| Cover Picture: Robert Indiana, LOVE Blue Faces Red Sides, 1966–1999, polychrome aluminium |

ART SG

We have waited so many years (since 2018 at least?) to finally see the ART SG art fair come to fruition in Singapore! It certainly shares similar vibes to Art Basel in Hong Kong. In its inaugural edition in 2023, ART SG delivered art by the familiar well-loved artists, as well as the strange and kind of wacky!

Why though…?? I don’t know the title of this artwork, but it’s a play on the classical sculpture Laocoön and His Sons in the Vatican Museums…

Enjoyed seeing artworks from Ben Brown Fine Arts again — my usual art fair favourites are Vik Muniz’s collages of famous masterpieces and Gavin Turk’s humorous bronzes! Giraffe refers to the taped banana artwork fiasco that was Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (which was originally shown at Art Basel in Miami Beach in 2019).

Around the World in 80 Days

The exhibition ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’ at Alliance Française de Singapour offered something different! Based on the titular novel by Jules Verne, the exhibition was centred around French innovations in transport and travel on land, sea, air, and even in space.

My favourite part of the exhibition was being able to touch and handle these early editions of the novels which are held in private collections. It’s very nerdy of me, but I love having the chance to touch artefacts from centuries past!

Library of Unread Books

The artwork installation The Library of Unread Books by Heman Chong and Renée Staal was so interesting to discover! As what the name suggests, it’s a library and room filled with unread books donated by the public. My sister and I were so fascinated by the concept that we each donated an unread book of our own! It was also great to skim, glance and read all of the different books on display. This artwork was on show in Singapore earlier this year, and travels regularly — currently it’s in Seoul!

Peranakan Museum

The Peranakan Museum finally reopened after a few years of revamp, and it was nice to see the updated gallery displays. This gorgeous table cover is finally on display in the museum, and it sparkles so delicately with actual glass beads inlaid in the cloth.

National Museum of Singapore

NMS – A Voyage of Love and Longing

I enjoyed seeing this small exhibition ‘A Voyage of Love and Longing’ at the National Museum of Singapore. This exhibition weaves stories and poetry about love and longing from the Malay world, alongside drawings of birds, plants, and flowers contained in the museum’s William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings. It provides a new kind of perspective which I thought was very nicely done!

NMS – Now Boarding

I highly recommend checking out ‘Now Boarding: Experiencing Singapore through Travel, 1800s – 2000s’ at the National Museum of Singapore! It’s currently on show till 25 February 2024. I spent so long looking at all the details of the exhibits, and loved seeing an older side of Singapore through the years.

If you can, also take a dance in the NMS Disco with a friend! You can choose from beginner to advanced level difficulty and dance along to some old grooves! A video recording of your dance will be made available to one of the participants (via an app or link or something). It really made me laugh to see my friend and I dancing in somewhat embarrassing fun!

Immersive Disney Animation

2023 was also the year of Disney100, and I embraced that fully!! I watched 3 Disney movies, got a tote, went to Hong Kong Disneyland, watched the Frozen musical… and also visited the ‘Immersive Disney Animation’ exhibition! It is currently showing until 25 February 2024.

The highlight is the one-hour long immersive video experience showing clips from various Disney cartoons and animations. There are only some couches in the middle, so almost everyone sits on the floor out of consideration to allow everyone to watch the screens!

I loved watching my old and new favourite Disney classics in the immersive experience, but I was quite peeved to miss most of the exhibition area before going into the immersive experience. The time slots are tight (and last for 90 minutes only), so the staff were calling everyone to go into the immersive viewing area early. We thought we could return to the exhibition area but weren’t allowed to — so do spend enough time to check out the exhibits before running in!!

Gardens by the Bay

Tulipmania: Origins of the Tulip

I spent more time visiting Gardens by the Bay this year, and I decided to include these pictures specially because I enjoyed seeing these beautiful flowers so much! I finally visited my first-ever Tulipmania, as I thought it was so unique that Gardens by the Bay went for a Türkiye theme this year! Loved seeing the exhibits nestled among the tulips as well.

Orchids of Machu Picchu (and Avatar: The Experience)

I finally revisited Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay after many years, and managed to catch both Avatar: The Experience and ‘Orchids of Machu Picchu’!

‘Orchids of Machu Picchu’ is still ongoing. The flower exhibition includes some very beautiful orchids, along with Peruvian artefacts like these replicas of receptacles (shown above). I’m loving the educational bent that Gardens by the Bay is taking with their recent events with Orchids of Machu Picchu and with Tulipmania this year.

Only after revisiting Cloud Forest now did I realise Gardens by the Bay kept one of the best Dale Chihuly glass sculptures in their conservatories! In 2021, Gardens by the Bay held a Dale Chihuly exhibition, see here for the post!

That’s a wrap! In 2023 I also visited Hong Kong’s new and revamped museums, which I’m also looking forward to sharing more about on Wording Art! At this moment, I’m just happy to have seen all these art, exhibitions, and immersive experiences — including the excellent Van Gogh Immersive Experience — right here in Singapore. :)

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Before I get into these events, I have to first say that the pre-opening act of Singapore Art Week (SAW) 2019 was the sudden cancellation of Art Stage Singapore. I’d always missed going to Art Stage – especially during my uni years when I would be in Hong Kong in January – but I’d intended to visit for the first time this year. Well, that didn’t happen, and the news of their cancellation caused such a big hoo-ha!

S.E.A. Focus

At least, there was the new boutique art fair S.E.A. Focus, which I was pretty interested in checking out. As the name suggests, the fair focuses on showing art from Southeast Asian artists – and it’s also nice to see stronger representation of Singaporean artists. I’ve heard so many Singaporeans complain that Singaporean artists aren’t more visible in Singapore itself, so it’s good to see more focus placed on them, too.

Of course, this gold coated Singapore-style dustbin was the first thing that caught my eye! For context, they’re usually green in colour and placed along the streets. I wish I knew the artist who made this, but there were no wall labels in this gallery’s booth. In fact, many booths didn’t have wall labels, some just hand-wrote the artists’ names on the wall – why, I wonder?

My favourites from STPI’s showing of Cheong Soo Pieng’s artworks. Not sure if these are part of STPI’s current exhibition on Cheong, but I must make the time to visit soon!

Light to Night Festival

Moving on to Light to Night Festival – there were two editions this year, firstly for Singapore Art Week with the theme ‘Traces and Echoes’ and the second for the Bicentennial (which ends tonight!).

I’m actually glad there were two versions of the festival, extending it from just a week to a whole month! I’d been so busy for the whole of January with work and life and yada yada, so I decided to check out the Bicentennial edition in February, which I thought would be more interesting.

Sticks is a light installation that keeps changing colours, and it’s inspired by the childhood game “pick-up sticks” and bakau piling, an old technique for constructing scaffolding. My sister tells me that she had played the sticks game during her primary school years, but I don’t seem to remember playing it too? Ah, a few years can already mean generation differences.

My favourite art skin was the one projected on the facade of The Arts House, about stories of the people who worked along the Singapore River. I like how the illustrations of the people projected on the columns remind me of Classical Greco-Roman sculptures!

There’s also this cute Alice in Wonderland-inspired installation, Open Books, situated outside The Arts House!

I really liked this quote! There were a few of these neon signs as part of the food bazaar outside National Gallery Singapore.

Yet another emphasis on Singapore Art… Though there’s still a ways to go.

I always love to capture National Gallery Singapore – the Supreme Court wing from this angle, and this is the most colourful I’ve seen it!

National Gallery Singapore’s art skin recounted the story of Singapore’s former Supreme Court and Civic District. I especially liked the bright colours projected on the Supreme Court wing, talking about how the building has been repurposed into an art museum, and the photographs of modern-day Singapore projected across the long stretch of the City Hall wing.

On the Bicentennial…

I had opted to only see the Bicentennial edition of Light to Night, due to lack of time and to see some light projections and installations that featured different narratives from the usual fare. As you can tell, the themes celebrate Singapore’s history and how far we have come.

While I did enjoy seeing these narratives, I’m not sure how the Bicentennial holds much significance in these festivals. The Bicentennial marks the 200th anniversary of Sir Stamford Raffles’ founding of modern Singapore in 1819. While this fact has never, in my opinion, held much negative connotation in the public eye, the focus on the Bicentennial this year seems to have tapped into issues of colonialism and post-colonialism vs. nationalism and nation-building that I feel has not been much discussed in Singapore before.

I think the problem here is: Should we celebrate a colonial past, for all its good and bad, or should we be celebrating Singapore’s own history since 1819? Or even pre-1819? Note that 7 Stories from 700 Years talks about a longer history of Singapore beyond the supposed Bicentennial mark.

Some say this uncovering of a longer history is a move to ‘decolonise’ Singapore, but I’m don’t think that’s effective when the Bicentennial term is used everywhere. It appears that the creation of a special Bicentennial that doesn’t even seem to be too sure of what it’s celebrating / commemorating has led to confusion and some ruffled feathers.

I feel that the public stir has also been triggered by the Raffles in Southeast Asia: Revisiting the Scholar and Statesman exhibition currently ongoing at Asian Civilisations Museum, in collaboration with the British Museum. I wasn’t initially all that interested to visit – I was put off by the steep price! But after reading news about visitors’ disgruntled comments about it, I want to see it for myself now… Probably on ACM’s programme days when tickets to the exhibition are at a $5 discounted rate.

In any case, I find ACM’s exhibitions hit and miss, and Raffles in Southeast Asia is probably going to be a miss. If you’ll like to see an exhibition on colonialism that is more sensitively done, check out my review of Artist and Empire at National Gallery Singapore in collaboration with Tate Britain here.

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2018 has been my full year back in Singapore since moving back, and at first, I thought there was less happenings in art here. After a while, things have picked up, but there have been many exhibitions and events that I didn’t choose to post in detail on this blog – lack of time is always a major reason for my lack of updates! So, I thought it would be nice to look back at all of the art exhibitions and events I went to this year!

Asian Civilisations Museum – Permanent Galleries

I started off 2018 with a visit to ACM to see their permanent galleries. I really loved seeing Tang Shipwreck with all of those painted bowls and those acorn-shaped game pieces (for gambling)!

ACM has just opened their new Christian and Islamic art galleries this month, so that’s something I’m definitely going to check out in 2019.

ArtScience Museum – Treasures of the Natural World

I went to see both ‘Treasures of the Natural World’ and ‘Art from the Streets’ at ArtScience Museum on the same day (double exhibition tickets are so worth it!). ArtScience Museum continues to be my favourite museum in Singapore as they have the best exhibitions.

I was surprised to find out that I really enjoyed seeing exhibits of preserved stuffed animals that look so life-like! All of the exhibits were on loan from Natural History Museum in London, which of course, I’m now planning to visit when I get myself to London!

National Museum of Singapore – The More We Get Together: Singapore’s Playgrounds 1930 – 2030

Peranakan Museum – Amek Gambar: Peranakans and Photography

There was then ‘The More We Get Together: Singapore’s Playgrounds 1930 – 2030’ at National Museum of Singapore, a simple exhibition talking about styles and models of playgrounds in Singapore. Basically, Singapore wins at urban planning, I have to say!

I also revisited Peranakan Museum for the first time in probably 10 years to see ‘Amek Gambar: Peranakans and Photography’. Sticking to the museum’s specialised theme of Peranakan culture, the Amek Gambar – meaning to take pictures – exhibition shows a range of black and white photographs of Peranakans and old cameras. The exhibition is on till February 3rd, 2019.

National Gallery Singapore – Rirkrit Tiravanija

I always visit National Gallery Singapore for exhibitions or events or just to bum at their Gallery & Co cafe. My first visit of the year was to see the new site-specific commissioned work of Rirkrit Tiravanija at NGS’ rooftop. It’s a large-scale bamboo structure with a pathway that you can walk through from one end to the other, and there’s also a Japanese teahouse in the centre, though it was too hot that day for me to join in in the tea ceremony events they were holding at the time.

Singapore Philatelic Museum – The Little Prince: Behind the Story

I like to visit Singapore Philatelic Museum (or the “Stamp Museum”) every once in a while to see their exhibitions that somehow always manage to incorporate stamps! It was nice to re-see Arnaud Nazare-Aga’s Little Prince sculptures at the ‘The Little Prince: Behind the Story’ exhibition. I had first seen them in Hong Kong in 2015 during the Christmas and New Year season – see the post here!

National Gallery Singapore – Children’s Festival

It’s always so fun at Children’s Festival at National Gallery Singapore seeing everyone, kids and adults, having fun playing with the artworks! The first one pictured is all kitchen sponges and for the second artwork, you could throw those triangle-shaped pieces and they would stick on the patterned wall.

I’m also very proud to say that I managed to speed-walk across Justiniani’s bridge in one piece this time round, HAHAHA! For last year’s edition, I was so scared of the never-ending depths of the illusionistic effect of the bridge that I actually paused while walking across it. I’m still kinda terrified of this kind of things, but clearly it’s only me, since all of the other kids were happily examining the details in the bridge.

National Library Singapore (Central) – Selling Dreams: Early Advertising in Singapore

‘Selling Dreams: Early Advertising in Singapore’ is a very well-researched and very big exhibition on advertisements in Singapore from the 1830s to the 1960s. I really recommend reading all of the details in the didactics for the exhibits, as they are all so interesting! This was probably the longest time I spent at an exhibition though, about 2 hours? The exhibition is on till 24th February 2019.

National Gallery Singapore – (Re)collect

I shared a mini review of ‘(Re)collect’ at National Gallery Singapore on my Instastories, now saved in my highlights, to try out a new format of sharing about exhibitions! That was really fun, but I also wanted to share Lee Lim’s composite photographs on a bigger screen, so that it would be clearer to see. His photographs appear like Chinese ink paintings, especially with their Chinese inscriptions and his seal on the sides of the paintings. It’s fascinating to see how photographs can also look like paintings in a way.

The Cathay – Whatshisname x Mighty Jaxx

The first time I saw these dogs, I was walking towards The Cathay from YMCA. From afar, I thought could this possibly be Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog I’m about to see?? Well, turns out these weren’t Koons’ sculptures, but Whatshisname’s pooping dogs are humorous in their own way, yes? A total of 4 dogs were commissioned for The Cathay, and they are still on show!

Singapore Night Festival 2018

For this year’s Singapore Night Festival, I was excited to see FierS à Cheval by Compagnie des Quidams after seeing photos of their performance at the opening of Tai Kwun in Hong Kong (which I must visit!). Horses are my favourite animals, and the performers really captured the elegant movements of horses. Funnily enough, this performance was made for the Year of the Horse in 2014, but it’s been so popular that the company has continued to perform this show until now!

I also went to see the dress exhibits from World of WearableArt (WOW), which holds an annual award competition for fashion designers from all over the world to present their avant-garde designs. These two dresses were my favourite!

STPI – Handmade Readymades

These two prints by Lichtenstein were shown at STPI’s exhibition ‘Handmade Readymades’. The exhibition featured the prints of four 20th century American artists, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist and Roy Lichtenstein, but I only took a liking to Lichtenstein’s prints. The first time I visited STPI in 2015, I think, I also remember seeing and liking Lichtenstein’s prints. That aside, STPI always has top-notch exhibitions so I always like to visit. I’m looking forward to their Cheong Soo Pieng exhibition opening in January 2019!

Gardens by the Bay – Mid-autumn Celebrations

Gardens by the Bay had such a lovely display for the Mid-Autumn celebrations! The giant lanterns also gave me Story of Yanxi Palace vibes, which was everyone’s favourite drama of the year, right?? YASSS.

National Museum of Singapore – In an Instant: Polaroid at the Intersection of Art and Technology

‘In an Instant: Polaroid at the Intersection of Art and Technology’, a travelling exhibition that has made its stop at the National Museum of Singapore, was not what I was expecting at all!

The beginning of the exhibition charts out the history of the Polaroid, starting from its invention by Edwin Land, who was inspired by his daughter when she questioned on a holiday trip, why can’t we have our photographs printed out instantaneously, instead of going through the long process of developing film.

Most of the exhibition features artistic Polaroids following a few themes, but my favourites are these more contemporary shots captured on Polaroids. I didn’t realise that so many prominent artists and photographers had worked with Polaroid! The exhibition is on till 31st March 2019.

Affordable Art Fair Singapore 2018

I went for a quick walk through Affordable Art Fair in November, and all of my photos can be seen in my Instastories highlights! It was my first time attending it in Singapore and I found it much livelier that my experience at AAF in Hong Kong in 2015.

I found the paintings of those curly haired little, hmm, midgets by a Japanese artist (in the first two photos) really cute! There were also many South Korean galleries at the fair, and I really liked the style of these works by Korean artists (latter two photos).

ArtScience Museum – Future World (Revamped!)

This year was really the year of teamLab for me, seeing their works across ArtScience Museum, National Gallery Singapore and Marina Bay Sands. See my posts on teamLab – Part I and Part II!

I’d shared about ‘Future World’ at ArtScience Museum before it closed for revamp, and I was debating if I should visit the revamped exhibition… Guess what, I did! I bought a bundle ticket to see the new Future World and the Minimalism exhibition across ArtScience Museum and National Gallery Singapore, and I’m glad I did because I like the revamped exhibition even more! Also, I’m definitely going to do up posts on the ‘Minimalism: Space. Light. Object.’ exhibition(s) because I have so much opinions on it, so I would leave my comments for those upcoming posts.

Christmas!

We have reached Christmastime, the best time of the year!! This year’s theme of Disney Magical Moments for the Orchard Road Christmas decorations were so fun! I grew up on Disney, so this is definitely a special year!

Ion Art Gallery – Virtually Versailles

My last exhibition of the year was ‘Virtually Versailles’ at the Ion Art Gallery and Ion Sky, all the way up on the 55th floor of Ion Orchard. I already know that Versailles is on my travel wishlist, and this exhibition gave a taste of the Palace of Versailles’s architecture, decor and extensive art collection.

It’s mostly made up of a lot of videos, so I didn’t really capture many good photos of it. There are many interactive elements though, like biking around different parts of the palace (actual biking, virtual tour of palace), and having your face superimposed on royal portraits, which was really fun!! This free exhibition is on till 6th January 2019.

The last photo was a candid shot of me taken by my sister looking at the collection in the Palace, and it just seems like such a nice reminder to keep looking at all the art around us! Here’s to 2019!

The post Art of 2018 appeared first on Wording Art.

Spring is here! And along with that is a range of art events in Hong Kong for its Art Month in March. This year, the range of art fairs is happening in the later part of the month starting this week, and there’s a number of “satellite” exhibitions ongoing now which I’m interested to see!

HONG KONG

Art Fairs

• Asia Contemporary Art Show

I didn’t realize that this art fair opened a few days before the others! In case you missed it like I did, there’s also a Fall edition that will be held in September.

17 – 20 March 2017, Conrad Hong Kong— Pacific Place, 88 Queensway, Hong Kong, more info here.

• Art Central

Art Central tends to show more edgy and provocative contemporary artworks in its giant marquee! To see more from the past two years of the fair on the blog, go here.

21 – 25 March 2017, Central Harbourfront Hong Kong, ticketing info here.

• Art Basel Hong Kong

Art Basel shows a vast mix of contemporary and modern artworks that takes hours to trek through. I recommend checking out the magazines booths after you are all done looking at the art, I tend to bring home a number of free art magazines! To see more from the past two years of the fair on the blog, go here.

23 – 25 March 2017, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Wanchai, ticketing info here.

• Kingsley Ng’s Twenty Five Minutes Older

There are events part of Art Basel happening outside the HKCEC as well! One of it is local artist Kingsley Ng’s Twenty Five Minutes Older that is happening in trams going between Wanchai and Sheung Wan! I’m so excited because I love love love trams and it’s so fun to have them incorporated into an art piece. The trams will become moving camera obscuras (first form of cameras), displaying images of Hong Kong streets. It sounds like a great way to experience Hong Kong in a new way – in a tram, through art.

20 – 28 March 2017, aboard trams going from Wanchai to Sheung Wan, free admission but requires tickets, limited tickets still available – go here, more info here.

• Sir Michael Craig-Martin’s Bright Idea, 2016 for ‘Love Art at The Peninsula’

Photograph of Bright Idea 2016 at the evening discussion with Sir Michael Craig-Martin (right) and Tim Marlow (left) at HKU last night

I don’t know why I’d missed The Peninsula Hong Kong’s collaborations with Art Basel every year since they started their ‘Love Art’ series with Tracey Emin’s My Heart Is With You Always displayed on the facade of the hotel in 2014 (which I very unfortunately had to miss). So I am determined to catch Michael Craig-Martin’s Bright Idea 2016 at The Peninsula this time!

Bright Idea 2016 continues in Martin’s style of taking mundane objects in daily life, producing them in much-larger-than-life forms and placing them in unexpected sites, like The Peninsula’s fountain for one.

20 March – 31 May 2017, The Peninsula Hong Kong, more info here.

Exhibitions

• Picasso and Jacqueline

I wished I had known about this earlier, so I would have more time to go check it out! The exhibition centres around 13 artworks of Picasso’s that were dedicated to his last wife Jacqueline.

Some points to note: It’s free admission, but you have to queue outdoors for quite a long time, I heard. And no photography is allowed, sadly.

26 February – 21 March 2017, Times Square Living Room Museum, more info here.

• The Legend of Hong Kong Toys

This is such a great exhibition that I recommend for all kids and adults alike! It gives a look into Hong Kong history through the toys people played with over the last century. I will be sharing more photos from the exhibition on the blog soon!

2 March –  15 May 2017, Hong Kong Museum of History (closed on Tuesdays), 100 Chatham Road South, Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, HKD10 standard tickets, HKD5 concession tickets, more info here.

• Zaha Hadid: There Should Be No End to Experimentation

Zaha Hadid’s architecture is so iconic and creative, and I’m waiting for the day when I can finally visit one of her creations Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul! In the meantime, I’m so glad that an exhibition of her paintings and drawings is now in Hong Kong! The exhibition also includes a few virtual reality experiences, which should be interesting.

17 March – 6 April 2017 (17-21 March: 10:00-18:00; 22 March – 6 April: 10:00-21:00), ArtisTree, 1/F Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong, more info on Taikoo Place’s site and on Serpentine Galleries’ site.

• It Speaks to Me

Ng Lung Wai’s exhibition ‘It Speaks to Me’ features mixed media paintings that uses objects such as shirts and architectural models to create large-scale pieces, which sounds like a fun way to make artworks! To see more of Ng’s previous exhibition ‘1960s Big Era’ which featured portraits of historical figures made out of pins, badges, and other collectibles on the blog, go here.

21 March – 3 April 2017, G/F, Open Space, Central Plaza, Wanchai, more info here.

SINGAPORE

• i Light Marina Bay

Singapore’s also having some really cool stuff going on with its fifth edition of i Light Marina Bay, a sustainable light festival. Wish I could be there to see it! Check out the video above to see more.

3 – 26 March 2017, Marina Bay Waterfront, more info here.

• Shakespeare In Print:  The First Folio

Something a little different from the other exhibitions above – an exhibition that displays Shakespeare’s plays in their first printed form. I can’t say that I am the biggest fan of Shakespeare, but his works are so influential and I think it’s good to have an understanding of them. For all fans of the Bard and literature fanatics, I think this should be fun to check out!

11 March – 23 April 2017, Level 10, Gallery, National Library Building, more info here.

The post March Art Events | Hong Kong & Singapore appeared first on Wording Art.

I got to see the Artist and Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies at National Gallery Singapore and Journey to Infinity: Escher’s World of Wonder at ArtScience Museum, and they are both great exhibitions to see! So excited to see how Singapore is growing its arts and culture scene. I’m going to have miss the January lineup in Singapore, but I’m back in Hong Kong to view other exhibitions!

SINGAPORE

Singapore’s busiest art month would be January, with two art fairs Art Stage Singapore 2017 (12 – 15 Jan) and Singapore Contemporary (19 – 22 Jan) and a slew of events, talks, and exhibitions making up Singapore Art Week (11 – 22 Jan).

The ongoing Journey to Infinity: Escher’s World of Wonder at ArtScience Museum (which I’ll be sharing about later) and Singapore Biennale 2016: An Atlas of Mirrors at Singapore Art Museum are also included in Singapore Art Week. I very highly recommend Journey to Infinity – a very comprehensive show of Escher’s works. I was waffling over whether or not to go to Singapore Biennale but I decided to pass on it this time.

A few more events part of Singapore Art Week that I wanted to highlight:

• Welcome to Birdhead World Again – Singapore 2016

Birdhead (鸟头) is a Chinese photographer duo and I’ve found their works to be pretty interesting. They are involved in ShanghART’s Southeast Asia residency program and traveled across various countries in SEA and are now exhibiting their photographs taken during their travels in Singapore.

9 December 2016 – 26 February 2017, ShanghART Singapore, 9 Lock Road, #02-22 Gillman Barracks, more info here.

• Public Art at Parkview Square

More public art in Singapore! This exhibition of public art includes a Botero sculpture as well as selected works from the exhibition On Sharks and Humanity organized by Parkview Arts Action which is dedicated to building environmental awareness through art (interesting!). On Sharks and Humanity is said to be forthcoming in Parkview Group’s upcoming private museum in Singapore.

Also, I did not know that Parkview Square was designed in the style of Art Deco! Honestly, I have never stopped by long enough to even look at it properly. I have a thing for Art Deco, so I should probably stop by and take a good look at the building next time.

11 – 31 January 2017, Parkview Square, 600 North Bridge Rd, Singapore, more info here.

• Glass Rotunda: Story of the Forest and Singapore, Very Old Tree

A digital art installation and photography installation that explores Singapore’s history at National Museum of Singapore, Singapore’s history museum. My sister visited the museum and said Story of the Forest was really impressive!

10 December 2016 – 22 January 2017, National Museum of Singapore, 93 Stamford Road, more info here.

HONG KONG

• The World of Tim Burton

I was so so excited to hear that this exhibition was coming to Hong Kong, but my excitement totally deflated when I realized that tickets were going at HKD$180 (student tickets: $144)!!! That is way too much for me, especially when I’m used to going to most exhibitions in Hong Kong for free. For hardcore Tim Burton fans, this would be an amazing exhibition to see.

Note: Photography and video taking are not allowed in this exhibition (why…!!).

5 November 2016 – 23 January 2017, ArtisTree, 1/F Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, 979 King’s Road, Quarry Bay, Hong Kong, more info here.

• Ceremony and Celebration – The Grand Weddings of the Qing Emperors

I’m really interested to see this one! It would be fun to immerse in some Chinese traditional culture by looking at this collection of Qing wedding artifacts. Interestingly, in the long history of the Qing dynasty, only four emperors married an empress during their reign and had wedding ceremonies held in the Forbidden Palace. Also, this exhibition has a much more reasonable admission price.

30 November 2016 – 27 February 2017, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, 1/F Thematic Galleries 1, 2, 5 & Function Place, 1 Man Lam Rd, Sha Tin, more info here.

• Lost Treasures of the Shiqu Baoji in Hong Kong

A fitting accompanying exhibition to Ceremony and Celebration featuring Chinese paintings and calligraphy works of the Shiqu Baoji (石渠寶笈), an imperial collection of Chinese artworks during the Qianlong period. The exhibits belong to the Xubaizhai collection of Hong Kong Museum of Art, which is now closed for renovation until 2018. I finally get to see a bit of Hong Kong Museum of Art’s Chinese art collection!

30 November 2016 – 20 March 2017, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, 1/F Chao Shao-an Gallery, 1 Man Lam Rd, Sha Tin, more info here.

The post January Art Events | Singapore and Hong Kong appeared first on Wording Art.

GALLERY

• Anish Kapoor 

Anish Kapoor’s art is in Hong Kong! I think many people would know him for his Cloud Gate in Chicago (or the bean!). Gagosian gallery is showing the London-based sculptor’s works in his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, which features some of his well-known mirrored sculptures. I liked seeing his mirrored works on the street (like the one shown above, also see this post) or in art fairs, as they reflect the people and environment around them, but it would be interesting to see how they work in a clean gallery space.

September 12 – November 5, 2016, Gagosian (Hong Kong), 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong, more info here.

ART FAIR

• Fine Art Asia 2016

The last art fair in Hong Kong’s art scene in the year, Fine Art Asia showcases art and antiquities from Asia, including Chinese material culture, decorative art, ink paintings, and contemporary art. It’s a different sort of art fair from most of the contemporary art fairs in Hong Kong, and I find it nice that it offers a different look at art.

2 – 5 October 2016, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, more info on ticketing and opening times here.

FESTIVAL

• 4th HKIPF (Hong Kong International Photo Festival)

HKIPF is a biannual festival that celebrates and promotes photography as an artistic medium, and comprises of a number of photography exhibitions. Two exhibition highlights:

• David Clarke and Xu Xi: Interruptions

Interruptions took on a refreshing form of exhibition in its combination of photography and writing. The exhibition starts with a photo by Clarke, which Xu responded to with an essay, which triggered the next photographic selection, and the cycle repeats for a total of 12 photos and essays. I recommend viewing the catalogue to read Xu’s essays in full!

14 September – 16 October 2016, University Museum and Gallery, The University of Hong Kong, more info here.

• Picturing Asia: Double Take – The Photography of Brian Brake and Steve McCurry

I find Steve McCurry’s photographs arresting and just really striking, so I’m happy to see more of Steve McCurry in Hong Kong! Asia Society’s current exhibition connects the two photographers Brian Brake and Steve McCurry in the way they gave the West “glimpses of the East,” and showcases some of their famous photographs, including Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl.

10 September 2016 – 7 January 2017, Chantal Miller Gallery, Asia Society Hong Kong Center, 9 Justice Drive, Admiralty, Hong Kong, more info here.

• World Press Photo 2016

One of the key exhibitions of the HKIPF is World Press Photo 2016 opening at the end of the month, and it features over 150 photographs from the World Press Photo competition related to various topics. This one looks really really interesting, I’m excited to check it out!

L0 & L1 Gallery, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Shek Kip Mei, 30 Pak Tin Street, Kowloon, Hong Kong, more info here.

MUSEUM

• Artist and Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies

After National Gallery Singapore’s first collaboration with Centre Pompidou for the exhibition Reframing Modernism (which I accidentally missed), National Gallery Singapore’s next collaboration is going to be with Tate Britain! Artist and Empire: (En)countering Colonial Legacies is going to be a Part II of Tate Britain’s exhibition Artist and Empire that ended April this year. Colonialism (and post-colonialism) is still very much a phenomenon that affects us in some way or another, and it would be interesting to see what and how the artworks would be presented especially from the perspective of the colonized.

I thought that I would have to miss this exhibition, but I’m happy to see it would be ongoing for a few months! I should probably be able to make it to Singapore within that time…

6 Oct 2016 – 26 Mar 2017, Singtel Special Exhibition Gallery, National Gallery Singapore, more info here.

The post October Art Events | Hong Kong and Singapore appeared first on Wording Art.

Check out my accompanying reviews of Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 in these two posts here and here!

The post Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 | Moving Artworks appeared first on Wording Art.

Anish Kapoor, Untitled (Stellar Green Pearl / Transparent Black), 2014, aluminium and paint, kamel mennour

Anish Kapoor, Mirror (Magenta), 2016, stainless steel and lacquer, Kukje Gallery

Julian Opie, Runners (individual titles: Running men; Running women), 2015, pair of screenprints, Alan Cristea Gallery

Looks like Julian Opie’s theme for the year is all about exercise and running…

Julian Opie, Soldier and Pilot, I., 2015, vinyl on wooden stretcher, Lisson Gallery

Julian Opie, Teacher and Waiter, I., 2015, vinyl on wooden stretcher, Lisson Gallery

Julian Opie, Plastic Umbrella, 2014, silkscreen on painted wooden board, Gerhardsen Gemer

Julian Opie, Kukje Gallery

There were also these two works that are not part of the exercise theme and are more in line with his images of city walking, a lot of which was shown at Art Basel in Hong Kong last year. I missed getting the didactic for this last artwork, but it’s a moving image of women walking continuously over and over again.

Lee Ufan, Dialogue, 2014, oil on canvas, Lisson Gallery

Lee Ufan, Dialogue, 2015, oil on canvas, Kukje Gallery

Lee Ufan, Correspondence, 1995, oil on canvas, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Lee Ufan (이우환) is Korea’s answer to a Minimalist artist, and his works with a smooth dab of paint in the middle of a large white canvas are always around at Art Basel Hong Kong. I’m not really a fan of any kind of Minimalism, but I guess the precision and simplicity of such works appeal to people.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres, “Untitled” (Last Light), 1993, light bulbs, extension cord, plastic light sockets, dimmer switch, Andrea Rosen Gallery

Morimura Yasumasa, Portrait (Futago), 1988, type C print, transparent medium, frame, ShugoArts

This was such an art history moment!! Granted, this probably looks really out there for first-time viewers, so a bit of background is needed here. Morimura is a well-known Japanese appropriation artist, and his photography features him dressed up and acting after models in famous paintings, artists, and famous figures in history, whether male or female. This work appropriates Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863), an art history favorite, which at the time of its showing outraged viewers for its depiction of a prostitute holding a boldly confrontational stare. Traditionally, (male) artists painted female mythological figures in the nude that made it comfortable for the “male gaze,” since they were not “real” people and most never look directly towards the viewer. Manet however started something new, and while not particularly appreciated at the time for his efforts, he is now often known as the artist who began the wave of modern art.

Morimura’s enactment of the scene of Olympia is more extravagant but he gets the details of the painting down pat. He adds a Japanese flair to his work, with the black waving cat at the right corner and the blanket with a gold crane motif. Morimura’s work has come up in class on quite a few occasions, so it was great to see a properly blown up version of this photograph at the fair!

Keith Haring, Untitled, 1989, acrylic on canvas, Gladstone Gallery

Tracey Emin, You Saved Me, Galleria Lorcan O’Neill Roma

Not all of Emin’s works appeal to me, but I’m a big fan of her neon word art. There really needs to be a Tracey Emin font.

Also, I found the showing of this work at the fair over the Easter weekend nicely fitting, since it ties in with the commemoration of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. :D

Alexander Calder, Small Moths, 1974, Dominique Lévy

One of my favorites by Calder I’ve ever seen!

Alexander Calder, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder, Black and Blue, 1975, painted sheet metal and wire, Acquavella

Looking at Calder’s mobile from a different angle. And trying not to get blinded by the spotlights.

Alexander Calder, The Golfer (John D. Rockefeller as a Golfer), 1927, wire with wood base, Van de Weghe Fine Art

A different kind of style from Calder, and equally well done.

Jeff Koons

True story: I was trying to get a shot of Koons’s work from the side, but two women taking a selfie with the work told me to move aside because I was appearing at the side of their photo. -.- I don’t think a super crowded Art Basel fair is exactly the best place to exercise your supposed right not to get photobombed in your selfie.

Edgar Degas, Dancer Looking at the Sole of Her Right Foot, 1919-1937, bronze, Acquavella

I have to commemorate my first time seeing a Degas! He is now well-loved for his paintings of ballet dancers that examine the physicality of their bodies in movement. I would love to travel and see the masterpieces of modern art for myself one day, but I’m definitely happy to view these smaller works in Hong Kong!

Claude Monet, Route de Monte-Carlo, December 1883, oil on canvas, Acquavella

I patiently waited to get this MONEY SHOT. Monet is worth it, yes. On another note, Acquavella always brings in the bulk of modern art to Art Basel Hong Kong.

Pablo Picasso, Femme aux mains croisees II, December 19, 1960 – January 1, 1961, oil on canvas, Acquavella

Niko Luoma, Self-titled adaptation of the Young Ladies of Avignon (1907, Pablo Picasso), 2015, archival pigment print, diasec with floater frame, Atlas Gallery

Hmm, I’m not really buying it. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon) is also an art history favorite (and also features prostitutes). Funnily enough, it was never fully completed as Picasso tossed it aside after his friends and peers criticized the painting while he was still working on it. I don’t actually think it’s his best and most groundbreaking work as a lot of people probably put it; I find his Cubist works with Georges Braque (his collaborator on Cubism who has been kinda forgotten) much more interesting and forward-looking.

Tom Wesselmann, Blue Nude #3 N125, 1999, oil on cut-out aluminium, Gmurzynska

This references to Henri Matisse’s Blue Nude, which was a motif that Matisse went back to over the years. Again, not really buying it…

Roy Lichtenstein, Water Lilies with Cloud, 1992, screenprinted enamel on stainless steel with painted wood frame, Edward Tyler Nahem

Rudolf Bauer, Furioso XII, 1918, oil on canvas

Andy Warhol, Mao, 1973, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, varnished, Ben Brown Fine Arts

So much of Warhol at the fair this year!

Andy Warhol, Mao (set of ten), 1972, screenprints on paper

Discussing serious business under the gaze of Mao. I find this quite amusing.

Andy Warhol, Flowers (portfolio of 10), 1970, screenprint on paper, Galerie Thomas

Andy Warhol, Self-portrait, 1966, synthetic polymer paint, silkscreen ink on canvas, Van de Weghe Fine Art; Self Portrait (Red), c. 1966-67, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Elvis, 1962, silkscreen ink and acrylic on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Andy Warhol, Diamond Dust Shoes (Green), 1980, acrylic, silkscreen ink and diamond dust on canvas, Edward Tyler Nahem

Diamond Dust Shoes (Green) and Campbell’s Elvis appeals more to me than Warhol’s more well-known serial artworks for some reason. I guess it’s one of those things about art.

Andy Warhol, Dollar Sign, 1981, synthetic polymer paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, Van de Weghe Fine Art

Jaume Plensa, Slumberland XXXI (Patricia), 2015, graphite on paper, Richard Gray Gallery

Subtle, charming, and so beautiful.

Jaume Plensa, Roots (Study), 2015, painted stainless steel, Richard Gray Gallery

Nice to see this again, albeit in a smaller size! The big one sits at Raffles Place in Singapore.

Jaume Plensa, Laura Asia; Paula Europe; Mar Asia, 2015, marble, Galerie Lelong

These three sculptures are pretty large in size, and are based on portraits of women who Plensa knows. Feels like a bit of quiet amid the bustling fair.

And that’s it for my review of Art Basel Hong Kong this year! To see the first half of my review of Art Basel featuring contemporary artworks, click here, and if you’ll like to see my review of Art Basel last year, click here to see all of the related posts!

The post Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 | Oldies Are Goodies appeared first on Wording Art.

This is the first part of my review of the fair, featuring contemporary artworks by many artists who seem to be new faces at Art Basel Hong Kong. I think a lot of the galleries who showed this year were first-timers at the fair as well, which would explain the fresh selection of artists.

The second part of my review features the works of old and famous modern masters (and a little contemporary), which you can read here!

Tromarama (Febie Babyrose, Ruddy Hatumena, and Herbert Hans), Private Riots, 2014-2016, video animation, LCD monitor, boards, metallic wire, metallic frame, Edouard Malingue

This giant installation is part of the Encounters sector, which is a selection of large installation works placed across the grounds of the fair and which I considered the anchor of the event. Private Riots was one of the better works, but I was honestly disappointed by this year’s choices. My expectation was that the Encounters would be the most eye-catching works, but I was mostly disinterested.

Private Riots is so named as it means to talk about the different components involved in protest, and each image on the boards represents one such component. I seemed to have missed the TVs and the animations they will playing altogether, oops! I’m not too sure about the protest idea, but it appeared as if the images represented different aspects of our daily lives, and that appealed to me.

Huang Yong Ping, L’Arc de Saint-Gilles, 2015, wood, iron, fiberglass, taxidermic deer, gold leaf, kamel mennour

Huang Yong Ping just had an exhibition at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai with one work featuring headless animals which honestly creeped me out, so I’m glad to see that this deer has its whole body intact, HAHAHA.

Lina Ben Rejeb, Mémoires, à Toucher, 2015, mixed media on paper, Selma Feriani Gallery

Charles Avery, Tree no. 5 (from the Jadindagadendar), 2015, mixed media, Ingleby; Pilar Corrias

Huang Rui, Monkey, 2015, steel and restored furniture, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

Huang Rui, Quadruple Happiness, 2014, steel and restored furniture, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

This is a fun play on the “double happiness” character often seen on Chinese red decorative papers for weddings, but Quadruple Happiness is just more happiness to go around! (By the way, the “double happiness” character doesn’t make a real Chinese word, but a “single happiness” actually is a real word.)

舟 Fune, 1982, ink on Japanese paper; Wang Keping, Sitting Woman 1 WK14, 2012, plane, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery

Fune totally passes off an ink painting of a sitting woman, doesn’t it? I totally thought so until I realized it was purely a work of Japanese calligraphy.

Zhang Ding 張鼎, 18 Cubes 18個立方, 2016, man-made crystal, stainless steel plated in gold, ShangART; Krinzinger

Zhang Ding’s 18 Cubes is my favorite Encounters piece! It consists of 18 gold reflective cubes, which apparently you’re encouraged to “destroy” or “vandalize” or scratch off the gold or something. I wish there was a sign saying that; the kids could have gone crazy on this instead of reportedly touching and knocking artworks that they weren’t supposed to.

On that note, if you have noticed in the photos above, there were just SO MANY people when I went, definitely much more compared to last year. There were announcements repeated every few seconds asking visitors to please not touch/bang/knock into artworks, although there were really so many people it was quite easy to accidentally back into an artwork.

Ebru Uygun, LOVE, 2016, mixed media on canvas, Dirimart

There was quite a collection of mirrored/cracked mirrored works…

Lee Bul, Civitas Solis, 2016, acrylic mirrors, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac

Zhao Zhao 趙趙, Fragment 碎片, 2015, brass, Tang Contemporary Art

Tatsuo Miyajima, Moon in the ground no. 2, 2015, stainless steel, light emitting diode, IC, electric wire

Yang Fudong, Ms. Huang at M Last Night 5, 2006 (left), Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, Part 5, 2007 (right), black and white inkjet print, Marian Goodman Gallery

Liu Ye 劉野, Snow White 白雪公主, 2006, Dominique Lévy

I was drawn by the light effect of Liu Ye’s painting! The contrast between light and dark got exaggerated on camera, but the painting essentially depicts Snow White in a circle of light on a blue background.

Kader Attia, Sacrifice and Harmony, 2016, sanded steel and feathers

Zhang Xiaogang 張曉剛, Flashlight 手電筒, 2008-2015, oil on canvas, Pace

Claire Fontaine, Foreigners Everywhere (Chinese), 2008, suspended, wall or window mounted neon (ruby red) framework, electronic transformer, cables, Air de Paris

Paul Chan, Greene Naftali

This was really quite… questionable. It’s made of those long balloon things that are pumped from the bottom and the air moves upwards – I always saw them outside estate showflats. Here, three of them have been shaped into women’s puffer jackets, in black to match the Hong Kong taste, and they move from side to side in a mad fashion. I had to capture a bit of it on video, which will be coming up soon!

Stella Zhang, all part of 0-Viewpoint series, Galerie du Monde

This felt like a continuation of what was happening just above, with a smattering of black stuff covering the entire gallery booth. I’ve seen other works by Zhang, but this just doesn’t work for me.

Zhang Xiao, Since there is a dream, 2015, archival inkjet print, clocks, Blindspot Gallery

The images on the multiple clocks come together to form a big picture of Tiananmen (Gate)! The outside of the clocks have some prints about CCTV… I wonder if this work is making a jab about Chinese politics. Very interesting.

Chen Zhen 陳箴, Opening of a Closed Center 打開密封的中心, 1997, mixed media of wood, metal, found objects, furniture, de Sarthe Gallery

Big question: Are the security staff part of the artwork?

I mean, this could be a new form of half-installation, half-performance art (with live people performing an act as part of an artwork)! I thought the title could give me a better idea, but it just sounds as if the security staff could possibly be part of it. I couldn’t stand not knowing, so I decided to get over any potential embarrassment and ask them.

So, it turns out they weren’t part of the artwork. They were there to prevent people from possibly knocking everything down. Only in Hong Kong, people! I’m convinced there won’t ever be such a sight at Art Basel in Basel or Miami.

Antony Gormley, rooftop sculpture part of Event Horizon, Nov 2015 – May 2016

Antony Gormley, Transfuser IV, 2002, mild steel rings, Galerie Thomas

What happens when the standing man goes horizontal.

Keiji Uematsu, Invisible axis – distance and angle, 2016, stainless steel, granite, stainless steel wire, Yumiko Chiba

Tintin Wulia, Five Tonnes of Homes and Other Understories, 2016, mixed media of metal, paper, ink, Osage

This Encounter installation is made up of cardboard “waste,” and it stems from the artist’s involvement in the cardboard recycling network in Hong Kong’s Central district. I didn’t know there was so much cardboard recycling going on in Central, but that’s good to know. I appreciate artists putting a focus on ideas or issues that we might not easily encounter in our daily lives in their art, but aesthetically, piles of cardboard would understandably not look so great. I think it’s not the most well executed artwork, but that could be said for many other contemporary artworks too.

Gavin Turk, American Bag, 2015, painted bronze, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Another piece of trash Refuse – okay, it’s come back as an American Bag this year.

Vik Muniz, Golden Gate Bridge (Postcards from Nowhere), 2015, digital C-print, Ben Brown Fine Arts

Qiu Deshu 仇德樹, Fissure, ShangART Gallery

Qiu Deshu 仇德樹, A Lot of Snow Looks Very Clean and Cold 積血清寒, 2005, acrylic on rice paper on canvas, Alisan Fine Arts

I’d seen an exhibition of Qiu Deshu at ShangART in Singapore last summer, and I was really impressed by Qiu’s contemporary take on shanshui (literally mountain water) paintings pieced together by torn bits of tissue paper, if I don’t remember wrongly. It comes out really nicely, especially in his immense wall-length quad-typch piece.

It was nice to see Qiu’s works again at Art Basel, but here they’re smaller in size and made with different materials, and have some stylistic differences as well.

Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, A Thief Caught in the Act, 2015, wood, metal, canvas, modelling clay, acrylic paint, Lisson

It’s not one thief, it’s a bunch of birds stealing jewelry in the last Encounter installation of this post. There are lamps on each table that alternately go on and off, highlighting the whole caught in the act thing. I like that pink owl on the left because, pink! owl!

Overall, I thought that the fair this year was a step down from the fairs the last two years, and I found myself walking by too many artworks without being attracted to look at many in detail. The setup of an art fair itself, especially with so many visitors cramped into the space, doesn’t allow for long insightful studies of artworks. I just hope to discover new works and artists by how well artworks were able to attract my attention. I definitely prefer to go to orderly curated exhibitions, but going to an art fair is still fun – it’s not often you get to see so many artworks of different media, styles, sizes, and cultures all gathered under one roof.

The post Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 | The New and the Curious appeared first on Wording Art.

Thank you Experimenta for the invitation, and letting me explore something new this year – film!

I’d always been concerned with making sure I see as much of the artworks as I can, or whatever that I would like to see, that I kind of forget about the other events happening in the fair. Checking out the film sector in an art fair is a first for me, and Experimenta presented an interesting and varied lineup. I went for the Screen X Experimenta WORLD DRAMA program on the first day. It consisted of quite a number of short films, so this program actually presented the most number of films compared to the other days’ programs.

My favorites were Lucy, a French film, and Broken, a Spanish film. (Every film had English subtitles, which is great.) Lucy questions her identity as an actress, or as a director, or even as her own person at all… The film puts the viewer right into her confusion, as every scene turns out to be part of a “movie” and the entire short film seems like a winding loop of Lucy acting in various movie scenes.

Broken relates a string of breakups, with every new one introduced by the last line uttered by the other person in the previous relationship. As in, Girl A breaks up with Boy, and Boy repeats Girl A’s final line to the next Girl B who Boy breaks up with, and so it goes. I thought it was a kind of paying it forward, but sadly with breakups.

To check out more of Experimenta’s curated films, head on over to their website here or visit their art space at:

#7005 No.335 Queen’s Road West
Sai Ying Pun
Hong Kong

Wolfgang Stiller, Matchstick Men, wood, polyurethane, gouache paint, Mark Hachem

Moving on to the other artworks! Art Central has two main sectors: Central and Rise. Central is made up of artworks from both established and emerging galleries, while Rise consists of emerging galleries that dedicate their booths to one or two artists.

Stefano Bombardieri, Francesco E L’Elefante, bronze, Mark Hachem

This is unfortunate, but I found this year’s edition to be not as good as last year‘s. I thought that Art Central’s overall feel didn’t particularly suit me in the first place, but this year’s showing felt scattered and not as strong. Of course, there were still a number of artworks I enjoyed viewing, and they are included here.

Yves Hayat, Les Icones Sont Fatiguees, digital prints on transparent film, burnt and enclosed in plexiglass boxes, Mark Hachem Gallery

William Klein, Smoke + Veil, Paris, 1958; Hat with Five Roses, Barbara Mullen, Paris, 1956, gelatin silver prints, Hackelbury Fine Art

Happy to see these beauties again! Hackelbury Fine Art showed smaller versions of these two photographs last year, and I’m glad to see them in a larger size.

Damien Hirst, Mickey (Blue Glitter) & Minnie (Pink Glitter) Pair, silkscreen prints with glitter, Other Criteria

Sam Jinks, Marc Straus

Sam Jink’s two sculptures on show went viral on Instagram, especially the one of the kneeling woman, but I personally prefer this one with the babies! (I’m not sure what the title is, as I didn’t see the didactic onsite, and I can’t find it online either.) They are both done very well, and they honestly look very real! The reason why I liked this more was because the woman was proportionately smaller than a real woman’s size, while the babies were perfectly sized so they really really look like babies.

Patrick Hughes, En Grisaille, 2016, oil on board construction, Flowers Gallery

Hughes’s illusionary artworks were back to mess with my vision again! While it sure looks like a flat image, there’re actually three parts jutting out. To help you out, the furthest point in the image is the nearest physical point to the viewer.

I only saw this piece by Hughes but it turned out that there were more, though probably not on display at the time. I wish I saw his Great Wall piece, that would have been such a hoot!

Hiroshi Senju, Suijin, 2015, natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, mounted on board, Sundaram Tagore Gallery

Steve McCurry, Girl with green shawl, Peshawar, Pakistan, 2002, ultrachrome print

Steve McCurry, Dust Storm, Rajasthan, India, 1983, ultrachrome print

I didn’t expect to see Steve McCurry – it was just wonderful to chance on his work! I first discovered his work when Afghan Girl with her magical eyes was all over Facebook. As these two images also prove, his photography is plain mesmerization.

Ichwan Noor, Beetle Sphere, 2016, aluminium painted and original parts VW Beetle 1953

I found this very cute… until I realized this was a real vintage VW Beetle that had been squashed into a ball. I’m curious to know if the original car and this artwork have the same price or is one more expensive than the other? Or maybe I don’t want to.

Li Hongbo 李洪波, Young Man, 2012, paper, glue, Dominik Mersch Gallery

Jiang Shuo 蔣朔, Wu Shaoxiang 吳少湘, Great Jump 3, 2015, gold bronze, Contemporary by Angela Li

Li Hongbo 李洪波, Scholar’s Rock No. 2 太湖石二號, 2016, newspaper, Contemporary by Angela Li

Li Hongbo’s paper works were again a crowd pleaser. I wanted to point out that the English title doesn’t fully translate the Chinese meaning. Taihu rock (太湖石) comes from Taihu Lake (太湖) and it’s a distinctively large, porous limestone rock. It appears in many (old) Chinese paintings, usually alongside a scholar or scholar-official. It’s a rock that’s seen much hardship (so resulting in its porousness, or so I say) and it represents a scholar’s perseverance and integrity, as per Chinese ideas since at least the Song dynasty. Li’s Scholar’s Rock doesn’t exactly resemble it much, but it’s interesting that Li uses this idea for his paper sculptures.

On another note, this is the first semester I’m taking a class on Chinese paintings spanning across the dynasties, and it’s at once scary (all the dates), fascinating, and a little strange (they’re difficult to identify with for sure) at the same time, especially for a pretty-much newbie to old Chinese history like me. But I’m enjoying it! ;D

David Chan, Garden of Earthly Delights, 2013, oil on linen, Art Seasons

Yu Youhan 余友涵, The life of Mao 毛的一生, 2016, mixed media on metal, Rén Space 仁庐

Chuck Close, Brad, 2015, jacquard tapestry,Rén Space 仁庐

Hwan-Kwon Yi, Flight Attendant, 2016, hand painted acrylic on FRP, Gana Art

I saw this for myself, but I’m still not sure if it’s flat or somewhat dimensional, or how it’s been stretched out, LOLS.

Sun-Tai Yoo, The Words – Landscape Flowing with Music, 2015, acrylic on metal objects; The Words – Landscape Filled with Music, 2016, acrylic on metal objects and wood; The Words – Landscape Filled with Music, 2015, acrylic on metal objects and wood, Gana Art

Opera Gallery

Andrew Gifford, 45. Soy Street Series, I; 45. Soy Street Series, II; 45. Soy Street Series, III, oil on canvas, John Martin Gallery

I’m a huge fan of Claude Monet, so I’m going to have to say that this reminds me of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series (as well as others), in which he captures the same place at different times of the day. Here, Gifford observes Hong Kong’s Soy Street in Mongkok.

Li Wei and Liu Zhiyin 李偉和劉知音, Waiting Still in the Night 夜晚是靜靜的等待, cast copper with chemical stain, Line Gallery

Jean-Marie Fiori, Pug; French Bull-dog, bronze

Elaine Yan Ling Ng, Sundew, handwoven fiber and Swarovski crystal textiles

This is a moving installation depicting the sundew plant, which is a carnivorous plant that attracts prey with scents and reflected light, according to Art Central’s fair guide. I took a few videos of this installation and other works, I hope to get those up soon!

Yoshitomo Nara, Puff Marshie (Hirosaki Version), 2003, Whitestone Gallery

I totally missed this when I went in – probably distracted by the umbrella racks on the left of the entrance – but this was a nice piece to leave the fair with!

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