Innehållsförteckning för 145 (Sep/Oct 2025) från ArtAsiaPacific

New York has long prided itself on being a haven for transplants like me—those who relinquished home, language, and familiarity to stake a claim in the city’s vibrant ever-evolving cultural landscape. But after five years as a cultural critic here, I have watched that promise unravel. The art community feels increasingly fragile, especially this year, as political tensions escalate and the federal administration slashes funding for cultural and educational institutions that are already stretched thin. The sense of exuberant possibility that once drew me in has been replaced by the sobering reality of regression. With Donald Trump’s recent executive order dismantling Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in federal agencies—dismissing them as unnecessary and polarizing—public institutions are now grappling with uncertainty around representation and sustained support. Still, artists in New York—particularly…

In 2011, I spent three days with Jeff Koons during the installation of one of his major sculptures, Sacred Heart (1994–2007), in Seoul. I noticed he always used the word “object” when referring to his work. At one point, I asked him, “Why do you call your work an object?” He smiled and said, “Because the work is complete the moment I imagine it. What you see is just the object—a representation. The real work is what happens between you and it.” That brief exchange stayed with me. It made me wonder: in a world where so much art has become product, what happens to everything else? As someone who has run a gallery for over 20 years and now leads a tech company aimed at increasing transparency in the…

Xin Liu LONDON & NEW YORK For eons, humans have sought immortality. Whether in ancient tales about eternal youth or sci-fi films showcasing ultra-advanced equipment that can prolong (if not perpetuate) life, the desire to conquer time has long fueled our willingness to transform, even mutilate our bodies and environments in order to attain imperishability. As biotech and regenerative medicine become more advanced, such fantasies might soon be within our reach—but at what cost? In her interdisciplinary practice, Chinese artist and engineer Xin Liu probes humanity’s age-old attempts to manipulate the laws of nature through science. From sculptures to installations and films, her works are both reverent and critical of modern-day technology, blending organic materials with artificial elements to confront our transient existence, while engaging with what French sociologist Émile…

Curator, artist, as well as president and director of the Sharjah Art Foundation Hoor Al-Qasimi has a long list of curatorial accolades to add under her belt. It has been a busy few years for the cultural leader: having completed the 2020 Lahore Biennale and 2025 Sharjah Biennial, Al-Qasimi is now gearing up for her appointments as the artistic director of both the 2025 Aichi Triennale and 2026 Sydney Biennale. Thoughtful and provocative, Al-Qasimi’s curatorial endeavors are often reflective of our current era, posing new connections between artists, audiences, and the environments around them. Earlier this June, ArtAsiaPacific spoke with Al-Qasimi about her upcoming project in Aichi, which also marks her curatorial debut in Japan and the first time that the event is being led by a non-Japanese individual. Now…

Having recently completed its second edition, the Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah has firmly established itself on the international biennial circuit. With rigorous curatorial standards and an expansive vision, it emerged not only as a regional showcase but a global platform for Islamic art—past, present, and future. Led by an international team of curators that included Amin Jaffer, Julian Raby, Abdul Rahman Azzam, and Muhannad Shono, this year’s edition was titled “And All That Is In Between,” inspired by a Qur’anic verse. This theme facilitated multi-scalar conversations spanning time, geography, and form. The biennial showcased objects from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and beyond, organized across distinct indoor galleries, including pavilions dedicated to Mecca and Medina, as well as the vast outdoor site AlMidhallah (The…

BEATRIZ CIFUENTES FELICIANO Beatriz Cifuentes Feliciano is a London-based curator, researcher, and author specializing in the Global South, with a particular focus on modern and contemporary art from South Asia. Her curatorial practice spans historical and contemporary collections in the UK and internationally, including at Tate Modern, the V&A, and the British Museum. (See REVIEWS) PATRICIA CHEN Patricia Chen is a writer, filmmaker, and contributing editor for ArtAsiaPacific, whose work focuses on individuals dedicated to the visual arts. She has written extensively on Southeast Asian and Asian contemporary art, contributing to leading international publications, and her films have been screened at various institutions in Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and Europe. She is also the author of Collecting Chinese Contemporary Art: Uli Sigg In Conversation with Patricia Chen (2014). (See PROFILES)…

CAREER MOVES In early July, New York’s Noguchi Museum named Hitomi Iwasaki as its new head curator and director of curatorial affairs. Previously the director of exhibitions and head curator at the city’s Queens Museum, Iwasaki began her new role in September. Two months after Art Basel announced its expansion to the Middle East, Art Basel Qatar selected Egyptian-born artist Wael Shawky as the artistic director of its inaugural edition, which will take place in Doha from February 5–7, 2026. Titled “Becoming,” the event will adopt an open format in which exhibitors will showcase solo shows responding to the overarching theme. In Taiwan, Diana Y. Chou is set to take over as the new director of the Juming Museum in New Taipei City, succeeding sculptor Po-Chun Liu, who has held…

Call it magical mishaps, call it emotional volatility, but one truth persists: instability reigns in 2025. At the Asia Society in New York, Yasufumi Nakamori, a former lawyer turned curator who was appointed director of the Asia Society Museum in mid-2023, vanished without warning. His abrupt exit, occurring just a week before the institution’s important gala fundraiser in May, was followed by a steady drip of departures, including Beth Citron, who joined in March 2024 as curator of modern and contemporary Asian and Asia Diaspora art. She has since jumped ship to become executive director of New York-based nonprofit Artis, which supports contemporary artists from Israel. It remains to be seen who will helm the historically significant, albeit somewhat stuffy, Asia Society, once bankrolled by the Rockefeller family. Concerns are…

Each issue, ArtAsiaPacific presents a critical essay in collaboration with Burger Collection, a Hong Kong nonprofit that partners with many institutions to support contemporary art worldwide. In June, I spoke with Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, directors of Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof and the curators of this year’s forthcoming Taipei Biennial. We discussed the joys and intricacies of working as a curatorial duo, the dialectic of cosmopolitanism and locality, institution-building with the support of the Burger Collection, and the role of art as a tool to tell stories and express human yearnings in different contexts. Having worked in close collaboration for more than a decade, how do you two operate as a collective? What are the advantages of working together? Sam Bardaouil (SB): As a duo, we come from a mix…

How do art and science represent human emotions and psychological disorders? What effect do these representations have on our perception of mental health conditions? These were two key questions raised by Fiona Tan in “Monomania” at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, an exhibition focusing on the development of psychiatry in the 19th century. The extensive show of over 250 pieces predominantly comprised paintings, prints, decorative art, photography, and historical objects from the Rijksmuseum’s collection, combined with selected items from other institutions as well as Tan’s own work, including sketches, a photo collage, and two video installations. Notably, Tan, who has Indonesian, Chinese, and Australian heritage and has lived in Amsterdam since the 1980s, was the first artist invited to curate a major exhibition at the institution. The title “Monomania,” an outdated clinical…

KOREAN FEMINIST ARTISTS: CONFRONT AND DECONSTRUCT By Kim Hong-hee Published by Phaidon Press London, 2024 In socially conservative South Korea, feminism is often considered a dirty word. The country perennially ranks poorly compared to the rest of the world in terms of gender equality, fueled by neo-Confucian social codes that normalize misogyny and demonize feminist ideology. And yet, the Korean art scene is increasingly dominated by women, from Lee Bul and Haegue Yang to Ayoung Kim and Mire Lee. The same goes for the country’s museum directors, gallerists, curators, and collectors—and the Korean public is finally catching onto this inexorable shift. It was in response to the new demographic reality of the cultural sector that the Kyunghyang Shinmun, one of the nation’s left-leaning daily newspapers, commissioned art historian and curator…

I first encountered the work of Paul Bowles via his 1952 novel Let It Come Down while I was browsing in a book shop. I picked it off the shelf, opened it, and read the reference from MacBeth inside. Banquo: It will be rain to-night. 1st Murderer: Let it come down. (They set upon Banquo.) Those stark, pitiless four words were a good indication of what was to follow. Bowles’s writing has a dated quality, like watching a black-and-white movie from the 1950s that you’d never heard of but were immediately transported by nonetheless. By the spare prose with its atmosphere of distance and vague alienation. A stranger arriving at and disappearing into a foreign place (in this case an American in Tangier’s International Zone, sent by his company). That…

SEP 3–DEC 8 THE NATIONAL ART CENTER, TOKYO Prism of the Real: Making Art in Japan 1989–2010 “Prism of the Real,” the first collaboration between The National Art Center, Tokyo and Hong Kong’s M+, gathers works by over 50 artists from Japan and across the globe. Featuring archival materials alongside contemporary projects by Tsubaki Noboru, Ozawa Tsuyoshi, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Joan Jonas, and more, the exhibition explores homegrown Japanese art from 1989 to 2010 and its cultural impact on artists abroad. By focusing on this two-decade period, the show examines how artists instigated new critical dialogue and forms of expression in an era defined by the end of the Cold War, accelerating globalization, and the lingering shadows of Japanese colonialism. SEP 20–NOV 23 VARIOUS LOCATIONS, ISTANBUL 18th Istanbul Biennial The Three-Legged…

I vividly remember my first encounter with Natasha Sidharta. I was attending the opening of Ho Tzu Nyen’s presentation at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, and friends had told me to look out for an art collector named Natasha. I had somehow imagined a flamboyant, imposing personality, but she was quite the opposite. The petite Indonesian collector, then 36, appeared unassuming in a simple black blouse, leggings, and a Goyard tote—perfectly suited for biennial-trotting. Gold ballet flats added a touch of understated elegance, and her radiant smile shone beneath the Romanesque arches of Sant’Apollonia. 14 years later, when we met at the PS.Cafe in Singapore for this story, Natasha’s journey in the art world had evolved significantly. When I asked if she still considered herself a collector, she laughed…

ONGOING FEB 1–OCT 19 Wafaa Bilal: Indulge Me Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Chicago MAR 4–JAN 4, 2026 Hiraki Sawa: Journeys in Place Asia Society New York APR 12–OCT 12 Ali Cherri: How I Am Monument Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art Gateshead APR 12–JAN 4, 2026 Syaiful Aulia Garibaldi: Lartucira Field Yuz Museum Shanghai Shanghai MAY 17–MAR 16, 2026 Direct Bodily Empathy – Sensing Sound Glovett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre New Plymouth MAY 24–OCT 5 Kei Imazu: The Sea is Barely Wrinkled Museum MACAN Jakarta MAY 25–OCT 12 X Abstract 303 X Museum Beijing JUN 7–JAN 19, 2026 Raqib Shaw: Paradise Lost Art Institute of Chicago Chicago JUN 12–JAN 11, 2026 Under Pressure Above Water Arter Istanbul JUN 26–JAN 4, 2026 Mohammad Alfaraj: Seas are sweet, fish tears…

I begin with this disclaimer: I am a longtime admirer of Shanghai-based artist Xu Zhen. At 48, he has firmly established himself as a defining and influential figure of his generation. Since the early 1990s, Xu has been at the forefront of Chinese contemporary art as a multidisciplinary artist, producing an astonishingly diverse body of work encompassing large-scale installations, photographs, videos, sculptures, paintings, and performances. In 2009, he established MadeIn Company, an artistic and curatorial production company, and in 2014, he launched MadeIn Gallery to showcase and promote the work of younger artists. Soon after, XU ZHEN® emerged as his global brand and registered trademark. Over the years, he steadily rose to prominence as a revered artist-impresario—and model provocateur—for an entire new generation of artists in mainland China. I first…