2015.venicebiennale.hkTHE INFINITE NOTHING | Venice Biennale 2015

close THE INFINITE NOTHING NOTHING THE INFINITE Tsang Kin-Wah About the Artist THE INFINITE NOTHING Exhibition Curators Organisers Catalogue Gallery Visit Press Hong Kong Talks Acknowledgement in Venice Visit Interns’ Blog Venice Biennale Past Exhibitions Contact Acknowledgement console.log(’http://2015.venicebiennale.hk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/being.jpg’); Exhibition Highlights 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 9th May-22nd Nov, 2015 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 9th May-22nd Nov, 2015 Highlights HONG KONG EXHIBITION WATCH ARTWORK VIDEO PHOTO GALLERY INSTALLATION VIEWS INTERNS’ BLOG UPDATED HONG KONG EXHIBITION WATCH ARTWORK VIDEO PHOTO GALLERY INSTALLATION VIEWS INTERNS’ BLOG UPDATED HONG KONG EXHIBITION WATCH ARTWORK VIDEO PHOTO GALLERY INSTALLATION VIEWS INTERNS’ BLOG UPDATED View exhibition website A new commission following The Infinite Nothing , Tsang Kin-Wah: Nothing is an immersive experience that takes inspiration from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and explores the essence of life and our inability to escape fate. Walkthrough of ’The Infinite Nothing’ Conceived specifically for the exhibition, ‘The Infinite Nothing’ consists of four stand-alone video installations that, altogether, form a narrative of transformative journeys through stages in life, exploring a perpetual cycle of self-inquiry and discovery. Photo gallery of ’The Infinite Nothing’ Get a glimpse of the immersive journey of the exhibition featuring four stand-alone video installations that intend to represent a perpetual cycle of self-inquiry and discovery. Ashley’s Venice Photo Diary Learn more about our interns’ experiences in Venice via the Interns’ Blog . View exhibition website A new commission following The Infinite Nothing , Tsang Kin-Wah: Nothing is an immersive experience that takes inspiration from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and explores the essence of life and our inability to escape fate. Walkthrough of ’The Infinite Nothing’ Conceived specifically for the exhibition, ‘The Infinite Nothing’ consists of four stand-alone video installations that, altogether, form a narrative of transformative journeys through stages in life, exploring a perpetual cycle of self-inquiry and discovery. Photo gallery of ’The Infinite Nothing’ Get a glimpse of the immersive journey of the exhibition featuring four stand-alone video installations that intend to represent a perpetual cycle of self-inquiry and discovery. Ashley’s Venice Photo Diary Learn more about our interns’ experiences in Venice via the Interns’ Blog . View exhibition website A new commission following The Infinite Nothing , Tsang Kin-Wah: Nothing is an immersive experience that takes inspiration from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and explores the essence of life and our inability to escape fate. Walkthrough of ’The Infinite Nothing’ Conceived specifically for the exhibition, ‘The Infinite Nothing’ consists of four stand-alone video installations that, altogether, form a narrative of transformative journeys through stages in life, exploring a perpetual cycle of self-inquiry and discovery. Photo gallery of ’The Infinite Nothing’ Get a glimpse of the immersive journey of the exhibition featuring four stand-alone video installations that intend to represent a perpetual cycle of self-inquiry and discovery. Ashley’s Venice Photo Diary Learn more about our interns’ experiences in Venice via the Interns’ Blog . Tsang Kin-Wah Born in Shantou, China in 1976, Tsang Kin-Wah lives and works in Hong Kong. He studied fine arts at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and book arts at the Camberwell College of Arts in London. His work is well known and critically acclaimed for its innovative use of text and language, which are manipulated by using computer technology to create immersive installations. The artist has exhibited extensively. Recent solo exhibitions include ’We Know: NOTHING’, Ark Galerie, Yogyakarta (2014); ’Ecce Homo Trilogy I’, Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong (2012); ’MAM Project 015: Tsang Kin-Wah’, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2011); ’Tsang Kin-Wah: The Third Seal’, Pekin Fine Arts, Beijing (2009); ’What Are You Looking At?’, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester (2008); ’Tsang Kin-Wah’, Yvon Lambert, Paris (2008) and New York (2007). He has also presented his work globally in numerous group exhibitions and museums, such as Sharjah Calligraphy Biennale, Sharjah (2014); 3rd Mediations Biennale, Poznan, (2012); 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale, Shenzhen (2012); 2011 Asian Art Biennial, Taichung (2011); Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2010); 17th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney (2010); 1st Aichi Triennale, Nagoya (2010); 10th Lyon Biennale, Lyon (2009) and Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2008), among others. His work was also showcased in M+’s second public exhibition of Hong Kong artists, ’Mobile M+: Yau Ma Tei’, in 2012. Tsang is the recipient of the TDC Prize, Tokyo Type Directors Club Annual Awards (2007); Sovereign Asian Art Prize, Sovereign Art Foundation (2005) and winner of the Prize of Excellence at Hong Kong Art Biennial (2001). His work is held in several important private and public collections including Burger Collection and The Sigg Collection in Switzerland, A3 Collection of Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco, DSL Collection in Paris, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, CODA Museum in the Netherlands, Hong Kong Museum of Art and Hong Kong Heritage Museum. Learn more about Tsang Kin-Wah’s previous works at www.tsangkinwah.com The Infinite Nothing – Trailer Exhibition Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? The work of Tsang Kin-Wah can be characterised as a sustained and constant search for meaning in life, with a full understanding of its potential futility. The title of Tsang’s solo exhibition as well as of the suite of four new video projections created for it, The Infinite Nothing continues this artistic and philosophical exploration. The title is derived from a passage in Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science (1882), in which appears the notorious pronouncement of the death of God: ‘Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space?’ Around this central idea, Tsang brings together a host of philosophical concepts expressed through metaphors and allegories, along with religious symbolisms and popular cultural references. Included in this panoply of ideas are Heraclitus’s river into which ‘one cannot step twice’; Plato’s Cave Allegory; and Nietzsche’s notions of ‘Camel Spirit’, ‘slave morality’ and ‘the Overman’. The Hindu/Buddhist notions of karma and reincarnation, which are important influences in the artist’s practice, play a role here as well, and two films — Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse (2011) and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) — also provide sources of inspiration. Altogether, the exhibition manifests Tsang’s continuing inquiry into systems of religious belief and the human quest for self-betterment. This search is realised in this exhibition in the form of a cycle of four stages of transformation, titled 0 , I , I and 0 respectively, with the end of the journey leading back to its beginning, thus giving physical shape to another Nietzschean concept, that of ‘eternal recurrence’. clear examples Python Grammar What is in Tsang Kin-Wah’s Mind? Christianity is the first state of the Three Metamorphoses, which describe the transformation of human consciousness, as presented in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The weight-bearing camel is the image of the weary soul burdened by the trials and obligations of life, undertaken through a sense of duty. When the dutiful camel begins to question his condition, it transforms into a fearless lion; once the lion succeeds in challenging the dragon of tradition, it transforms into an innocent child who, as an embodiment of freedom, is able to create new values and beliefs. Having passed through these Three Metamorphoses, the...