Call for Papers: Bulletin
a non academic art paper

 

A new project by Droste Effect magazine, Bulletin is a monthly online publication dedicated to curated non-academic art papers.

Bulletin aims to explore the diverse ways in which the complexities of being in contemporary art are expressed. It is fundamental for us to investigate the cultures around the contemporary art world, and to understand what constructs our present. Through non-academic writings from a number of disciplines in the humanities, together with contributions by artists, filmmakers, poets, and theoreticians, Bulletin aims to map the dynamic ways in which cultures use visual means to record, redefine and question once again the historical context and presence in time of different artistic productions.

After a process of editorial curatorship, a selection of the online Bulletins will be published on paper.

Sections
Even though Bulletin will host different and dynamic sections, the editorial board has indicated three different sections for the development of critical inquiries about contemporary art:
_Non Academic Papers
_Artist Portfolios*
_Conversations

*Narrative portfolios. We need a narrative statement with your proposal.

The submitted art papers may be in English or Italian. Those selected for publication are subject to a review process.

Please send your submission (abstract) with a short bio and selected links to submissions@drosteeffectmag.com

 

 

Spring 2016—Walking around in New York’s warmer weather is finally a pleasure. Especially when you tour the many art galleries that constellate the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and that have been standing out on the city scene for the quality of their projects.

The photo gallery below highlights several interesting shows. Ward Shelley’s The Felicific Calculus at Pierogi (through May 8) presents 8 new paintings from the series dedicated to the evolution of Western culture and consciousness. These anatomical tables / infographics appealingly connect hard historical facts through narration. The paintings are shown in the context of The Last Library, a project in collaboration with Douglas Paulson.

Despite the unnecessary unfriendliness of the staff, Marcel Broodthaers’ show at Alden Projects (through May 8) is worth visiting as a further excavation into the artist’s text-based production, after seeing Marcel Broodthaers: A Retrospective currently at MoMA (through May 15):

 

 

Two of the most interesting shows feature two artists who work with photography and digital manipulation to represent our relationship with objects: John Houck, Playing and Reality at On Stellar Rays (through May 22), and Lucas Blalock, Low Comedy at Ramiken Crucible (through May 22).

William Wegman had two parallel shows, one at Magenta Plains (through April 24), and Postcard Paintings at Sperone Westwater (through April 23).

The remarkable use of two contrasting spaces is worth noting for the shows at bodega (Boil the Ocean: Rob Kulisek, Rosa Rendl, Libby Rothfeld, Amy Yao, through May 8), and at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (Oliver Payne, through April 17).

 

The current exhibition at Villa Romana features artwork by this year’s winners of the Villa Romana Prize: Flaka Haliti, Stefan Vogel, Nico Joana Weber, and Jonas Weichsel. The show is divided into three rooms.

The concept for one room was made by Stefan Vogel and Nico Joana Weber together, whereas Jonas Weichsel and Flaka Haliti exhibit in seperated rooms.

 

 

Entering Weber and Vogel’s room, you step on cement slabs that cover the original mosaic pattern on the floor. Being a bit bumpy, these stone slabs force you to watch your steps, thus turning your gaze on the photographs, collages and drawings embedded in the cement until you arrive at the walls where the other works by Stefan Vogel are displayed: “Ach – sowieso – genau —” (2015), and the series “Wissen wohin”, composed of 12 pieces. Just like he does with his works embedded in cement, for the work displayed on the wall he used different materials. In form of collages, the artist contextualizes words, yarn, and several different papers. While looking at his work, which almost appears as a story, you feel like standing in the rain, as intended by the artist. This feeling is conveyed by speakers placed on different angles of the room, that reproduce the “rain-like” sound of Nico Joana Weber’s film “Unstable landscape” (2016). The film analyses the relation between architecture and tropic vegetation in South America: for instance, how nature succeeds to insinuate themselves into buildings, by showing Le Corbusier’s Casa Crutchet in Argentina. During the course of the film the boundaries between indoors and outdoors grow indistinct, until they finally are deactivated. The film can be seen as a parallel to Weber’s other film “Markasit”: shot at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, the film deals with its architecture and contrasting surroundings, by starting inside the building and then leading outwards.

 

 

Flaka Haliti exhibits her video “I Miss You, I Miss You, till I Don’t Miss You Anymore” (2012-2014). Several letters written by couples in long-distance relationships (the artist herself and from her circle of friends) are translated into English by an online tool, and read aloud by a monotonous computer voice, that underlines a failure in the communication of love. According to her, 95% of long-distance relationships fail, due to migration and mobility, as she experienced herself, living in several cities: Pristina, Frankfurt, Munich – and recently Florence. Three different screens and three different colors represent three different stages of relationships.

 

 

In the third room, Jonas Weichsel exhibits his two paintings “TC Single 2” and “TC Single 3”, both from 2016 and both following the same design. At a first glance, the paintings might seem like prints to the observer, due to their abstract precision. Different layers of color, applied with a custom-built brush, interact with each other to form a relief. Even if not visible, the artist has a name for every part of the painting, which can be retrieved also in his other works of the same series.

Flaka Haliti, Stefan Vogel, Nico Joana Weber, and Jonas Weichsel (Fellows 2016), 2016 Villa Romana Prize, Villa Romana, Firenze, through April 29, 2016

 

Saturday 23 April, 12:30 -15:00

Tenderpixel at Loughborough Farm
Loughborough Road (opposite to Wyck Gardens)
SW9 7JD
London

As part of the eight-week series ‘Spatial Practices and the Urban Commons’ organised by Tenderpixel, Thomas Dobson invites us to spend a Saturday out of the urban jungle and discover the Loughborough Farm, a self-initiated, self-governed and self-funded community in South London.

 

 

Tenderpixel invited Tom Dobson to contribute to their events series around the urban commons. Tom will lead a tour in Loughborough Farm, and active common in South London. This project takes a stance against the inequalities intrinsic to capital-led urban development. As developers become increasingly irresponsible, can residents re-appropriate development as a tool to level social inequalities and reclaim land and resource for public benefit? Step away from the laptop, join the farm, and get your hands dirty to find out.

– words by Borbala Soos, director & curator, Tenderpixel

 

Spatial Practices and the Urban Commons:The Public(s) Land Grab
Meeting at Loughborough Farm (opposite Wyck Gardens), Loughborough Junction, South London)
Book your ticket

 

 

 

Wait is over! A year has already gone by, and the good news are that it’s time for the third edition of Girls Heart Brussels. The three-day event, dedicated to women who love women and anyone who wants to discover the Belgium capital from a queer and feminist angle, is taking place from the 22nd to the 24th of April. The intent, anticipated by the previous, successful editions, is to create a regular appointment that could be more intellectually stimulating than other gay gatherings throughout Europe.

As usual, Girls Heart Brussels 2016 coincides with Art Brussels, which makes the weekend particularly special and intriguing for anyone interested in the contemporary art scene, especially from a female prospective.  Art lovers have the unique chance to explore both the mainstream and the underground vibes – to visit the art fair as well as a number of appealing collateral events (such us the Independent and Poppositions art fairs) .

Taking a closer look to Art Brussels, this year’s edition has found a new home, Tour & Taxis, and has been reduced in size, betting on quality over quantity. 141 galleries from 28 countries are distributed in three main sections: PRIME, DISCOVERY, that presents the work of a younger generation of artists and supports emerging galleries and a new section; REDISCOVERY, which aims at counteracting the ‘presentism’ inherent in contemporary art fairs displaying the works by important artists, living and deceased, from the historic avant-garde, who have been under-estimated, overlooked, or unduly forgotten. There will also be 24 galleries participating in SOLO, a section dedicated to the presentation of individual artists’ work.

 

 

Moreover, participants to Girls Heart Brussels 2016 will visit the first major retrospective by Belgian artist Edith Dekyndt at WIELS. Under Dirk Snauwaert’s wing, the show, evocatively entitled INDIGENOUS SHADOW, effectively embodies the combination of science and magic, technique and intuition that characterized Dekyndt’s work. Old and ad hoc pieces are called together in order to bring the post-industrial space of the museum to life, and highlight the energies that animate the world. With the attitude of a scientist, she makes underlying and intrinsic processes visible by using techniques such as fermentation, accumulation, extraction, reduction, or excess of energetic fluxes.  She uses  means such us copper, yeast, earth, water from the local river Senne, and the bacteria used to brew the Brussels specialty beer, gueuze, to question the possible result of the domination of man over his environment on the one hand, and the relation of interdependence regulating everything that inhabits this earth on the other.

Nevertheless, thanks to the selected must-sees, participants can enjoy the best experience of Belgian fashion, food, and dancing. Speaking of which, remember to save your energy for the Catclub party, always a success!

Girls Heart Brussels 2016, a project by Jessica Gysel with the support of Brussels Board of tourism, is the perfect occasion to visit this fascinating and increasingly gay friendly destination.

The package-price is 199 euro per person and 249 per couple.

Girls Heart Brussels: Brussels, various locations, Fri 22 – Sun 24 April 2016

The AIPAD Photography Show opened today in New York, and it will be open to the public through Sunday, April 17, at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

A fairly small but well known art fair dedicated to photography, The Photography Show | presented by AIPAD is now at its 36th edition, and once again the show features miscellaneous artwork.

 

 

As usual, part of the art fair is devoted to the history of photography, where black and white classic masters alternate with unknown authors of nostalgic allure, coming in a variety of obsolete techniques. A small selection of photo documents, such as vintage NASA photographs, are also part of the group.

For this photo gallery of installation views and artwork close-ups, we focused on the most contemporary pieces presented by the galleries on show, to find out what AIPAD has to offer when coming to terms with new ways of thinking photography as a mean for producing contemporary artwork.

 

The Photography Show | presented by AIPAD
April 14 – 17, 2016
Park Avenue Armory, New York

 

Wednesday 13 April, 18:30

Arebyte Gallery
Queen’s Yard, White Post Ln,
London E9 5EN

How participation can challenge the format of the exhibition on line? On the occasion of the last days of the exhibition ‘Dissent as an iPhone app’, Arebyte and SPACE present an evening of debate on interaction in the virtual space, to discuss the model of the exhibition and methods behind the artists’ work.

 

Dissent is an evening of screenings and dialogue investigating the relationship between dissent as a process and as the intersection between user-generated content, branded space and behavioral psychology. The evening will be split between an initial screening about how artists have used virtual space and media in films along with a talk by the curator about the Dissent app and the possibilities afforded by apps for curatorial purposes. In the second half, Debora Delmar and Saemundur Thor Helgason will join Angels Miralda for a further discussion about the works in the exhibition. The winner of the Dissent iPad air will be announced at the end of the evening, there is still time to contribute to the forum and enter to win!

- Words by Angela Miralda, curator

 

Arebyte and SPACE present: Dissent as an iPhone app
FREE, Booking available via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/openprocess-5-dissent-tickets-24015473929

 

SCHEDULE:
18.30 – 18.40 Introduction
18:40 – 19:10 Screening
Thomas Yeomans – A Common Future
Jon Rafman – You, The World, And I
Sydney Shen – Master’s Chambers
Joey Holder & Viktor Timofeev – Lament of Ur
19:10 – 20:10 Discussion with Angels Miralda / Debora Delmar Corp. / Saemundur Thor Helgason
20:10 – 20:30 Q&A

 

 

When you go see a show of Arianna Carossa, you know you’re not going to be bored. The Italian-born, New York-based artist focuses on site-specific, almost environmental installations, that engage in an ever-changing dialogue with the exhibition space. With a process similar to that of Philippe Parreno, Carossa conceives the whole exhibition as a single artwork, each part linked to the other and to the space to create a harmonious whole.

 

 

On the occasion of her first solo show at Casa Jorn, a museum in Albissola, Italy, founded in the former house of the artist of the Cobra group Asger Jorn, Arianna Carossa lives up to our expectations, approaching the space in her usual, unconventional style. A mannequin is scattered around, its arms and legs hidden in corners or against the walls in the fashion of a fancy and shiny Robert Gober, the rest of his body arranged in big, sculptural installations. The dismembered mannequin shares the rooms with small pieces of gold ceramic, hands, feet, a watermelon. Since Carossa started exploring ceramic in 2014, her relation with the material yielded unexpected, impressive results. Being, as she defines herself, “obsessed with remains,” Carossa started collecting pieces of broken statuettes, vases and ornaments, and melting them together to create new works and give the abandoned objects a new life. Her work has a perceivable complexity, both aesthetic and conceptual, yet being at the same time pleasantly cheerful and ironic. To better understand her practice, and also to have some fun, I decided to let Carossa explain herself in an interview. Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

 

 

Ludovica Capobianco:  The interaction with the exhibition space is a pivotal element of your practice. What kind of relation did you feel with a strong environment such as Casa Jorn?

Arianna Carossa: I wasn’t fascinated by the house itself, as I perceived it as an actual house and not as a museum. The place is incredibly beautiful, but that didn’t affect what the house was and is to me, a house, someone else’s house.

LC: In recent years, you’ve been working with ceramic using a “Duchampian” approach. What inspired you to explore this medium, and why did you decide to direct your research towards a process of reuse and somehow rebirth of the objects, rather than creating something ex novo?

AC: I’m obsessed with order. I can’t stand the idea of something unused, it bothers me when something doesn’t have its own space. My urgency is that nothing is left behind. The object left unused in favor of something new leaves me full of sorrow.

LC:  What’s the area of the house you felt more connected with, and why?

AC: The bathroom, because I felt it was more connected with the pieces I had in mind for the exhibition. Furthermore, it was a space both intimate and recreational at the same time, strongly characterized, and that gave me more inputs to work on.

 

 

LC:   What’s the biggest challenge you faced during the show?

AC: I’ve always thought that the biggest challenge of an exhibition is not that of creating and presenting great artwork, but that of connecting and communicating with the audience, that’s the most complex part. Because, at least for me, it’s not easy to verbally explain my practice, especially in situations like this one, where I have to contextualize my work in a place that for many people is so important it’s almost untouchable.

LC:   The pieces you created for the show have strongly anthropomorphic features, was it due to a subconscious desire to “repopulate” the museum?

AC: Not really, honestly I think that the Jorn museum is already pretty alive. I had this mannequin hanging around in my studio for a while, probably I would have used it anyway, but I especially liked the contrast between its apathetic, grey skin, and the lively hues of Casa Jorn.

LC:   You recently published a book about the possibility of creating imaginary exhibitions without actually producing any artwork. Is this a statement that you feel you’re somehow employing in this exhibition, or that it has in any way influenced your artistic process?

AC: The show at Casa Jorn and the book are surely connected, first of all by me. The empty and the full, pieces and remains. Everything we’re talking about that seems to be my work, it’s not. Germano Cecere, a scientist and a good friend of mine, once told me that the real issue is not that of knowing the human genome, the DNA, but that of understanding what’s around it. When I think about it, what we look at, what we find under our light, sometimes it all seems to me like something more. I’m obsessed with remains.

 

 

LC:  The pieces exhibited were also made in Albissola, at studio Mazzotti 1903, one of the city’s well-known ceramic factories. What kind of relationship was created between you, the city, the museums and the artwork?

AC: I became attached to Albissola, to its ceramic and to the area, I felt at home there. I became attached to all the people I worked with, and they taught me a lot – even though I’m still not sure about how I employed their teaching in the exhibition. I met a very special person, Tiziana Casapietra, founder of www.radicarte.eu. We may start collaborating on some projects together, so Albissola brings me luck not only because of the ceramic.

LC: If you could pick an artist, dead or alive, for an exhibition at Casa Jorn, who would they be, and why?

AC: I would invite Tino Sehgal, no doubts about it. I think he’s an extraordinary artist and I hope to have the chance to meet him soon. I would be curious to see what he would create in Casa Jorn’s rooms, which are so different from his usual contexts.

LC: What’s the feeling you wish to arise in the exhibition’s audience?

AC: I’m amused by the variety and complexity of people’s reactions, especially in front of a work with which is not easy to connect and relate. For example, there’re people who laughed, and then told me that my work was touching.

 

 

LC: If you could bring back to New York a piece of the house or of the exhibition, what would it be?

AC: I’ll bring back myself, and everything I carry with me, what exceeds but also what I need to create something new. Yet it won’t be bad to bring back the bathroom, given the dimension of those in New York.

LC: Who would you like to thank, or dedicate this exhibition to?

AC: I want to thank and dedicate this show to all the people who trust me, and show it everyday, participating actively in my projects and giving me the possibility to realize them.  I dedicate the show to Laura and Antonello. And I want to thank you, Ludovica and Matilde for this interview.

Arianna Carossa: Limoni, curated by Luca Bochicchio at Casa Museo Asger Jorn, Albissola, Italy through May 29^th, 2016

 

“States of Becoming is a solo exhibition of recent work by the British Artist Emilie Pugh. It brings together over 20 works of varying scale and technique, which investigate the micro and macro structures of life and the conflicting and confluent universal forces that govern them. “

 

 

For those that have not yet seen this artists work here as a quick introduction:

Emilie Pugh is a London based visual artist. She studied at Byam Shaw School of Art and at The Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing at Oxford University.

In her own words:

What are the main themes within your work?

I am interested in the interconnectivity of all living things. My work draws on systems of belief from the spiritual to the scientific, the micro to the macro and the forces that govern them. So I look at images of cells, anatomy and space as well as imaging what the invisible energy that runs through them might look like. The pulse, a breath, psychological cartographies; things that are felt rather then seen. 

What are the materials and process you use?

I use a wide variety of mediums and processes to make my work , often using quite unconventional methods like burning into paper using a lit incense stick, using gunpowder, chemicals, bleach and light as well as the more conventional pen and ink or pencil. The choice of material and the processes are often bound up with the concepts themselves. The materials carry meaning in their physical properties. 

What inspires you, other than your main themes?

I get my inspiration from all sorts of places from listening to podcasts and lectures to sitting in book shops or travelling to new places. I made an incredible trip to Japan a few years ago where I was introduced to Taosim and zen philosophy that is still informing my work today. I love London, it is a really exciting place to work but I grew up in the countryside and I still I find that things become clearest to me when I am closer to nature. 

The images vary in size from the vast “Anatomy of thought” 420cm high and 270 cm wide, commanding the window and both floors of the gallery space, through to the “Nocturne” series grouping empathetically together in the corridor space.

 

 

These works are beautiful and graceful, they make me think of sea creatures, or the fins of fan tailed fish, constellations and the cosmos, to flowers and cells. There is both nature and philosophy in the images.

 

 

“86400 voids” is a lesson in mindfulness. The “hybrid series” (both black and white) are an idea of studying anatomy, of understanding something through looking, seeing, and feeling.

 

 

This body of work showcases knowledge of materials, of challenging materials, and pushing boundaries of how materials can be both a tool and a subject. It explores where we are within the universe both physically and philisophically, but doesn’t require you to know or understand, you are allowed to just look, see and enjoy.

Emilie Pugh: States of Becoming is at The Cob Gallery, London on 7th – 10th April, 2016

 

Thursday 7 April, 6.30–8.30pm

The Showroom
63 Penfold Street, London, NW8 8PQ

Have you had a bad day? Join artist Hamish MacPherson’s games night and feel free to rant about it!

 

 

Don’t miss this event which launches Hamish MacPherson’s new complaining game Breastbeating! We invite you to play the game, have a drink and explore the world of complaints! Other games dealing with work and working will be played, offering you the chance to see what we can learn about our work situation from quick, fun and surreal boardgames about jobseeking, careers, workplaces and after-work moaning. Feel free to bring your own favourite game!

As Hamish MacPherson says, ‘We felt that the ideal situation to play Breastbeating would be after a few drinks to really get those rants going. So why not make a night of it with a selection of other games that deal with work and working.’

Manual Labours (led by Sophie Hope and Jenny Richards) have been working on a project called the Complaining Body with Hamish MacPherson and a London council call centre, to investigate the emotional impact and work of making and receiving complaints. What became evident was the strict frameworks in place for legitimising complaints and the physical effects of the inability to complain at work on the body. From this Hamish has developed a new commission in the form of a card game called Breastbeating. The game simulates an after work session in the pub where the only thing you have to do is complain!

– Words by Jenny Richards and Sophie Hope

 

We believe that workers who dance, play and sing together will also fight together for their rights. A complaining games night
Curated by Hamish MacPherson
Free, no booking required

 

 

The continuous unveiling of identity is so often constructed by surroundings.

However these surroundings are simultaneously undergoing the same process,

defining and redefining their own spatially determined self, shedding classical brick

and concrete for utopian glass and steel.

New York, with its rapidly evolving population has long since been a canvas for

those seeking to identify the state, offering a multitude of difference to compliment.

This haste of change has cycled New York through and back adolescent curiosity

and mature ambiguity, erasing its constructions as soon as they are erected.

From its attraction of graffiti artists so fantastically glorified in the age defining Beat

Street, to the mobile museum established by MTA Arts & Design, to the tailored 7-

Eleven coffee ads insulting your sup, New York’s most receptive public artworks

reflect the exchange between megalopolis and city dweller, resulting in a unique

documentation of a sweetly strained relationship.

 

 

Carlo Sampietro a native to Italy, living in New York for the past seven years has

taken up the practice of revisiting New York’s former identities to invoke modern

day usefulness. Debuting in 2010 Sampietro’s The Street is in the House project

focuses on revamping objects of the megalopolis, exposing their dual nature by

transforming taxi headers to radios, underground piping to seating and free

newspaper bins into incubators of sorts for entertainment and personal devotions.

A majority of these works emit the same fluorescent lighting consistently following

us throughout the city, now as home décor.

 

 

Sampietro’s Taxi Tunnel turns taxi lights to both lamp and radio, recycling

timepieces from the 60’s and onward, extending beyond past and future in their

familiarity amongst city viewers.

The remnants of time that New York holds remains recognizable across generations and cities

as its traits develop but its innate character remains.

The metropolis’ tendency towards sociability gets lost between isolation and over

inclusion, a disparity Sampietro addresses in his works aiming to tie people together

by what already has, the city itself. His installation in conjunction with Figment,

Street Scraper, invites viewers to a round of mini golf, employing everyday street

obstacles as the course’s foundation.

 

 

Carlo Sampietro’s invitation to the public through objects of the public performs

interactive public art, as it should be, an open and slightly familiar interaction with

space for enlightenment.

Art’s tendency towards focusing on respectability from the

art public without regard to The Public is what has resulted in the censure of Serra’s

“wind breaker,” the white washing of Five Points. However when the two begin to

meld, when public interplay is considered in combination with art practice the artist

allows the space and viewer to reconcile.

 

Amanda Acosta: What is the most important element of public art?

Carlo Sampietro: This is its delivery as a clear message that can be read by everyone (art expert

and general public) without falling into a banal declaration.

AA: We’ve spoken of these different publics, how has creating public art

allowed you to address either or both? Do you feel pressure to appeal to one

more than the other?

CS: Impressively, art is able to reach a wide variety of audiences — from old to

young, from woman to man, from businessman to student. Art has a very relevant

impact and influence on our daily life and culture.

A good piece of public art should speak by itself, should be very well executed, and

have a strong idea relevant to the society that is being described with a sharp,

different angle. This allows my work to communicate and be reviewed by both

sectors.

AA: What do you hope people will take away from your interactive works?

CS: ART is a very distinct way of communicating. A sophisticated language, which

can be explicit or complex… It disturbs and challenges your worldview so that you

look at the world differently. I hope that people start to see, from a different angle,

the same daily life we live in.

AA: How much potential do you believe art has to bring a place as large and

often socially disjointed as New York City together?

CS: Art has the power of generating provocative thought and conversation, good

public art has the potential to bring people together. The problem in New York is

that most of these events are reserved to an elite class of artist and people. The cost

to produce these pieces by resident artists closer to the local reality becomes too

expensive. There are a lot of empty areas that can be dedicated to artists within each

different burrow, but the process to get the permits is too slow.

AA: Favorite piece(s) of public art?

CS: My favorite place for public art is Inhotim Center and Botanical Gardens in

Brasil. Each artist not only needs to think about their installation, but to greatly

consider the kind of building that contains it.

My favorite pieces are Matthew Barney’s De Lama Lâmina and The Gates by Christo

and Jeanne Claude.

 

Carlo Sampietro: The Street is in the House at Ca’ D’oro Gallery, New York, March 1-31st

 

 

 

As far as art fairs go, you don’t get bigger than Art Basel. And that’s saying something when almost every week in global calendar heralds some kind of major art event. Barely had the dust settled in Maastricht and Art Dubai when Art Basel Hong Kong opened its doors to the international art world. But the sheer mind-boggling number of exhibitions and events by galleries and institutions around the island – not to mention the presence of Art Central, a satellite art fair now in its second year and Asia Contemporary Art Show – made a trip to Hong Kong Art Month (as it’s not ambitiously called) worth every dollar.

But back to the main event: Art Basel. Notwithstanding recent news that the Chinese art market had shrunk by 23% last year, the incessant rain and gloomy skies that dominated the Hong Kong skyline for pretty much the entire week, the first couple of preview days hinted at a more positive week ahead for the fair. The beautifully dressed international griterati trickled into the gargantuan convention centre at a steady rate, booths were spacious and well-curated, conversations with gallerists flowed, and the mood, despite the weather and the recent spate of terrorist attacks in Belgium, whilst not buoyant was definitely defiant. Later on in the week, for the first time in the fair’s history, tickets on the public days were sold out.

The heavily protected Art Basel brand prides itself on being the best of the best and this 4th edition of Art Basel Hong Kong certainly didn’t disappoint. All the usual suspects of the Western blue-chip coterie such as Vik Muniz, Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and Anish Kapoor – kept company with a number of established and rising Asian names including Zhang Ding, Zhang Xiogang, Luis Chen and Yeh Shih-Chiang. Of the 239 galleries hailing from 35 countries, nearly half of the exhibitors were Asia-based galleries, with an impressive 38 galleries from New York alone.

 

 

Figurative painting dominated the fair. Aesthetics reigned. Colour was king. Controversy kept to a minimum. Examples were Do Ho Suh’s simple but staggeringly beautiful display of threaded drawings and pastel rubbings of mundane interior objects on paper at STPI and Nevin Aladag’s heavenly-sounding Music Room series, featuring a chair, lamp, hat stand and side table which had been turned into musical instruments at Wentrup Gallery Berlin. Black stood out amongst the riot of colour. At Thomas Dane, Glen Ligon’s velvety-textured black smudged stenciled and coal dust drawings were inspired by the books of the African-American author James Baldwin.

The Vietnamese American artist Tiffany Chung stood out at Tyler Rollins for the political and social historical content of her project The Vietnam Exodus, examining the plight Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Cool, clinical cartographic drawings documenting refugee flows, statistics and the network of detention centres contrasted with individual memory garnered from inscriptions, images and videos. A refugee herself, Chung provided an unsentimental – and perhaps for this very reason – powerful and authentic insight into refugees’ experiences whilst highlighting the impact of ever shifting asylum policy-making on the already distressed. Potent viewing indeed.

The Taipei gallery TKG+’s project Mapping an Island Nation investigating the post-war modernisation process in Taiwan with the works of five artists was also something of an eye opener. Kitsch, kooky and kaleidoscopically colourful, there was a lugubriousness about the presentation which was strangely alluring.

 

 

The fair’s various sectors were impressive and well curated. The film sector, which was showing feature-length films for the first time in addition to short films, made news for Micheal Schindhelm’s stunning film about Swiss art collector Uli Sigg in The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg. Sigg, a businessman turned ambassador, was one of the first Westerners to amass a behemoth collection of contemporary Chinese art. The 1,510 works will shortly be housed in a museum being built by Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron in M+ Hong Kong.

Over at the Discoveries sector intended to showcase emerging artists from across the world with solo or two person exhibitions, the Japanese artist Yukihiro Taguchi shone for his thought-provoking, poetic stop-motion animation films, one of which featured a pyrotechnic trail at night. At the Encounters section showing large scale works, Nathalie Djurberg’s and Hans Berg’s colourful birds swallowing pills in A Thief Caught in the Act and Pae White’s Metallics and Modules made for dazzling viewing. Over at the Conversation and Salon sector, everyone flocked to the talk between Tracey Emin, Tim Marlow, director of Artistic programmes at the Royal Academy, and Sir David Tang. The irrepressible Ms Emin also enjoyed her first solo Hong Kong exhibition in not one but two galleries, Lehmann Maupin and White Cube, coinciding with the fair. Emin’s show I Cried Because I Love You deals on the seemingly non-exhaustive subject of her love life. But this time, perhaps to up the ante, the work featured Emin’s marriage to a large rock.

 

 

Tracey Emin’s wasn’t the only popular talk. Elsewhere throughout the city, a multitude of other events were talking place. In Art Asia Archive, an non-profit which documents and archives art in the region, the programme included a fascinating talk by the Indian artist Shilpa Gupta. Entitled The Photo We Never Got, Gupta’s research based project on the friendships, love and associations in the field of art across three decades was refreshing, so too was the discussion with the Singaporean artist Simryn Gill. Gill’s talk on her unfinished photographic series Station Hotel, which has languished in her bottom drawer for years, was inspiring for the quality of her work as much as the artist’s thinking about her practice. In the frenzy of the world of the art fair, Gill’s talk provided an oasis of calm, a reason to remind ourselves why we’re all here.

Over at the satellite art fair, Art Central, it was a very different story. Now in its second year, the fair hosted about 100 or so galleries, three quarters of which were from Asia (Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong). The work was mixed in quality, although apparently it was a lot better than last year. There were some eye-catchers like Li Hongbo’s concertina paper sculpture Young Man in Dominik Mench Gallery, Li Quing’s almost hyper-real painting New Kitchen at Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Seungmo Park’s stainless steel mesh sculptures at Art + Shanghai Gallery, and Li Xiaofeng’s porcelain sculptures at Red Gate Gallery. The fair’s talks programme boasted an ambitious line-up of speakers such as Alexandra Munroe, senior curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the award-winning choreographer and visual artist Shen Wei, and Melissa Chui, director of the Hirschorn Museum. The public was also able to participate in round table discussions with a selected panel of art professionals.

 

 

If one had to pick a must see show after Art Basel, the clear winner was M+ Sigg Collection, Four Decades of Contemporary Chinese Art at ArtisTree. The exhibition comprises a selection from the new M+ Museum and is – surprisingly – the first-ever chronological exhibition about the emergence of Chinese contemporary art. Featuring 80 works by 50 artists including Fang Lijun, Geng Jianyi, Huang Yong Ping, Ai Weiwei and Zhang Xiogang, the exhibition spanned from the cultural revolution to the post-Olympic era, and illustrated the enormous cultural change brought about by economic growth and urbanisation – from propaganda to political, from subtle commentary to open critique, from the communal to the individual. The question that one cannot help asking now is: Where is all going to go next?

Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on 22 – 26 March 2016.

 

ART BASEL HONG KONG 2016

 

ART CENTRAL HK 2016

 

ARTISTREE