Institutions, Venice
Trevor Yeung
Courtyard of Attachments
Hong Kong in VeniceIn Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Attachments, Hong Kong in Venice, Trevor Yeung explores personal experiences and observations of the relationships between humans and aquatic ecosystems. He draws from references that include his father’s seafood restaurant, pet shops, feng shui arrangements, and his childhood pet fish companions. In landscapes of fishless aquariums, Yeung places longing, desire, and power on display. His works contemplate absence and attachment as a way to comment on the systems that structure our lives while alluding to the current climate crisis. The exhibition invites us to consider the emotional disconnect and power dynamics that characterise society today. This exhibition marks the sixth collaboration between M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council for Hong Kong’s presence in Venice. As with previous editions, the Venice presentation of Yeung’s work will be shown in Hong Kong in an adapted exhibition at M+ in 2025. Trevor Yeung (b. 1988, Guangdong) was raised, 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 behaviourial 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 Gasworks, London (2023); 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); and Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln, Cologne (2020). 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 Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln, Cologne; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco; FRAC Alsace; and M+, Hong Kong. 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 Collateral Event 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).