Vunkwan Tam

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Installation view of various works by Vunkwan Tam, 8th Yokohama Triennale, Wild Grass: Our Lives, March 15 June 9, 2024. Curated by Liu Ding and Carol Yinghua Lu. Photography: YAMAMOTO Masahito
Photo courtesy of Organizing Committee for Yokohama Triennale

Vunkwan Tam at Basel Social Club, June 11 – 16, 2024. Photography: Michael Yu

Vunkwan Tam at Basel Social Club, June 11 – 16, 2024. Photography: Michael Yu

Vunkwan Tam at Basel Social Club, June 11 – 16, 2024. Photography: Michael Yu

F, Empty Gallery, 27 August –19 Nov 2022. Photography: Michael Yu

F, Empty Gallery, 27 August –19 Nov 2022. Photography: Michael Yu

Vunkwan Tam, may you have neither dew nor rain, may no showers fall on your terraced fields, 2023. Installation view, 118½, Emalin, 2024

Vunkwan Tam, may you have neither dew nor rain, may no showers fall on your terraced fields, 2023. Installation view, 118½, Emalin, 2024

Untitled (IIIII, a Quiet Life), 2021
Straw hats, enamel paint

Untitled (XXI), 2022
Sunflower stems, nails
Installation view, ‘Temporary,’ 2022, Negative Space

It was not good in my garden that year/ It was not good in my garden/ I am not brave/ I am a merchant/ My trade was bad for me/ But for my family and for my fearful son, Drake/ It sure looked like bravery/ But it was not good in my garden that year/ It was not good in my garden, 2020
Cardboard boxes, concrete, spray paint, emulsion paint, stainless steel zip-ties, bricks, acrylic picture frame, chains, metal parts

L.O., 2021
PVC pipe, T-shirt, engine oil
Installation view, ‘Noble Rot,’ 2022, Para Site

Untitled (The First 10 Years), 2021
Mannequin, hat, enamel paint
Installation view, ‘A Temporal Test for all Possible Clouds,’ 2021, Tempé Art Space

Untitled (Mob), 2021
Diapers, metal wires
Installation view, ‘A Temporal Test for all Possible Clouds,’ 2021, Tempé Art Space

Vunkwan Tam’s artistic practice ranges across sculpture, video, text, sound, and installation. Often taking the form of marginally adjusted readymades—whether found objects, images, or textual fragments—Tam’s work expresses what might be termed a contemporary ethics of exhaustion, foregrounding the residues of circulation, labor, and the minimal human trace in place of the conventional performance of artistic personae. He received his Bachelors in Fine Art from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2020, and opened his debut solo exhibition F at Empty Gallery in 2023. He has participated in group exhibitions and performances at Emalin, London (2024); Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2023); Para Site, Hong Kong (2022); and Tai Kwun Contemporary (2020). In 2024, he participated in the 8th Yokohama Triennale and Basel Social Club.

CURRENT:
Improvisation
Inside Out Museum, Beijing
September 20, 2024 – January 19, 2025
Curated by Carol Yinghua Lu