Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen 

53rd International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia
Making (Perfect) World: Harbour, Hong Kong
Alienated Cities and Dreams
A Solo Exhibition by Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen

The Hong Kong Arts Development Council (ADC) is pleased to announce Making (Perfect) World: Harbour, Hong Kong, Alienated Cities and Dreams, a solo presentation of Hong Kong artist Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen at the 53rd Venice Biennale from June 7 to November 22, 2009. The exhibition features a series of newly commissioned site-specific works that are conceived and produced for the site and context of Venice and the Biennale. In addition to this, a selection of Pak’s past works is also presented, bringing together a comprehensive illustration of his oeuvre. The exhibition is curated by Tobias Berger in association with Para Site Art Space, and marks the debut for a solo representation of Hong Kong in Venice.

Pak’s interest lies in the possibilities of discovering extraordinarily profound and insightful messages encoded within the most unlikely and ordinary places. He draws elements from everyday life and its surroundings in order to rediscover ‘meanings’ that are often missed or even ignored by most people. In realising his witty and poetic ideas and thoughts through self-reflective and philosophical gestures, Pak goes beyond meditating on the legitimization of his seemingly random acts as contemporary art, to successfully blur the boundaries between the personal and the political. Defying aspects of physicality and spirituality, Pak enables new ways of reinterpreting unwritten codes and complexities that exist within contemporary societies.

Influenced by the politics and identity of post-1997 Hong Kong as well as the tradition of Performance Art, Pak’s distinctive methodology towards ‘adaptation’ consists of inserting himself as the subject into the equation, adopting this position to question and explore the notion of individual identities against the new globalised societies and realities that are of extreme relevance to the ongoing modernisation of Asia’s mega cities.

Making (Perfect) World is conceptually divided into four segments – Harbour, Hong Kong, Alienated Cities and Dreams, and it includes a mixture of sculpture, photography, documentation of performances and texts from the artist’s intriguing yet humorous body of work — an exercise in constructing a humane, sensitive and thoughtful alternative to approaching and experiencing everyday life. Pak endeavours to encapsulate both hopes and losses in his ongoing quest for a better understanding of our, at times, confusing and imperfect world.

A fully illustrated catalogue and the publication Odd One In Two, with a detailed conversation between Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen and Tobias Berger, is published to accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition is organised by The Hong Kong Arts Development Council and curated by Tobias Berger in association with Para Site Art Space.

Supported by The Burger Collection, Vitamin Creative Space and Osage Art Foundation.

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More materials are available to view on site at Para Site. 

Click here to see a full inventory of all archive materials and contact us at archive@para-site.art for enquiries, to request an appointment to view materials, and for archival materials donations.

The Archive Project is financially supported by the Project Grant of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.