase the artistic excellence of the institutions and artists in Hong Kong, it is also an important channel to tell the good stories of Hong Kong and help boost our economy by attracting world audience to visit our art market.’
Kenneth Fok, Chairman of Hong Kong Arts Development Council, says, ‘HKADC is delighted to collaborate with M+ of West Kowloon Cultural District, joining hands to nurture many of our eminent artists across various genres of contemporary visual art and offer opportunities for our local arts talents to partake in a diverse range of cultural exchange activities within the region and beyond. Our devotion has also helped establish Hong Kong’s exhibition as a unique and distinctive brand at the world-renowned Venice Biennale. We are thankful for having Trevor Yeung and Olivia Chow to share their artistic creation and curatorial insights, which have resulted in a truly remarkable exhibition.’
Bernard Chan, Chairman of the M+ Board, says, ‘This exhibition marks our sixth collaboration with HKADC to support a new generation of Hong Kong artists and curators and showcase the best of Hong Kong contemporary art and curatorship and forge a dialogue in the global arts community. M+’s participation at the Biennale is of great significance to us as it allows us to realise the museum’s mission of reaching new audiences, defining a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century and promoting visual culture in a contemporary world. West Kowloon Cultural District and M+ will continue to support our homegrown artists and bring our exhibitions to the global audience. It is our clear vision and mission to solidify Hong Kong’s role as an East-meets-West centre for international cultural exchange.’
Olivia Chow, Curator of the exhibition and Assistant Curator, Visual Art, M+, elaborates on Yeung’s presentation: ‘It has been a pleasure and an honour to collaborate with Trevor Yeung on his most ambitious presentation to date. This exhibition is a true group effort. It is possible only through close collaboration within a tightly knit team, which speaks to the sense of community fostered by this generation in Hong Kong’s art ecosystem. Yeung examines emotional complexity, human relationships, and ecology in the widest sense. Courtyard of Attachments aptly invites us to reflect on the expectations and social codes that condition the ways we relate to one another, raising questions about power dynamics and the limits of rationality in human connection. This is something we can all benefit from thinking about.’
Trevor Yeung expresses his excitement: ‘I am deeply grateful for the support from the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, M+ and HKADC to present a new body of work on such a special occasion. It is an honour to represent Hong Kong and to look into ideas of longing and belonging in Venice. I hope visitors find a piece of themselves in the exhibition and that it leads to thinking about the strong attachments we all form. Thank you to my team and to everyone who has supported this project. Creating an exhibition is never something you can do alone.’
In his Venice presentation, Trevor Yeung explores sentimentality, desire, and relationships of power through the concept of attachment, which manifests as feelings of connection with objects as well as a longing for someone special. The exhibition articulates the artist’s intimate experiences and keen observations of the relationships between humans and aquatic systems, drawing from references that include his father’s seafood restaurant, pet shops, feng shui arrangements, and the fish he kept as a child.
As with the previous collaborations between M+ and HKADC, Hong Kong audience will have the opportunity to view Trevor Yeung’s work at an exhibition at M+ in 2025.
Exhibition details: Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Attachments, Hong Kong in Venice is co-presented and co-promoted by M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District, and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. It is curated by Olivia Chow, Assistant Curator, Visual Art, M+, assisted by Jenny Tam, Assistant Manager, Exhibitions, M+ and Dorothea Lam, Curatorial Assistant, M+.
Location: Campo della Tana, Castello 2126, 30122 Venice, Italy (in front of main entrance of Arsenale)
Dates and times: From 20 April to 30 September 2024, 11:00–19:00 on Tuesdays to Thursdays and Sundays; 11:00–20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. From 1 October to 24 November 2024, 10:00–18:00 on Tuesdays to Sundays. Closed on Mondays except 22 April, 17 June, 22 July, 2 September, 30 September, and 18 November.
Coordinator in Venice: PDG Arte Communications
Graphic design: Studio Hik
Exhibition website: 2024.vbexhibitions.hk
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring an overview of Trevor Yeung’s projects with plants, fish, and meticulously constructed environments. Edited by Olivia Chow, the exhibition’s curator, the richly illustrated publication is Yeung’s first monograph.
About Trevor Yeung
Trevor Yeung (born 1988, Dongguan) lives and works in Hong Kong. In his artistic practice, he excavates the inner logic of human relations. Fascinated by botany, horticulture, and aquatic ecosystems, Yeung features carefully staged objects, photographs, animals, and plants in his mixed-media works as aesthetic pretexts to address notions of artificial nature. He often projects emotional and intellectual scenarios onto living substitutes in his work, translating his own social experiences into elaborate fables through which he continues to explore failure and imperfection. Yeung ultimately questions how closed systems contain and create emotional and behavioural conditions.
Yeung has participated in numerous local and international exhibitions, including the Singapore Biennale (2022); Kathmandu Triennale (2022); la Biennale de Lyon (2019); EVA International Biennale, Dublin (2018); the 4th Dhaka Art Summit (2018); and the 10th Shanghai Biennale (2015). He has exhibited at institutions including Gasworks, London (2023); the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2022); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2022); PinchukArtCentre, Kiev (2021); M+, Hong Kong (2021); the Shanghai Power Station of Art (2021); Para Site, Hong Kong (2020); and Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln (2020). He was shortlisted for the Sigg Prize (2023), the Future Generation Art Prize (2021), and the BMW Art Journey award (2015).
Yeung’s artworks are held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln; the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; the Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco; FRAC Alsace; and M+, Hong Kong.
About Olivia Chow
Olivia Chow is a curator and artist living in Hong Kong. As Assistant Curator, Visual Art, at M+, she works with artists to create exhibitions, publications, and public programmes, including Nalini Malani: In Search of Vanished Blood (2012/2022), Nalini Malani: Vision in Motion (2021), Shirley Tse: Stakes and Holders (2020), and Shirley Tse: Stakeholders, Hong Kong in Venice (2019), Hong Kong’s participation in the 58th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. Chow contributes to building M+’s visual art collection by managing the inaugural M+ International Council for Visual Art and leading acquisitions from around Asia and beyond. Prior to joining M+, she worked in various curatorial capacities at Para Site in Hong Kong (2015–2017) and at The Works Art and Design Festival in Edmonton, Canada (2010–2014).