Embodied

Hong Kong—Pearl Lam Galleries is proud to present Embodied, a group exhibition that studies figuration in art. Curated by David Ho Yeung Chan, the exhibition will feature works by five international artists: Du Zhenjun (France), Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore), Li Ming (China), Gatot Pujiarto (Indonesia), and Ben Quilty (Australia). The show will open on 6 November and run through 10 January, 2015.

To ‘embody’ is to take spiritual possession of something that one holds dear in the hope of making it one’s own. An artwork’s attributes come from the visual representation of an idea. For an artwork, the most direct way to engage with audiences is to depict the human body. Embodied examines the language of figuration and the varying appropriations of bodily association through the use of different media. In doing so, it exposes the gap between using art as a tool for idealisation and reality.

Embodied continues a long history in Western art of exploring the human figure, touching on themes of composition, myth, narrative, performance, body politics, disfiguration, torment, dematerialisation and dystopia. The exhibition highlights how figurative art is not limited to the use of the human figure, but also contains subtle iconography and symbolism. This group exhibition will be installed in a melodramatic manner in order to provoke a bodily and psychological association with the individual artworks.