Stellar Performance
Phoebe Hui’s large-scale installation is worth mooning over at this year’s much anticipated Art Basel Hong Kong.
DID YOU KNOW that the moon is pulling away from Earth at a rate of around four centimetres each year? Astrophysicists call this phenomenon ‘lunar retreat’. This, along with other historical and contemporary observations of the moon, forms the subject matter of Hong Kong artist Phoebe Hui’s work titled The Moon Is Leaving Us.
Highlighting the critical role that visual representation plays in science and in our understanding of the universe, this largescale installation poetically interprets the aforementioned scientific discovery and aims to raise questions about nature and the ways in which humanity sees it. Hui’s artistic language
“Meeting astronauts, engineers and scientists brought fresh new perspectives
to the project.”
unites otherwise disparate worlds – in this instance, artistic representation with science and technology – tempered with a spot of humour. It subtly encourages a contemplation of cosmic and innate forces in equal measure, connecting the personal and the planetary through art.
The multidisciplinary artist’s latest work is scheduled to be unveiled on 23 April at Tai Kwun, Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage and
Arts, and was made possible under the auspices of the Audemars Piguet Art Commission. Hui is the fifth artist in the world, and the first in Asia, hand-picked by the Swiss watch manufacture, with the help of independent curator Ying Kwok, to fully explore a chosen path, create a large-scale artwork based on that and take it to the global arena. Her installation will also be on exhibit at Art Basel Hong Kong.
Hui’s fascination with the moon and all its attendant symbolisms was first ignited when, as a child, she discovered Su Dongpo’s legendary poem Prelude to Water Melody, which allegorised an emotional connection to the moon. Inspired by this sentiment, she became attached to the idea that one can feel near to those they love when gazing at the moon. Subsequently, these feelings revisited Hui in 2019 on a fact-finding trip to the Audemars Piguet manufacture in Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux. There, struck by the silence of the night, her path lit only by moonlight, the artist found her muse.
“This commission is an artist’s dream and has taken my practice to a new level,” says Hui. “The support provided by Audemars Piguet Contemporary has encouraged me to reflect on the fundamentals of my practice and given me the opportunity to interact beyond my network.”
To narrate this vision, Hui worked with experts on lunar study and was intrigued by the discovery that representations of the moon are subjective depending on a number of factors. As a result, one key element she set out to capture is the indomitable mutability of our world.
“Meeting astronauts, engineers and scientists brought fresh new perspectives to the project. Without this insight, I could never have made this work,” she says.