PAUL CHAN and RICHARD HAWKINS | On view in Le Contre-Ciel

Empty Gallery, Hong Kong
Mar 24–May 25, 2024

Inspired by a collection of writings by René Daumal, Le Contre-Ciel—translating to 'Against The Heavens' or 'The Counter Heaven'—brings together an iconoclastic selection of pieces from ancient Neolithic objects to contemporary artworks. Organized by Olivia Shao, the exhibition finds in these diverse practices a shared approach to art-making predicated on a profound embrace of chance, the ceaseless play between disappearance and emergence, and the mediation of reality through the minimal gesture.

Le Contre-Ciel proposes a speculative re-inscription of the place of traditional Chinese aesthetics within modern art history, while also challenging its historical and contemporary entanglement with power.