- This event has passed.
EVENT DESCRIPTION
Spirituality is a broad, etymologically ever-evolving concept. Humans turn to it for a multitude of reasons: to seek divinity, to reach transcendence from within, to foster kinship. The contemporary market also adapts the concept, cleverly rebranding it as as ‘mindfulness’. Opening on 23 September at Rossi & Rossi Wong Chuk Hang, Out of Sight outlines interpretations and expressions of the intangible and elusive matter of spirituality. Through paintings, drawings and sculptures by a diverse array of artists, the exhibition delves into the universal subject of spirituality, which transcends times, cultures and individuals, and presents a minuscule fraction of what spirituality means.
To some, spirituality reveals a higher being, even a divine realm. In the mixed-media sculpture I unfold, I infold (2019), Janine Antoni (b. 1964) reinvents the gesture of the Virgin Mary, wherein one of the subject’s outstretched palms turns inwards. The other palm reaches out to identify divinity, and she thus returns the energy to her body whilst acknowledging her human self. The collage Four Sacred Elements (2008) by Fereydoun Ave (b. 1945) juxtaposes an antique stone sculpture of a deity with a human footprint and a vibrant splash of red, offering an exploration of the fundamental forces that shape our world.
Spirituality is also an entryway for artists to contemplate on mortality, and on the mindset as we live life. In his titular 2016 work, Billy Apple (1935–2021) stated that ‘The Artist Will Live Forever’ – a message conveying his attitude towards the legacy of his artistic career. He immortalised his vision by turning his own name into a trademark under which he cultivated a breed of apples called Class 31. He cast and painted one of these apples in Billy Apple® Cultivar (Red) (2007); in Regarde Narcisse (2013), Shubigi Rao (b. 1975) depicts a boy, alone, staring into an image through a phone, a contemporary rendition of Narcissus moulded into the challenge and obsession of today.
Those who probe into spirituality try to make sense of the world and define their own being either within or outside of it. For the vast meanings that spirituality prompts, the artists in Out of Sight set out with their own queries that ultimately produce intimate and idiosyncratic visual expressions.
