Samson Young (born 1979) is a

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

artist, working primarily in the mediums of sound performance and installations.

Early life and education

Samson Young was born in Hong Kong. He received both his BA degree in Music, Philosophy and Gender Studies and his M.Phil in Music Composition from

The University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public university, public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as t ...

, and his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in Music Composition from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 2013. He was an assistant professor in sonic art and physical computing at the School of Creative Media,

City University of Hong Kong The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a public research university in Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and formally established as the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 ...

. Young is also the principal investigator at the Laboratory for Ubiquitous Musical Expression (L.U.M.E), and artistic director of the experimental sound advocacy organization Contemporary Musiking.

Work

While Young's background is in music composition, his work as an artist spans a broad range of media, including

performance A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

, drawing, and wall transfers. Young's work is frequently political in nature, addressing

military history Military history is the study of War, armed conflict in the Human history, history of humanity, and its impact on the societies, cultures and economies thereof, as well as the resulting changes to Politics, local and international relationship ...

and the British occupation of Hong Kong as subjects. ''Nocturnal Music,'' the artist's 2015 exhibition at

Team Gallery Team Gallery was a contemporary art gallery located in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, with an additional project space in Venice, Los Angeles, California. It was founded by José Freire and Lisa Ruyter in 1996. Team represented such a ...

, centered on a performance, in which the artist sat at a desk for six hours every day, watching muted video footage of night-time airstrikes by the United States on the Middle East and re-creating the audio via foley effects, which he broadcast locally via a pirate FM radio channel.

Career and recognition

In 2015, Young was the inaugural recipient of the BMW Art Journey Award and the Hong Kong Arts Centre Honorary Fellowship in 2018. Major exhibitions include ''A Dark Theme Keeps Me Here, I'll Play a Broken Music'', at

Kunsthalle Düsseldorf Kunsthalle Düsseldorf is an exhibition hall for contemporary art in Düsseldorf. Building The present art centre was built in 1967 in Brutalist architecture by the architects Konrad Beckmann and Brockes. They used commercially available preca ...

in 2017, Performa 19 in 2019, and the Hong Kong pavilion at the

57th Venice Biennale The 57th Venice Biennale was an international contemporary art art exhibition, exhibition held between May and November 2017. The Venice Biennale takes place biennale, biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Christine Macel, the chief cu ...

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

2024 -- ''Seeing Sound,'' Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, New York 2021 – ''The World Falls Apart Into Facts'', Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan 2020 – ''MAM Collection 012: Samson Young'', Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan 2019 – ''Samson Young - It's a heaven over there,''

Centre A Centre A (Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art) is a non-profit public art gallery in Vancouver committed to the research, production, presentation and interpretation of Contemporary Art, contemporary Asian art. It is the onl ...

Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Vancouver, BC 2018 – ''Songs for Disaster Relief World Tour,'' M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong 2017 – ''Furniture Music,'' Gallerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, Germany 2017 – ''Songs for Disaster Relief'', Hong Kong Pavilion,

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

2016 – ''A Dark Theme Keeps Me Here, I'll Make A Broken Music,'' Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany 2016 – ''The Mastery of Language Affords Remarkable Power,'' Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata, India 2016 – ''Orchestrations'', Connecting Space (presented by

Para Site Para Site () is an independent, non-profit art space based in Hong Kong. It was founded in 1996 by artists Patrick Lee, Leung Chi Wo Warren, Leung Chi-wo, Phoebe Man, Phoebe Man Ching-ying, Wong Chi Hang Sara, Sara Wong Chi-hang, Leung Mee Ping, ...

), Hong Kong 2015 – ''Pastoral Music'',

, New York City 2015 – ''Video Program: Samson Young'',

Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art The is an art museum founded in 1989. It is in Hijiyama Park in Hiroshima, Japan. The building was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa. It was the first public contemporary art museum to open in Japan, and its exhibitions focus on post-1945, c ...

, Japan 2015 – ''Avant-garde on speed'', TKG+ gallery, Taipei 2015 – ''Pastoral Music, Discovery'',

Art Basel Hong Kong Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel (Switzerland), Miami Beach (US), Hong Kong and Paris. Art Basel provides a platform for galleries to show and sell their work to buyers, and ...

2015 – ''MTV''s, a.m. space, Hong Kong 2014 – ''I wanted to see everything: the Liquid Borders Project'', a.m. space, Hong Kong 2013 – ''On the Musically Beautiful'', Goethe-Institute, Hong Kong 2011 – ''Machines for Making Nothing'', Cogut Center for Humanities, Brown University, USA

Awards

2019 - Prix Ars Electronica (Sound Art and Digital Music Category), Award of Distinction 2018 - Honorary Fellowship, Hong Kong Art Centre 2015 - BMW Art Journey Award 2013 - Artist of the Year (Media Art Category), Hong Kong Arts Development Council 2012 - Prix Ars Electronica (Sound Art and Digital Music Category), Honorary Mention 2012 - Japan Media Art Festival (Interactive Art Category), Jury Selection Award 2009 - New York Society for New Music, Brian M. Israel Prize 2007 - Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award

References

External links

Samson Young's website

Team Gallery

Profile of Samson Young
in

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

Profile of Samson Young in Edouard Malingue
{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Samson 1979 births Living people Interdisciplinary artists Sound artists Princeton University alumni Alumni of the University of Hong Kong Hong Kong artists