Fumio Nanjo presents Toyo Ito's Vanishing Caves, a maze-like sculpture made of layers of white fibreboard that allows visitors to admire its curves from the outside and walk through it to experience it from the inside. Close by, he has placed Ex-Garment, a three-piece installation by Lo Sing-chin, a local artist and fashion designer.
Director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Nanjo introduces the pieces as part of Popping Up: Revisiting the Relationship between 2D and 3D, an exhibition at the Hong Kong Art Centre of works by artists from around Asia.
'This show is small, but it is multinational ... and includes different kinds of creations,' Nanjo says of his first curatorial effort in Hong Kong, which opens tonight.
Featuring works by 13 artists, including renowned architect Ito, the exhibition seeks to break down the boundaries between two-dimensional and three-dimensional art. It's also the largest show to be held at the Art Centre in a decade, says its executive director Connie Lam, who approached Nanjo a year ago to curate the show.
'Hong Kong should have this kind of show more often. Many exhibitions in Hong Kong are [staged] only for Hong Kong artists,' she says. 'It sounds like it's the right thing to do from the government's point of view, but it's not good for Hong Kong artists.'
Nanjo echoes Lam's sentiments. If you can put foreign and local artists on the same level to create a strong message, Hong Kong artists will become more visible, he says.