2P Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present Berlin-based Japanese artist, Yotaro Niwa to be its first artist-in-residence.
This April, Niwa will research and create new works for the exhibition Discursive Digression. His work draws on his experiences as an artist working far from his home country, and considers ways in which unfamiliar environments affect our perceptions. For his residency and his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, Niwa will investigate how displacement and dislocation can be reframed within a new paradigm.
The exhibition will comprise site-specific installations incorporating maquettes made by the artist in his Berlin studio as the point of departure and materials sourced locally to create what Niwa describes as “fictive islands” intended to destabilize the viewer’s perceptions and awareness of scale. Faced with the decay and deterioration of materials and the anticipated obsolescence of our current ‘state-of-the-art’ technologies, Discursive Digression also addresses the physical impermanence of the work of art and focuses as much upon the methodology of the production process as upon the artwork itself. Each work will refer to its own process and to its anticipated life-cycle, encompassing the procurement of materials, transportation, installation, dismantling, restoration and conservation of the work.
Yotaro Niwa was born in Hyogo, Japan in 1973 and completed his Masters degree in Fine Art and Sculpture at the Mushashino Art University, Tokyo before studying Sculpture and Interdisciplinary Art at Hochschule fur Bildende Kuenste Braunschweig, Germany. He has exhibited his work extensively including at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon Korea, Art Space Kimura, Tokyo, HBK Braunschweig/Herzon Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig, Kunstverein, Hannover. In January –February last year Niwa was artist-in-residence at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and will be taking part in the upcoming annual Spring Exhibition at the Charlottenborg Fonden/Kunsthal, Copenhagen.
About Curators
Davina Lee is an independent curator and writer based in Hong Kong, establishing her consultancy Words For Pictures Limited in 2008. Lee is also the founder of DIORAMA PROJECTS, an organization that identifies, develops and realizes projects that will stimulate artistic and cultural exchange and collaboration.
A former lawyer, Lee has postgraduate degrees from Sotheby’s Institute and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies and bachelor’s degree from Goldsmiths College. Exhibitions curated include China Lucida – Greg Girard and Wang Wei, for Amelia Johnson Contemporary (Hong Kong, 2009), Distance Decay at Diorama Rue Raspail, part of the Festival Voies Off (Arles, 2009), The Mother of All Journeys - Dinu Li at Amelia Johnson Contemporary (Hong Kong, 2009) and Chroniques Hongkongaises, Arles, 2010, Simulated Alternate Realities, for 1a Space, 2010 and 30 Lx for 2P Contemporary Art Gallery. She was also the curator of PROXEMICS, a major retrospective of the photographs of Virgile Simon Bertrand held at ArtisTree, Swire Island East’s purpose-built non-profit art space, selected by the South China Morning Post as one of the best exhibitions of 2009.
Pui Pui To is the founder and director of 2P Contemporary Art Gallery. Since 2006, To has been an independent art consultant after graduating from Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, in Art Business and a BA in Fine Arts Studies from Central Saint Martins. She has worked collaboratively with international artists and corporate companies to implement cross-disciplinary projects and directed site-specific events. Her clients include Le Parc, Shenzhen; RDM Fingen Group; REPLAY and Claudio Buziol Art Foundation.
About 2P’s Artists Residency Program
The 2P Residency Program brings artists from all over the world to create a transcultural dialogue between artist and the viewing public in Hong Kong. The residency provides a platform for new approaches to visual art conception, production, public engagement, curatorial discourse, theoretical frameworks and critical thinking.
Selected artists will work closely with regional curators to form a site-specific project for a solo exhibition at 2P Contemporary Art Gallery. Under the 2P Residency Program artists will be provided with accommodation, studio workspace, and a small stipend to form a final project.
Preview: Friday 9th April 2011 at 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Opening reception in the presence of the artist and curators
