Cover Daniel Arsham, the creative force behind ComplexCon Hong Kong 2025 (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
Daniel Arsham, the creative force behind ComplexCon Hong Kong 2025 (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
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ComplexCon Hong Kong artistic director Daniel Arsham chats with us about bringing a slice of Las Vegas to Hong Kong and the power of collaboration
ComplexCon Hong Kong, which brings together music, style, pop culture, art and F&B, is set to run from March 21 to 23 at AsiaWorld Expo. While all eyes are on the highly anticipated musical lineup of NJZ, Zico and other star singers, the visual art elements of the festival are not to be missed.
ComplexCon’s artistic director Daniel Arsham revealed in a press conference that this year’s event will spotlight the city’s iconic—but now fast-vanishing—neon signs. “As you enter the space, the first thing that you see is this massive billboard, which is a little reminiscent of the billboard that we put at the Vegas ComplexCon lats time,” he says. “But the graphics in Hong Kong reference the streetscape of this city.”
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Above Daniel Arsham (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
Daniel Arsham (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
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The New York-based artist, who is known for creating art with uchronic aesthetics—a concept of imagining future relics of the present—will also incorporate his signature style into the space’s design. “I have worked with an incredible motion graphics team to develop this visual display which will be shown on the screens. The entire building facade, which forms the entrance, will have an eroded vernacular style that I’ve developed.”
The aesthetics of the space, which Arsham describes as “a kind of broken, eroded hotel”, gives a nod to the 1970s-style “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, so as to bring “a little bit of that Vegas energy into Hong Kong.”
Arsham isn’t new to the Hong Kong art landscape. He had hosted several exhibitions here with Perrotin. “The one in 2013 was one of my first big exhibitions in Asia,” he recalls. “The thing that surprised me the most was how aware the young community of the art, design and fashion worlds there was. It was surprising to [find that] so many people already knew [my] work and were familiar with the language of it. That was quite inspiring. I’ve met a number of people [here] who have continued to be close friends over the last decade.”
Above Daniel Arsham (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
Daniel Arsham (Photo: courtesy of the artist)
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He hopes, through his involvement with ComplexCon, he can continue to further that global connection among creatives. “The festival is really about bringing together people from all places in the world that work in fashion, art, and music,” he says. “Some of it is about going to experience that, but also it’s about making connections. I [imagine] Hongkongers who go to ComplexCon may meet a creator from New York, and in a year, they’ll be working on something together. This is a very interesting way of creating collaboration.”
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
