Innehållsförteckning för 140 (Sep/Oct 2024) från ArtAsiaPacific

In an era creaking under the weight of too much content, we are increasingly at the mercy of the immediate. This often manifests itself as an immediacy of meaning: ideology as rigid and unwavering, identities and labels as sacrosanct, and the confessional, in which the personal is always political, as the order of the day. But there still exists a number of artists who see value and significance in mystery, uncertainty, and hesitancy, who are attuned to the myriad complexities of the world and of the self, who champion reflection, contemplation, and the timelessness of things. For our cover feature, ArtAsiaPacific’s managing editor Oliver Clasper excavates the obscure foundations upon which the Korean painter Jinju Lee has built her most arresting works. Since the late 2000s, she has steadily created…

AUG 17–NOV 3 ART SONJE CENTER, SEOUL Do Ho Suh Speculations For London-based Korean artist Do Ho Suh, “speculation” encapsulates contemplation, displacement, memory, and the interplay between individuals, communities, and the environment. Framed as a “process of speculation,” Suh’s retrospective opens with mixedmedia installations from his eponymous Speculations series (2005–) , showcasing imaginative architectural diagrams, animations, and models that are realistically constrained by physical and logistical barriers. The section “Bridge Project” highlights Suh’s architectural imagination, connecting the cities he has lived in with the concept of home. The exhibition concludes with the chapter “Architectural Films,” exploring themes of time, spatiality, and belonging through the eyes of disappearing communal housing complexes in London and Daegu. SEP 3–MAR 3, 2025 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART, SEOUL Connecting Bodies: Asian Women…

QU CHANG March, 2024 This essay takes the form of diary entries and excerpts of texts by Judith Butler and Roland Barthes as a means of signaling the multiple lives and intersubjectivity that mourning evokes, similar to what Isaac Chong Wai has explored in his performances since the mid- 2010s. Mourning constantly requests the indication of time for those lost in the struggle between “bringing memory to the past” and “bringing past to memory” (David L. Eng and David Kazanjian). Accordingly, instead of organizing these disjointed entries in chronological order, I have pieced together the mourning of different people in disparate times and places, narrating the stories of loss as a connecting and communal event. A single assault, moments of civil unrest, and the collective falling and rising in Isaac’s…

For his 2019 exhibition at TKG+ gallery, Sawangwongse Yawnghwe wove together stories of Shan minority exiles in Myanmar in order to explore the possibility of identity amid feelings of loss. Yawnghwe returned to Taipei with a collection of paintings that transcends his previous work in both form and in scope. “The Idiot’s Manual” situated the political crisis in Myanmar within the larger framework of global catastrophe, looking through and beyond the personal toward work that defies symbolic imagery as it assesses new orientations for global solidarity. The most consistent motif was found on similarly abstract canvases hemmed in by boldly color-blocked margins. Some proclaim titles with starkly painted block text; others remain silent—two of the four untitled works offer up nothing but capricious flurries of paint bordered by strips of…

JIYAN ANDIÇ Having obtained a bachelors in sociology from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul, they are currently enrolled in the postgraduate sociology program at Boğaziçi University. Research interests include gender studies and queer theory, new social movements, HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ activism, urban sociology, and the Kurdish issue. (See THE POINT) DAPHNE CHU A London-based arts producer, writer, and translator, Daphne Chu is currently completing her postgraduate studies in curating. Her research interests span history, translation, memory, grief, and nuclear afterlives. From 2013 to 2022, she was the studio manager for Taiwanese American conceptual artist Lee Mingwei. (See WHERE I WORK) RAO FU Born in Beijing in 1978, Rao Fu graduated from the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (HfBK) in 2010 with degrees in painting and art psychotherapy. In…

CAREER MOVES: PRESSING RESET European art organizations have seen new appointments after a tumultuous period. In Paris, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) finally named Medea Ekner as its director general, ending a year-long search for new leadership. The new director is working with ICOM’s executives and committees to develop the objectives outlined in the organization’s 2022–28 Strategic Plan with aims “to lead ICOM into the next phase of its transformation.” Meanwhile in Kassel, following the contentious resignation of Documenta 16’s entire Finding Committee last November, the German art event announced the six new members who will select an artistic director for its 2027 edition. The new committee includes Yilmaz Dziewior, Sergio Edelsztein, N’Goné Fall, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Mami Kataoka, and Yasmil Raymond. The committee immediately commenced their search for an…

Galleries at the high end of the art market in Asia find themselves twisting and turning in the wind. Leng Lin, Pace Gallery’s longtime Chinese rainmaker, who helped set up the New York heavyweight’s operations in Asia, has returned from Hong Kong to the Chinese capital to focus on his first true love, Beijing Commune, the gallery which he founded in 2004. Stepping into his big shoes is Evelyn Lin, Christie’s former deputy chairman of 20th century Asian and contemporary art. Word has it international blue-chip galleries will now be exclusively recruiting talents from one of the two leading auction houses. On the eve of the muchanticipated solo exhibition of the highly desirable paintings by American artist Mark Bradford, Hauser & Wirth’s Hong Kong sales team will only have to…

Hwang Sueyon SEOUL Throughout her practice, Hwang Sueyon reveals a profound fascination with the intrinsic properties of materials and the performative dimension of sculptural acts. From critiques of the superficial production processes of consumer goods to reflections on organic forms in wildlife, her work explores the interconnectedness between human industry and the natural world. Take Hwang’s pencil-on-paper drawing, Hairy, small and sharp, many legs, white, round belly (2022). Trapezium-shaped papers are layered over cylindrical cuts, all shaded dark with graphite pencils. Some forms appear rounder, others horned, with sharp tips protruding from their sides like the legs of a centipede. By experimenting with the assemblage and interaction of materials, Hwang observes their evolving physicality, enabling her compositions to organically emerge. While embracing spontaneity, the Seoulbased artist excels in crafting compelling…

MIKEY YATES From the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer’s iconic composition Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (c. 1662–65) to the Danish Romantic painter Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Interior with Woman at Piano, Strandgade 30 (1901), depicting a lone figure seen from behind while playing the square piano, artists across history have attempted to capture a room’s sonic atmosphere on the surface of the canvas. Mikey Yates’s Exhibit A (2024) features more than just a reenactment of himself (as if seen from the door) making music in his bedroom studio. The album artwork pasted around his room, including American hip-hop producer J. Dilla’s Donuts (2006) and jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald’s Lullabies of Birdland (1955), allows us to imagine who Yates aspires to be, as a performer, as ghostly hands hover…

ONGOING APR 20–NOV 24 60th Venice Biennale: Stranieri Ovunque –Foreigners Everywhere Giardini and Arsenale Venice JUN 23–JAN 5, 2025 Josh Kline: Climate Change Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles JUN 29–JAN 5, 2025 IM Pei: Life Is Architecture M+ Hong Kong JUL 6–OCT 20 Aotearoa Contemporary Auckland Art Gallery Auckland JUL 6–OCT 20 Brent Harris: Surrender & Catch Art Gallery of South Australia Adelaide JUL 20–OCT 13 Lesley Dumbrell: Thrum Art Gallery of New South Wales Sydney JUL 21–NOV 5 Mirrors of the Portrait West Bund Museum Shanghai JUL 26–OCT 6 Heecheon Kim: Studies Atelier Hermès Seoul AUG 2–OCT 27 Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Sydney AUG 2–OCT 27 Sean Scully: Away from the Sea He Art Museum Shunde AUG 3–NOV 10 A Personal View of…

PHARMAKON By Teju Cole Published by Mack London, 2024 Born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and raised in Lagos, Nigeria (before returning to the US for college), Teju Cole—essayist, novelist, photographer—is a Renaissance man of polymathic tendencies and catholic tastes. He considers Plato, Caravaggio, Beethoven, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ansel Adams, Lorna Simpson, Cy Twombly, Akira Kurosawa, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Sun Ra as his very own ports of refuge, towering figures with whom he communes across time and space. His cultural leanings are even reflected in his politics, advocating for a civic engagement that reinforces pragmatism and reason, as well as a quiet, contemplative art of psychic and spiritual nourishment. That is to say, there is much to admire. Like so many artists and intellectuals drawn toward difficult, and often violent, subjects, Teju…

On the evening of my visit to Steph Huang’s London studio, the weather had turned cold and wet, a far cry from the summer heat that had descended on the city the previous day. Locals remarked that we were experiencing a “Third Winter,” another bleak chapter in a series of winters before summer arrives, if at all. As we made our way up to Huang’s workspace from the gates of Studio Voltaire—a nonprofit arts organization in Clapham, South London that includes artists’ studios and a public program covering exhibitions, performances, and live events—she stopped to pick blackberries and strawberries in the courtyard, handing some over for me to savor: “They end up dropping onto the soil anyway. We might as well enjoy them.” Huang, who is best known for her…

Today, postcolonial studies are so deeply integrated into other academic disciplines it is difficult to distinguish the framework from broader notions of “leftism.” But only a few decades ago, postcolonialism was still emerging as a relatively novel, or at least strictly theoretical, field—particularly in and about East Asia, and even more so with regard to China. This has left a persistent void in theories surrounding the present state of the Global South which, as Musquiqui Chihying demonstrates, is intrinsically intertwined with the philosophies and systems governing capitalist production in Asia. Born in Taipei in 1985, Chihying reimagines popular imagery to bridge the gaps between decolonization discourse and its presence in East Asia, which often pivots on the Japanese occupations across the continent during the 1930s and ’40s. He realized the…

SANG WOO KIM Using the pigment dye transfer technique, Sang Woo Kim’s Ways of Seeing series feels as painterly as it does photographic. Ways of Seeing 005 (2024), a five-tiered collage of close-up images of eyes, might even be confused with photorealism (Sang is interested in blurring these lines). Here, one confronts multiple iterations of allencompassing gazes, akin to the sensation of media bombardment, of perpetually facing, and being faced with, each other’s images. Each figure alludes to an image one has seen elsewhere: online, in a film, an advertisement, or an artwork. Notably, they all feature typically Western characteristics—be it a strand of blonde hair, a Greek statue, pale skin, or double-eyelids—thereby challenging “normative” representations in culture and society at large, as well as the pervasive sense of “otherness”…

Despite the deceptively simple title, Yongsun Suh’s latest exhibition included recent works alongside some he began back in 2007. Known for constantly revising his paintings, Suh often inscribes the specific dates of their execution on the painting’s surface: “2007, 2021.10.4.6.10 (October 4, 6, 10), 2022.4.11.12 (April 11, 12).” This distinctive style underscores the sense of continuity and evolution that runs throughout his entire body of work. His willingness to revisit older paintings—such as Laboratory (2007–22) and Beijing (2009–24)—also reflects a belief that the act of painting should concern itself not only with capturing a particular place in time, but the relationship between the artist and the canvas. Over the course of half a century Suh has cemented his place in the canon of Korean contemporary art, an arena traditionally dominated…

The late Chinese American architect IM Pei, a distinguished Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate, is widely recognized for his groundbreaking modernist architectural designs that have radically transformed cityscapes around the world. Among his most celebrated projects are the Bank of China (BOC) Tower in Hong Kong (1982–89), and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris (1983–93), both world-renowned landmarks that have fundamentally reshaped and reimagined the physical and cultural landscape in which they exist. In “IM Pei: Life is Architecture,” co-curators Shirley Surya and Aric Chen embraced the monumental task of honoring Pei’s legacy while highlighting the cultural foundations that permeate his iconic body of work. Divided into six thematic (and partially chronological) sections, the major retrospective at M+ explored Pei’s six-decade career, starting with “Pei’s Cross-Cultural Foundations,” which provided a glimpse into…

Mandy El-Sayegh’s affinity for the Financial Times newspaper stems from an unlikely source: its flesh-toned pages. Incorporating the publication’s text and images into mixed-media works, the London-raised, Malaysian-born artist blurs the line between assemblage, collage, and painting. She has also described her intuitive, corporeal process as more akin to performance, and to construct the ongoing series for which she is primarily known—Net- Grid (2010–) , White Grounds (2017–) , Windows (2018–) —she lays largescale canvases on the floor of her studio, steadily building up the empty white space with layers of material until it becomes a “skin.” In this way, the work becomes a testament to the process itself, a record of how El-Sayegh fills up, abstracts, and obscures fragments of meaning. Her recent series Blessings (2022–) , for instance,…