Ahead of Leelee Chan’s solo exhibition Antinomies we have collected here recent press articles on the artist and her practice.

Klemm’s is pleased to present Antinomies, the first solo exhibition by Leelee Chan in Europe, as part of the Berlin Art Week 2022. 

In Antinomies, Leelee Chan presents eight new sculptures expanding from her Pallet In Repose (2019-2021) body of works, albeit with a more dynamic experimental approach to form, materials, meanings, and associations. Found shipping pallets have been a consistent motif in Chan’s recent art practice and reflect the shifting urban fabric in her immediate surroundings in Hong Kong. As part of the accelerating global supply chain, the circular nature of pallets imparts a ceaseless state of movement and change. It also has a special biographical meaning to Chan, who grew up overseeing a 24-hour container port from her apartment window. 

The use of pallets goes beyond this conceptual framework and is a vehicle for Chan’s visceral exploration of the unknown, encapsulating her interest in urbanism, architecture, material culture, craft, and antiquities. In Antinomies, Chan continues to push the limits of plastic pallets’ physicality. Her enigmatic sculptures use disparate materials and forms, creating visual paradoxes that play with the viewer’s perceptions and expectations. In addition, they provoke a particular atmosphere and feeling that conjure an ambient poetry of the built environment.

Leelee Chan’s Antinomies opens on SEP 16, 2022 | 6 to 9 PM at Klemm’s Berlin

Leelee Chan (b. 1984) lives and works in Hong Kong. Chan received her MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, in 2009, and her BFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago, in 2006. In 2020, Chan was the recipient of the ninth BMW Art Journey. Previous solo representations include: Pallet in Repose (Resurfacer), Discoveries, Art Basel Hong Kong (presented by Capsule Shanghai) (2021); and Core Sample, Capsule Shanghai, Shanghai (2019). Her selected exhibitions include Poetic Heritage in Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021); Liquid Ground in Para Site, Hong Kong (2021); KölnSkulptur #10 in Skulpturen Park Köln, Cologne (2020); How Do We Begin: X Museum Triennial 1st Edition in X Museum, Beijing (2020); Holy Mosses in Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong (2019); Notes from Pallet Town in Ullens Center for Contemporary Arts Dunes, Beidaihe (2019); Hysteresis in Downs & Ross, New York (2019); Scaffolds of Meaning in Mine Project, Hong Kong (2019); Rehearsal in Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2018). Chan’s work can be found in the permanent collections of M+, Hong Kong; Skulpturen Park Köln, Cologne; J. P. Morgan Chase Art Collection, Hong Kong and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris/San Francisco. Her work has been featured in Frieze, Artforum, Mousse Magazine, Art Asia Pacific, the Financial Times, and Ocula, among others.