Visual Arts

Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong is proud to present the first solo exhibition in Greater China of one of the masters of 20th-century modern art: Hans (Jean) Arp (1886 – 1966) was at the forefront of the 20th-century avant garde, and associated strongly with Surrealism and the international Dada movement. Over a period of more than sixty years Arp produced an extraordinarily influential body of work that shifts fluidly between abstraction and representation, and between organic and geometric forms. The list of artists Arp befriended and collaborated with reads like a Who’s Who of the avant garde: Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Francis Picabia, Paul Klee, Kurt Schwitters – to name just a few.

Born in 1886 in Strasbourg, Alsace, a historically embattled region bordered by France, Germany and Switzerland, Arp was raised speaking French, German and the Alsatian dialect. His hybrid cultural identity was formed during a long period of fraught nationalism, subsequently the artist refused to confine himself to a single language, national identity, artistic movement, or material. Much of his creative work seems intent on transcending boundaries, and the high quality of Arp’s creative output over decades is matched only by its sheer diversity: At the heart of Arp’s artistic triumph shines the organic beauty of his sculptures, but the artist first gained acclaim for his poetry in German and French, as well as his prints, books, drawings, fabric works, collages and his wood reliefs.