Venice Biennale 2022: artist readies Hong Kong pavilion for her solo exhibition

Artist representing Hong Kong at the contemporary art showcase in Italy took inspiration from anti-Vietnam-war protesters who tried to levitate the Pentagon

Explaining Su’s video of herself hanging upside down, curator says levitation is a metaphor for being suspended between two opposing forces and seeking balance

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A still from video artwork “The Magnificent Levitation Act of Lauren O” by Angela Su, part of the artist’s solo presentation at the Hong Kong Pavilion during the Venice Biennale. Photo: courtesy of the artist

Published: 5:15pm, 29 Mar 2022Updated: 4:10pm, 30 Mar 2022

There are just three weeks to go before the opening of the Venice Biennale and artist Angela Su is supervising the whirl of activity that is transforming the Hong Kong pavilion in the Italian city into her realm of Gothic fantasy.

The old residential building that has served as Hong Kong’s pavilion for biennale’s alternating showcases of art and architecture every year bar one since 2003 is the opposite of a neutral, white-cube gallery. Sometimes its character and history just doesn’t gel with what its temporary tenants have in mind.

“A crumbling brick wall is too distracting,” says Su, Hong Kong’s representative at the world’s biggest and most influential contemporary art exhibition of 2022.

One of the rooms will be draped in red fabric, and another, where the video of a new performance work is projected, will be lined with sound-absorbing panels.

Angela Su, who is representing Hong Kong in this year’s Venice Biennale. Photo: courtesy of M+

Meanwhile, technicians are building a giant swing 4 metres (13 feet) high and a circus ring in the outside courtyard to set the stage for “Arise”, an exhibition about Lauren O., an imaginary American anti-war activist in the 1960s who believed she had the magic power of levitation.