Cover Nina Katchadourian: Natural Selection, Installation at Pace Gallery, Hong Kong, November 19 – December 23, 2021, © Nina Katchadourian, courtesy of Pace Gallery (Photo: Louise Lo)
Nina Katchadourian: Natural Selection, Installation at Pace Gallery, Hong Kong, November 19 – December 23, 2021, © Nina Katchadourian, courtesy of Pace Gallery (Photo: Louise Lo)
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Tatler+ H Queen's
The mundane and the natural meet in the American artist’s playful and curious creations
If any artist exemplifies the term “interdisciplinary”, it’s Nina Katchadourian. In works that can be seen around the world, she uses video, performance, sound, sculpture, and photography. In Natural Selection, Katchadourian’s first exhibition with the Pace Gallery in Asia, the variety of her work is plain to see. The artworks span decades, showcasing her exploration of the relationship between humans and animals, and her fascination with what is "natural".
On show are her attempts to “mend” broken spiderwebs with sewing thread, “fix” a mushroom using a bicycle patch, and a video in which she “restages” an iconic scientific image: the moment of artificial insemination. These “uninvited collaborations with nature” are central to Katchadourian’s work.
Above Nina Katchadourian explains the creative process behind her Fake Plants series (Videography: Ivan Chan)
Running the length of an entire wall of Pace Gallery at H Queen’s in Hong Kong's Central neighbourhood are works from Katchadourian’s Fake Plant series, in which her resourcefulness, and her playful approach to the natural world shine through.
The plants show that there is nothing Katchadourian cannot use to make her art: discarded cardboard boxes, paper packaging from food products, medical masks, ping pong balls, sewing pins, or leftover craft supplies are all pressed into service. The artist draws us closer to the overlooked, familiar matters that constitute our domestic lives.
Nina Katchadourian, Plant #4, 2021. © Nina Katchadourian, courtesy Pace Gallery
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The designs are based on Katchadourian’s recollections and inventions rather than an attempt to recreate the kind of things you might see in a botanical garden. Katchadourian says she wants viewers to see two things in her flowers: the beautiful and spectacular creations; but also the everyday and unspectacular materials from which they are made.
"It became a kind of fantasy travel to other places, thinking about the imagined landscapes of those places"
It is fitting that the work of an artist so concerned with re-examining every day objects and observances should find her work displayed at a gallery in H Queen’s.
Above H Queen's at 80 Queen's Road Central
H Queen's at 80 Queen's Road Central
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The stylish 24-storey development at 80 Queen’s Road Central also has an entrance on Stanley Street, inviting visitors from a variety of backgrounds and nationalities to escape the noise and commotion of central Hong Kong and enter one of the city’s premier cultural destinations.
And so uniquely for Hong Kong, H Queen’s allows visitors to hop between internationally-renowned galleries, and see vastly different works by a range of artists all in one location.
The building also houses two-Michelin-starred restaurants and famous retail and lifestyle brands.
"Here at H Queen's, we are thrilled audiences can have the chance to enjoy the large displays that share the breadth of Nina's practice, as some of these projects may span decades. We highlight in the show the artist's longstanding methodology of working with mundane materials close at hand while intersecting with her intense interest in 'the natural.’”
Katchadourian started making artificial plants in her Berlin apartment at the onset of the pandemic; a time when so many of us were examining things anew and finding new ways to connect.
So it is apt that as well as being available in person at Pace Gallery, some of Natural Selection will also be viewable virtually, as the Fake Plant series are complemented by an online exhibition on Pace's website. Either way, the works offer us a chance, in Katchadourian’s words, “to be on both sides of a transformation...You can imagine your way back to what all of these things started as, and then forward to what they became”.
Nina Katchadourian: Natural Selection is on show from November 19 to December 23 at Pace Gallery. Find out more at pacegallery.com
H Queen's houses a number of renowned international art galleries and is located at 80 Queen's Road Central. Find out more at HQueens.com
