Alicja Kwade: Waiting Pavilions

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Tai Kwun Contemporary is proud to announce the opening of Waiting Pavilions, a public art commission by internationally acclaimed artist Alicja Kwade (b. 1979). As the artist’s first site-specific installation in Hong Kong, Waiting Pavilions precedes Kwade’s inaugural institutional solo exhibition, Alicja Kwade: Pretopia, which will open at Tai Kwun’s JC Contemporary on 10 January 2025. On view from 20 December 2024 to 2026 in Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard, Waiting Pavilions consists of historically and socially contextualised objects. The work references Tai Kwun’s history to explore the present, the passage of time, and the concept of time itself.

Born in in Katowice, Poland, Kwade currently lives and works in Berlin. She is internationally recognised as a leading artist of her generation for her works of sculpture, expansive public installations, film, photography, and artworks on paper. Her practice draws on concepts of space, time, science, and philosophy, investigating and interrogating the structures of our reality and society.

Waiting Pavilions continues this investigatory aspect of her practice, using familiar everyday objects from other contexts. Glass bricks, for example, are reintroduced as static, freestanding sculptures that evoke the concept of space more through their transparency to embark on a poetic spatial exploration of psychological borders. Starting from the notion of our finite existence and time unfolding as an act of waiting, the new outdoor presentation bridges the past and present at Tai Kwun’s Prison yard.

The installation includes six glass structures that correspond to a group of eight bronze cast Monobloc chairs, each in a dynamic interaction with a boulder—the boulders almost seem to be falling through the chairs, creating an unexpected power dynamic between these objects. Identical replicas, the stones present a natural element manifested as eight mirrored forms, calling to mind both an object and the various possibilities for existing in the present. Alicja Kwade created this installation after learning the history of Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard, including the fact that prisoners would experience punishments, inspections, assemblies, and group exercises here at different times, while spending most of their time waiting in cells. In a contemporary context, individuals at the Prison Yard are waiting for an appointment, an event, or a decision. Waiting Pavilions is a reflection on waiting as punishment in our contemporary lives. The size and form of the glass structures mirror the prison cells in the nearby B and D Halls. They hint at the invisible barriers in our everyday lives. Kwade’s works frequently feature chairs to represent human presence. Here, each white chair bears the weight of a stone differently, which can be understood as a metaphor for how each of us handles our burdens.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Alicja Kwade (b. 1979 in Katowice, Poland) lives and works in Berlin. She is recognised as the leading installation artist and sculptor of her generation. She is internationally known for her sculpture, expansive public installations, film, photography, and works on paper, which challenge scientific and philosophical concepts by dismantling the boundaries of perception. Her practice investigates and questions the structures of our reality and society, reflecting on the perception of time in our everyday lives. Taking the form of sculptural objects, installation, and moving images, her works draw on concepts of space, time, science, and philosophy.

In 2019, Kwade was selected for the prestigious Roof Garden Commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She also participated in the Helsinki Biennial (2021), Desert X in California’s Coachella Valley (2021), the Setouchi Triennale in Japan (2019), the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), and the Third ARoS Triennial in Aarhus, Denmark (2017).