On 25 March 2024, The Peninsula will herald the return of its lauded global art programme, “Art in Resonance,” with a new exhibition at its flagship Hong Kong hotel.
The opening, which kicks off during Hong Kong Art Week, features specially commissioned works from four visionary artists: Elise Morin, Kingsley Ng, Lachlan Turczan, and Saya Woolfalk. The exhibition will be open to the public through 17 May.
Originally introduced by The Peninsula in 2019 in collaboration with global cultural advisors Isolde Brielmaier and Bettina Prentice, Art in Resonance offers Peninsula guests deeply immersive experiences in their hotels’ respective destination cities.
The programme also supports the larger cultural ecosystem by providing emerging artists with the funding, curatorial support and logistical capabilities that allow them to produce significant and complex new public artworks.
“This programme has always been about us committing to a deeper and more impactful engagement with artists – providing patronage, and a foundational platform for their work, rather than being passive venues,” said Gareth Roberts, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited. “We are especially proud to have given Hong Kong artist Kingsley Ng the ability to produce his most ambitious project to date. Ng has certainly proven that the hotel’s legendary façade remains a fertile canvas for artistic imagination.”
Strikingly Immersive and Innovative New Works
The exhibition will see Kingsley Ng (b. 1980, Hong Kong, China) unveil Esmeralda; a monumental kinetic installation created expressly for the hotel’s iconic forecourt. The piece takes its title from Italo Calvino’s celebrated 1972 novel Invisible Cities: a meditation on culture, memory, truth, past and present. Made with jade-coloured ribbons, each spanning 36 meters in length and individually controlled by motorised winches, Esmeralda will undulate between the physics of gravity and the buoyancy of air. The colossal work allows the artist to evoke the ephemeral ocean tides that have brought travellers to Hong Kong from all over the world for centuries.
Another dynamic work commissioned for the 2024 exhibit is Lachlan Turczan’s (b. 1993, Los Angeles, USA) Harmonic Resonance – a kinetic sculpture providing a hypnotic, meditative exploration of visible sound. The work features a parabolic mirror measuring over 1.6m in diameter, which encloses a shallow pool of water, where low-frequency infrasonic tones allow the artist to choreograph oscillating patterns to form on the water’s surface. “I have spent the past decade refining an art practice that follows a simple, natural algorithm: sound shapes water, water shapes light,” explained the artist, who cites the California Light and Space Movement from the 1960s as a major influence.
Elise Morin‘s (b. 1978, Paris, France) glittering SOLI , originally commissioned in 2019, has been significantly expanded for the Hong Kong exhibition. Morin’s multidisciplinary studio practice fuses science, art, and technology as she continues her exploration of landscape as a genre. The sculpture – made from thousands of obsolete CDs, each industrially pulverized according to their security grade – is reminiscent of the resplendent palaces of her native France, but instead offers a quiet commentary on the material burden of waste.
Finally, Saya Woolfalk (b. 1979, Gifu, Japan) will present Visionary Reality Portal, an immersive and multisensory digital-meditation chamber. Woolfalk’s studio practice is devoted to her ongoing series The Empathics – a fictional group that merges DNA with plants in order to achieve utopia. Through the Empathics’ physical transformation, the artist is able to explore themes of hybridity, spirituality, ethnography, and racial discourse. Housed in a purpose-built space on the ground floor, Visionary Reality Portal is constructed from hand-painted paper, live-action, and 3D animation, and includes a myriad of cultural references from mandalas to stained glass windows to nkisi (sacred traditional African objects that embody animal spirits). Woolfalk has also designed a custom Instagram filter that can be used within the exhibit, allowing visitors to become part of the installation, and form a lasting part of the artist’s digital archive.
“From the inception of the Art in Resonance programme, The Peninsula Hotels has consistently demonstrated a brave commitment to artists’ visions,” said Bettina Prentice, co-curator of the Hong Kong exhibition. “By choosing to act as an incubator for bold and experimental ideas from new voices, the brand has made these complex concepts into reality.”
A Brand-wide Commitment to Contemporary Arts
The Peninsula has been committed to promoting the rich and vibrant cultural aspects of its properties’ destination cities for generations by inviting its guests to engage with art through numerous channels. The group has hosted artist residencies, mounted enriching and culturally representative exhibits, talks and symposia, and offered studio visits and workshops with local creators whose work exemplifies the distinctive flavour and energy of their home cities.
The exhibition artworks will remain at The Peninsula Hong Kong through 17 May, after which they will be displayed at other Peninsula properties, and joined by additional, newly commissioned installations from local artists. For the duration of the exhibit, The Peninsula Hong Kong will offer visitors free access to all pieces, as well as guided tours and activities that further illuminate the city’s vibrant art scene.
In tandem with the exhibition, The Peninsula Hong Kong will offer guests a special cocktail menu of Art in Resonance concoctions at the Felix Lab in Collectors’ Lounge of Art Basel Hong Kong. The menu features four cocktails and a mocktail, all conceived to resonate with the hotel’s art installations: Potato Soliloquy, Grape Soliloquy, Succulent Soliloquy, Corn Soliloquy and the non-alcoholic Coconut Soliloquy. They will also be available at The Bar of The Peninsula Hong Kong from 26 March to 17 May 2024.
More information can be found at The Peninsula’s Art in Resonance programme webpage, www.peninsula.com/art.
About The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, Limited (HSH)
Incorporated in 1866 and listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (00045), HSH is the holding company of a Group which is engaged in the ownership, development and management of prestigious hotel, commercial and residential properties in key locations in Asia, the United States and Europe, as well as the provision of tourism and leisure, club management and other services. The Peninsula Hotels portfolio comprises The Peninsula Hong Kong, The Peninsula Shanghai, The Peninsula Beijing, The Peninsula Tokyo, The Peninsula New York, The Peninsula Chicago, The Peninsula Beverly Hills, The Peninsula London, The Peninsula Paris, The Peninsula Istanbul, The Peninsula Bangkok and The Peninsula Manila. The property portfolio of the Group includes The Repulse Bay Complex, The Peak Tower and St. John’s Building in Hong Kong; The Landmark in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and 21 avenue Kléber in Paris, France. The clubs and services portfolio of the Group includes The Peak Tram in Hong Kong; Quail Lodge & Golf Club in Carmel, California; Peninsula Clubs and Consultancy Services, Peninsula Merchandising, and Tai Pan Laundry in Hong Kong.
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