Over the Influence and kamel mennour are pleased to present Nest and Tree Hut, an exhibition of two dozen works from the internationally renowned artist Tadashi Kawamata. The exhibition, which marks Kawamata's debut solo show in Hong Kong, opens today and remain on view through May 4, 2018.

Since the early 1980's, the Japanese-born Tadashi Kawamata's ambitious site-specific public installations have temporarily transformed buildings around the world. Derived from simple jettisoned materials, such as reclaimed lumber and old chairs, his in situ wooden orchestrations alter viewers' perceptions of their well-known surroundings. Over the past decade, his always unexpected constructions include an ongoing series of nests and tree huts, small wooden structures which may evoke childhood memories or suggest transient shelters built by the homeless. Exhibited for the first time, Nest and Tree Hut will feature a considerable selection of Kawamata's exquisitely crafted maquettes from the celebrated series.

A fundamental characteristic of Kawamata's artistic practice is the ephemeral nature of his worksthey are designed to be short-lived. The impermanence of his habitats seems to suggest an existential anxiety, with the assemblage of various found materials destined to be destroyed. Kawamata's dense, chaotic yet attentively constructed architectural growths exist for no more than a few weeks or months, echoing the cycle of construction and destruction native to urban life. One of the few enduring artifacts of his installations is the maquette, the small preliminary scale models Kawamata builds during the planning of his monumental projects.

A unique synthesis of fine art, architecture, and sustainability, Kawamata's incomparable installations transform public environments into mysterious, poetical works of beauty, expanding the concept of what contemporary public art can be.