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) are pleased to announce the selection of Trevor Yeung as the featured artist for Hong Kong's participation in the 60th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. The solo exhibition of Hong Kong-based Trevor Yeung will be curated by Olivia Chow, Assistant Curator, Visual Art, M+. Both the artist and the curator have been jointly selected by M+ and HKADC.

The new, site-specific exhibition will be a collateral event at the 2024 edition of La Biennale di Venezia, one of the most important contemporary art forums in the world which will be held between 20 April and 24 November 2024. This exhibition marks the sixth collaboration between M+ and HKADC on Hong Kong's participation in International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. In the past five editions, M+ and HKADC presented the solo exhibitions of five Hong Kong artists, namely Lee Kit (2013), Tsang Kin-Wah (2015), Samson Young (2017), Shirley Tse (2019), and Angela Su (2022), all were critically acclaimed and enthusiastically received by the international audiences.

As with the past five collaborations between M+ and HKADC for International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, Hong Kong audiences will have the opportunity to see Trevor Yeung’s work in the city following the closing of the Venice presentation. An adapted exhibition will be on view in 2025 at M+, which will be the second return exhibition to be presented at M+ since its opening in 2021.

Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, highlights the significance of the ongoing collaboration between M+ and HKADC: ‘We are immensely grateful for the sixth collaboration with our long-term partner HKADC to participate at the International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. Both M+ and HKADC are committed to carrying out our joint mission to take Hong Kong to the world—to amplify the international resonance of our local artists, curators and their creative visions. I look forward to witnessing how our partnership continues to evolve in new and inspiring ways through this solo exhibition of work by Trevor Yeung. I am particularly delighted to see that Olivia Chow, a young and outstanding curator from M+, who was the assistant curator for the 2019 edition, has been selected as the curator for Trevor Yeung’s solo exhibition. This recognition truly underscores M+’s role and contribution as an important training ground for local curatorial talents.’

Winsome Chow, Chief Executive of HKADC, underpins the collaboration between M+ and HKADC in the 60th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia, ‘Since 2001, HKADC has promoted the excellence of Hong Kong contemporary art globally through our participation as a collateral event at the La Biennale di Venezia—a celebration of the international spirits of art. We have established a strong working relationship with M+ over the previous five editions, counting upon their expertise and diligence to present critically acclaimed exhibitions and related programmes. We trust that with Olivia Chow’s remarkable curatorial experience, the solo exhibition of Hong Kong artist Trevor Yeung will fascinate and move international visitors and local audiences alike.’

Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator, M+, elaborated on the selection of the artist and the curator to represent Hong Kong in Venice: ‘Trevor Yeung’s examination of everyday, evanescent existences and sustained human relationships with the nature are expressed through imaginative and lyrical installations evoking poignant senses of tenderness and fragility, and resonate deeply with his audiences. His work speaks very much to our time and our sensibilities, and I am so delighted that he has invited Olivia Chow, a trusted colleague of his own generation who understands his work with care and sensitivity, to present and interpret his work to international audiences based on her deep experiences of the Venice Biennale and M+.’

The selected artist Trevor Yeung expresses his gratitude for the opportunity to represent Hong Kong in Venice: ‘I am beyond thankful for the opportunity to unveil a new body of work at the La Biennale di Venezia—to represent Hong Kong, my hometown at one of the most prestigious contemporary art exhibitions in the world. As the world adjusts to the re-opening of borders and new ways of interaction after the pandemic, it is particularly meaningful for me to present new work influenced by cross cultures and my immediate surroundings—to bring my vision abroad and connect with the international art community. I look forward to collaborating with the M+ team led by Olivia Chow.’

Olivia Chow, Curator for the 2024 edition and Assistant Curator, Visual Art, M+ says: ‘I am thrilled and deeply humbled to curate Hong Kong’s presentation at La Biennale di Venezia. Building on my experience in curating the 58th edition of the Hong Kong collateral event featuring artist Shirley Tse in 2019, I am excited to curate and collaborate with Trevor Yeung, an artist whose unwavering and intricate installation practice I have closely followed since the early days. This extraordinary opportunity will allow us to bring Yeung’s daring vision to life in Venice, a presentation that will hopefully create resonance with the international audience.’

M+ and HKADC are planning a series of public programmes in Hong Kong to connect the selected artist’s and curator’s international experience and perspectives with the rapidly evolving Hong Kong contemporary art scene.

About Trevor Yeung

Trevor Yeung (born 1988, Dongguan) lives and works in Hong Kong. His art excavates the inner logic of human relations. Fascinated by botanic ecology and horticulture, 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, Singapore (2022); Kathmandu Triennale, Kathmandu (2022); la biennale de Lyon, Lyon (2019); EVA International Biennale, Dublin (2018); 4th Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh (2018) and the 10th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai (2015). Yeung has exhibited at institutions locally and internationally including Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2022); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); Jameel Arts Center, Dubai (2022); PinchukArtCentre, Kiev (2021); M+, Hong Kong (2021); Shanghai Power Station of Art (2021); Para Site, Hong Kong (2020); Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln, Cologne (2020), etc. Yeung will have a solo exhibition at Gasworks London in September 2023. He is shortlisted for the Sigg Prize (2023); the Future Generation Art Prize (2021); and the BMW Art Journey award (2015).

His artwork is held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln, Cologne; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco and FRAC Alsace; and M+, Hong Kong.

About Olivia Chow

Olivia Chow is a curator and artist living in Hong Kong. Currently 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 at the 58th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. Chow has been contributing to the building of the visual art collection by managing the inaugural M+ International Council for Visual Art and acquiring works 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).

About M+

M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, it is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. M+ is a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District

The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing twenty-three hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.

About the Hong Kong Arts Development Council

Established in 1995, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) is a statutory body set up by the Government to support the broad development of the arts in Hong Kong. Its major roles include grant allocation, policy and planning, advocacy, promotion and development, and special projects. The mission of HKADC is to support and promote the development of 10 major art forms in literary arts, performing arts, visual arts as well as film and media arts in Hong Kong. Aiming to foster a thriving arts environment and enhancing the quality of life of the public, HKADC is also committed to facilitating community-wide participation in the arts and arts education, encouraging arts criticism, raising the standard of arts administration, and contributing on policy research.