20 April – 24 November 2024
Singapore Pavilion, Level 2 of Arsenale – Sale d’Armi, Venice, Italy
Singapore Art Museum is pleased to announce the appointment of Singaporean artist Robert Zhao Renhui and curator Haeju Kim as the artistic team for the Singapore Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (Biennale Arte 2024). The 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, Foreigners Everywhere, is curated by Adriano Pedrosa and runs from 20 April to 24 November 2024.
Zhao is an interdisciplinary Singaporean artist who has exhibited globally in international biennales and institutions around the world and won accolades for his artistic practice. In his practice, Zhao takes an interdisciplinary approach in his exploration of the complex relationships between nature and culture. Over the past eight years, he has rooted the pressing topic of the Anthropocene to our Singaporean environment, investigating the potential of secondary forests as key sites of regeneration and regrowth.
Kim’s curatorial approach emphasises the consideration of the body, time, and memory as key elements, while also engaging with topics including ecological perspectives, locality and its planetary connection, and questions of coexistence through her research. Collectively, Zhao and Kim’s shared research synergies reimagine the possibilities of mutual co-existence, multi-species flourishing and more connected ways of being in our precarious present; and through the Singapore Pavilion, provide a vision for life and regeneration for a more ecologically minded future.
More details on Zhao’s presentation for the Singapore Pavilion will be revealed in due course.
For press materials, visit here
For more information about the Singapore Pavilion at the Biennale Arte, visit here
Image Credit: Robert Zhao Renhui and Haeju Kim, 2023. Image courtesy of Robert Zhao.
Artistic Team
ARTIST | ROBERT ZHAO RENHUI
Robert Zhao Renhui (born 1983, Singapore) is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the complex and co-mingled relationships between nature and culture. Working in installation, photography, video and sculpture, Zhao is interested in the multifarious beings and objects that constitute the living world, and whose experiences and knowledge enrich our collective existence.
Zhao held solo exhibitions The Forest Institute (2022) at Gillman Barracks, Singapore and Monuments in the Forest at Shanghart Gallery (2023) in Shanghai. His latest work is a performance installation titled Albizia (2023), commissioned by the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. He has also been featured in 10th Busan Biennale (2020), 6th Singapore Biennale (2019), 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2018), 11th Taipei Biennale (2018), 17th Jakarta Biennale (2017), and 20th Biennale of Sydney (2016).
He received the prestigious National Arts Council Young Artist Award (2010), Singapore’s highest award for young arts practitioners aged 35 and below, He was also a finalist of the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award (2017).
CURATOR | HAEJU KIM
Haeju Kim (born 1980, South Korea) is a Senior Curator at Singapore Art Museum (SAM), and her research focuses on contemporary art practices in Singapore, Southeast Asia and Asia. Her curatorial approach emphasises the consideration of the body, time and memory as key elements. Haeju’s interest in performance and her previous collaborations with performance artists and performing arts institutions have shaped her view of exhibition curating as the creation of a shared space for bodily and temporal experiences.
Prior to joining SAM, Kim was the Artistic Director of the Busan Biennale 2022. She was also the Deputy Director at Art Sonje Center, where she oversaw the exhibitions, programmes as well as the operation of the South Korean museum. She is currently pursuing research and curatorial work that is focused on diverse topics such as migration and language, questions of coexistence, ecological perspectives, and the interplay between locality and its planetary connection, among others.
Major exhibitions curated by Kim include We, on the Rising Wave at the Busan Biennale 2022, and solo exhibitions by Shitamichi Motoyuki (A ship went up that hill, 2022) and Manon de Boer (Down Time, 2022) at Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark. She also curated Moving/Image, a three-chapter exhibition and performance programme that was presented at Seoul Art Space Mullae (2016), ARKO Art Center (2017) and Seoul Museum of Art (2020).
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