Edouard Malingue Gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Hong Kong of highly acclaimed French artist, Fabien Mérelle (b. 1981). The exhibition, which commences the week of Art Basel Hong Kong, will consist of a show in the gallery as well as a public installation in Statue Square Gardens, Central. On display in the gallery will be a series of Fabien Mérelle’s intricate ink and watercolour drawings as well as a sculpture. The public installation, which is also part of Le French May program supported by the French Consulate, will feature a sculpture made of silicone that brings to real life scale Mérelle’s fantastical drawing Pentateuque (2012). This exciting on and off-site exhibition meets Edouard Malingue Gallery’s aim of building an important platform for introducing emerging artists, from Asia, Europe and beyond, to Hong Kong’s dynamic arts scene.

Mérelle’s solo exhibition at Edouard Malingue Gallery will furthermore present, for the first time, a monumental three-dimensional sculpture of Mérelle’s drawing Pentateuque (2012). Created in resin and fiberglass, the life-size sculpture will show a man who, bent over, is testingly balancing an elephant on his back. While the elephant is inspired by one at Singapore zoo, Mérelle is predominantly making a witty reference to the five books of the Bible and how, for an individual, religion, societal expectations and culture at large, may amount to ‘carrying a weight on one’s shoulders’. The sculpture will be placed on public display in the Central location of Statue Square Gardens so that it brings elements of the curious and the absurd to Hong Kong’s urban landscape.