First solo exhibition to be presented at David Zwirner Hong Kong in spring 2022
April 2021
April 21, 2021 – David Zwirner is pleased to announce that the gallery will be working with Rirkrit Tiravanija. His first solo exhibition of new work is planned for spring 2022 at the Hong Kong location.
Opening in May 2021, Tiravanija’s untitled 1990 (pad thai), a seminal early work, will be presented at the Hong Kong gallery as part of a group exhibition. First enacted at the Paula Allen Gallery, New York, in 1990, untitled 1990 (pad thai) was the artist’s first live participatory installation. For the work, he prepared and served food to visitors and then gathered the remnants of the meal as evidence of the event.
In 2007, David Zwirner presented an iteration of Tiravanija’s untitled (free). First exhibited at the 303 Gallery space at 89 Greene Street in 1992, the work involved Tiravanija turning the original gallery’s office space into a kitchen where Thai curry was cooked and served to visitors. At David Zwirner, Tiravanija re-created the spatial dimensions of 89 Greene Street out of plywood and proceeded to have curry prepared once again, while also displaying the remnants of the original presentation as a kind of record of the event. The work is now in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Of collaborating with Tiravanija, David Zwirner says, “Rirkrit Tiravanija is a longtime friend. I have known him as long as I have had a gallery, and have been collecting his work since the early 1990s. Rirkrit is a transformational artist. Relational art would not be what it is without his immense influence. His work is about connection, community, and shared experiences. I think after this past year in which there has been so much disconnection and separation, his art is even more important and meaningful.”
Image: Installation view, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Untitled 1992 (Free), 1992–2007, David Zwirner New York, 2007