JOYCE UNVEILS ANNUAL HIGHLIGHT OF ARTISTS, ARTWORKS AND ARTFORMS

This May, JOYCE plays host to art in its many transient forms. JOYCE Art Month presents a multi-disciplinary, multi-medium display of select artists and their works. An uplifting itinerary of in-store displays, exhibitions and exclusive happenings, championing masters of craft.

SEVEN WONDERS OF JOYCE: THE EMPEROR

Spring hails the arrival of JOYCE’s sixth and penultimate Wonder: THE EMPEROR. The Master of Craft. The next ‘act of magic’ in an ongoing immersive design concept, it represents the designers who have shaped their own realm of distinctive craftsmanship.

I am very fawn’d of you my deer…

Behind a curtain of plush fawns suspended in the window of the JOYCE Central flagship store, Christophe Coppens, renowned artist and architect of the Seven Wonders, reveals his surreal sculptural representation of a herd of stags. Symbolic of spiritual authority, their exaggerated antlers hoist up SS21 pieces by select craft-centric designers.

To complement this assemblage, Coppens invites filmmaker Javier Barcala to create an unexpected interpretation of The Emperor. Capturing a group of stags in the wild, the surprising furtive glances of these creatures represent the unexpected creative turns of the designers. “ ‘The Emperor’ is a tongue-in-cheek take on a peaceful landscape,” explains Barcala. “Surprising things happen when you reconnect with nature.”

THE GALLERY BY SOIL
15 May – 31 May

SOIL, Hong Kong’s leading specialist lacquer gallery begins a two week exhibition on the first floor of JOYCE Central flagship store. The Gallery by SOIL is one of the first to bridge lacquer masters and artists of diverse cultures in Hong Kong. This exhibition at JOYCE features the finest collection of lacquer art from various corners of Asia with a special focus on modern master, Sakurako Matsushima.

Bringing the display to life, Susanna Pang, SOIL founder and curator, leads two consecutive Saturday workshops. With live demonstrations and craft dialogue on lacquer’s new wave. The workshop includes a mesmerising live demonstration of Kintsugi, the traditional Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer blended or mixed with powdered silver and gold.

KARY KWOK: REVISITING
15 May – 7 June

Kary Kwok: Revisiting, co-curated by Kary Kwok and Aaditya Sathish, is comprised of rare fashion magazines and books from Kwok’s collection as well as new works devised from a return to the artist’s photographs from the 90s, including an installation, textile sculptures, and a photographic portfolio.

In the portfolio, 12 images are supplanted and (dis)ordered from Kwok’s 1999 book 109 men, 69 women, and 10 in-between (1999). Enlarged and presented in an archival folder, the images feature popstars, models, and seemingly banal objects. The indices that guide publication — colour, tone, and form — are intentionally disregarded in the large canvas wall work which brings together 16 images, each has either been extracted from the book or had previously been considered an outtake in the process of its publication. In his series of scarf-sculptures, Kwok prints scenes from the pink section of the book on the fabric, giving the once static photographs a liquid and laissez-faire appeal.

Unbinding the sutures that hold a publication, and as such, a record of cultural time, Kwok turns to his images not with a nostalgic gaze, but rather with a very Barthian recognition — the photograph is a certificate of presence; it certifies that which is no longer with us. Kwok’s works resonate with our here and now as he draws from the conditions in which these images were made — alienation, displacement, and an uncertain future.