Is ‘Jeremy’s Bathhouse’ the strangest exhibition at Art Basel Hong Kong?
During the city’s biggest art week, artist Chan Wai Lap unveils a surreal bathhouse inspired by a lonely snail – inviting visitors to soak, connect and rethink intimacy in a very unexpected installation.
Chan Wai Lap is making a big splash at Art Basel Hong Kong this week. The 37-year-old visual artist features in multiple exhibitions across the city. Best known for his whimsical swimming-pool sculptures, UBS commissioned him to create a site-specific work, “Mimimomo Pool”, for the fair.
The highlight is an immersive installation called “Jeremy’s Bathhouse” at Oil Street Art Space in North Point. Visitors are invited to don a pair of plastic, cabbage-like slippers and sit in a heart-shaped plunge pool that’s dedicated to a lonely gastropod. Monocle went along for a dip, full of questions for the fun-loving Hong Konger.
So, who is Jeremy?
He’s a snail from the UK. I heard about him on the news. He has a rare left-rotating coil on his shell and that means he needs to find another snail with a left-rotating coil to make a baby. The public searched everywhere to find a mate and they succeeded. It’s a romantic love story. Jeremy must have felt so lonely and there are many Jeremys on the streets of Hong Kong. Finding your soul mate is very hard nowadays, so this bathhouse is a place to meet.
Why are swimming pools and bathhouses the perfect setting for this?
They blur boundaries between public and private. Swimming pools are public spaces where we barely know anyone around us but they’re also intimate settings and we are not wearing very much. It’s a weird mix of contradictions.
How has Art Basel Hong Kong shaped new opportunities for this kind of work?
It has become a good opportunity for Hong Kong artists to show our work to an international audience. Covid-19 was quite a big change. No one could come to Hong Kong and galleries found it harder to invite international artists to show their work so it was our big break. People realised that Hong Kong already has many talented artists and since then galleries know that we have our point of view and can handle exhibitions in the international spotlight.
And finally, what’s next?
A break. I need to get out of the studio and stop replying to emails. I’m going to enjoy some ‘me’ time and travel to Thailand.
Further reading:
– How photographer Greg Girard captured the hidden sides of Hong Kong and Tokyo
