As if taking a glimpse into an extraterrestrial structure, the works by Tobias Klein not only fascinates its audiences with its dynamic forms but also display a different sense of intricacy “which impressively presents the rich tapestry of Digital Craftsmanship.”
Internationally trained as an architect at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and has taught for more than a decade at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and the Royal College of Art; Klein relocated to Hong Kong in 2014 and now teaches at the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong.
By using 3D printing and CAD/ CAM technologies, he has created ever-evolving works which can be related to architecture, art, design, and interactive media installations. By using natural materials and found objects as his resources, his works pull from various cultural and historical references, and results in hybrids of “operational synthesis between digital and physical tools and techniques.”
His current solo exhibition at HKU takes over four different rooms named after his distinct series of works of Bones, Masks, Mutations, and Forces. Audiences are taken on a journey through his evolution as they walk through the rooms. Unraveling his materials, inspirations, his idea of time and space, and his dialogue between the tradition and the digital, his body of works jump from being ornamentation.
Klein’s “ability to apply interpretative and communicative techniques between old and new” through drawing inspirations from Cantonese opera masks or Chinese wood carvings is what makes his work particularly interesting. Not to mention, he has done so elegantly by exploring “new visual territories in the field of narrated embodied space.”
Metamorphosis or Confrontation
The University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG)
May 20 – Aug 30, 2020
