audemars piguet replica

In 2019, Hong Kong-based artist Phoebe Hui was selected to imagine the 5th Audemars Piguet Replica Art Commission, in collaboration with Ying Kwok, guest curator for the project and newly appointed Senior Curator (Digital and Heritage) at Tai Kwun Centre for Art and Heritage. Hui’s work notably marks the first Audemars Piguet Art Commission to be exhibited in Asia, opening in the Duplex Studio at Tai Kwun from 25 April – 23 May 2021.

Due to COVID-19, visits to the exhibition are possible remotely only.

The Audemars Piguet Replica Art Commission is a competition occurring every two years under the auspices of Audemars Piguet Replica Contemporary, a division within the Swiss Haute Horlogerie Manufacture. With each Art Commission, an artist—not yet internationally recognised—is selected with the guidance of a renowned guest curator to develop a large-scale artwork amplifying their practice at a scale that is a “first” in their career. Each selected artist is given the opportunity to work with the guest curator—an expert in their region—as well as the Audemars Piguet Contemporary team, who accompanies and supports the duo from the inception of their study, to the development and exhibition of the artwork.

Hui’s large-scale installation The Moon Is Leaving Us enhances the critical role that representation plays in science and in our comprehension of the Universe. It comprises two major bodies of work: Selena, a custom-built drawbot that produces intricate Moon drawings; and Selenite, a kinetic robot consisting of 48 mechanical arms arranged in a parabolic shape projecting varying Moon imagery on to 48 unique screens.

Inspired by the latest scientific data and historical observations of the Moon dating back to the 17th century, the artist juxtaposes historical astronomical renderings with state-of-the-art scientific imaging, constructing robotic devices that reinterpret data and bring awareness to mediation tools used to depict the visible and invisible worlds.

Hui questions the many different manners in which we represent the Moon and blurs the boundaries between science and poetry to shine a new light on the cultural ties we share, on a global scale, with Earth’s only natural satellite.

Through an epistemological approach, the artist captures the melancholic emotions entangled with the scientific fact that the Moon is slowly migrating away from Earth.

There is a special place in people’s hearts for the Moon. Uninhabitable and remote, it is an imaginary place that encourages exploration and can metaphorically bring closer families and friends who are apart. This symbol of the future and of open possibilities has drawn me in since I can remember.

“An astronaut for me represents the necessity of abandoning the everyday and seeking out new ways of understanding reality or, as in contemporary art, developing alternative perspectives from which to look at the world. The more I thought about how limited our ordinary horizons are, the more I realized that reality is not a constant but a variable. The Moon is Leaving Us interrogates what we deem as fact when it comes to nature vs. the invisible world we are unable to see.

I aspire to transform an art space into an urban sanctuary for audiences to explore, reflect, build, or re-build their relationships with our universe.”

Explore more about the exhibition and have a close-up look at Selena and Selenite in the following video.

Phoebe Hui is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher primarily working in the relationship between language, sound and technology. Her recent projects increasingly rely on interdisciplinary ideas drawn from the philosophy of science, system aesthetics and the concept of indeterminacy.

Hui received her MFA at UCLA Design Media Art, Los Angeles, her MA in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London, and her BA in Creative Media from City University of Hong Kong. She is the recipient of a number of grants and awards, including HKETO Yale-China Art Fellowship, Hong Kong Art Development Council Young Artist Award (Media Art), Asian Cultural Council Altius Fellowship, Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award, Asian Cultural Council United States-Japan Arts Program Research Fellowship, Hong Kong Art Development Council Art Scholarship, Hong Kong Design Association Design Student Scholarship, among others.

She has presented her research-based art practice and papers globally at venues including Ars Electronica, ISEA, the MIT Media Lab, Asian Contemporary Art Week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.

Ying Kwok is the newly appointed senior curator of Digital and Heritage at Tai Kwun, Centre for Heritage and Arts. She is known for her inventive curatorial approach, centered on “the boundaries of collaboration” between curators, artists and the community. She worked as the curator of the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester in the UK from 2006 to 2012. She has co-curated many international exhibitions, including Harmonious Society at Asia Triennial Manchester (2014), From Longing to Belonging with Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art, Poland (2014, 2016), No Cause for Alarm at La Mama Gallery, New York (2016), and the online festival Peer to Peer: UK/HK (2020).

Awarded the Asia Cultural Council Fellowship in 2015, she carried out a five-month research on participatory and engagement projects in the US. To encourage critical thinking and effective discussion in Hong Kong, Kwok founded the Art Appraisal Club with a group of local art professionals. The club provides regular exhibition reviews and their articles are published in magazines and on various platforms for arts and culture. Kwok was also the curator of Hong Kong presentation at the 57th Venice Biennale, held in 2017.