Sam Jacob, ‘Breaking the Waves’ Exhibition Design for K11 Art Space, 2017, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Curated by Art Review
Breaking the Waves brings together the works of 14 highly acclaimed artists and artist collectives from around the world – Larry Achiampong, Yuko Mohri & David Horvitz, Wolfgang Tillmans, Eisa Jocson, Laure Prouvost, Adriano Costa, Jac Leirner, Chim↑Pom, Ho Tzu Nyen & Ripon Chowdhury, Michael Joo, Zheng Bo, Slime Engine – to explore discussion and dialogue as a cornerstone of contemporary art.
The exhibition title, Breaking the Waves, refers both to persistence, as the endlessly repeating climax of waves breaking on a shore, and the act of swimming against the tide, or coming up for air. In the current moment, it also seeks to convey optimism about the latent potentials for renewal as we slowly begin to re-enter a world reshaped following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Through videoworks, sound installations, sculpture, photography and interactive experiences, the show explores and interrogates relationships between humans and nature, conditions of migration and mobility, exploitation and cooperation, the potentials of new technologies and the ways in which artists collaborate or enter into dialogue with the work of their peers, however separated they may be by chronology or geography.