BLOUIN ARTINFO

Artist Parade Marks Hong Kong's Fair Week With S&M, Mock Protest

Zoe Li — Fri, 24 May 2013 16:10:18 +0000

Artist Parade Marks Hong Kong's Fair Week With S&M, Mock Protest

Published: May 24, 2013

HONG KONG — A woman in a scarlet dress walks along the waterfront in Hong Kong while being whipped with belts by men dressed in black. We are at “Paper Rain,” a parade organized by musician Arto Lindsay in collaboration with various artists for the launch of Art Basel in Hong Kong on May 23.

The parade route followed the waterfront path from Central pier to the government headquarters at Tamar Park. The woman would was voluntarily undergoing corporal punishment during the performance is Hong Kong artist Angela Su, known for her high pain threshold — she previously underwent a procedure for an elaborate ink-less tattoo on her back for her series “The Hartford Girl and Other Stories” (a portrait of her marked back is on display at Hong Kong Eye).

During the parade, Su marched along with the procession while being subjected to humiliating and punishing acts. At one point the artist held out her arm for her “lover” to put out his cigarette on it. Su hardly flinched from the pain. All this took place while contemporary dancers tumbled in the background and a rickshaw puller danced along to the beat of music blasting from boomboxes. The effect was a surreal and rather melancholy parade, dwarfed by the grand setting of Hong Kong’s waterfront and the monumental government headquarters buildings, a sensitive location for a parade as many political protests take place around here.

“This is the dead skin of a protest,” Lindsay told BLOUIN ARTINFO. “What we’re doing is like a political demonstration without content. It is a husk, like when the insect sheds its skin.”

The musician held his first parade at Carnival in Brazil in 2004, a collaboration with artist Matthew Barney that became the first of a series of artist parades that Lindsay has since organized around the world. Living and working in Brazil for many years, Lindsay is informed by the procession of trio elétricos that roll through the streets of Bahia every Carnival. Like the floats of Brazil, the artists of Hong Kong’s “Paper Rain” created performances that connect allegorically.

Nadim Abbas fabricated foam barricades for his section. Modeled after actual barricades from the streets of Hong Kong, the jokey, oversized blocks were strapped to the backs of participants who enacted choreography, their color scheme (red and white) echoing with Su’s tragic scarlet-clad protagonist in an uncanny contrast of subjugation and subversion. João Vasco Paiva conducted a loudspeaker orchestra, improvising a noise soundtrack from the squawkish feedback of the loudspeaker and his own muffled mumblings. Nearby, an old woman with purple hair moved a pushcart carrying posters for artist Korakrit Arunanodcha.

Most iconic of all are the red and green rickshaws chosen to transport Shane Aspegren’s “Roaming Boom Boxes Sound Tracks.” The choice of this tired symbolism was borne mostly out of necessity, according to Lindsay. Motorized vehicles are not allowed along the route of the parade, so the next best thing was to hire out the rickshaws. He is also exploring the commercialized imagery of Hong Kong as a perfect meeting of history and modernity. “I like this painful postcard image of Hong Kong, and not making it this cool thing,” says Lindsay.

To see images of “Paper Rain,” click on the slideshow.

Asia Contemporary Art Show, Hong Kong's Cool Satellite Hotel Fair

Tim Cheung — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:03:38 +0000

Asia Contemporary Art Show, Hong Kong's Cool Satellite Hotel Fair

Published: May 24, 2013

HONG KONG – There are no immaculate white walls at the Asia Contemporary Art Show, nor are the big-ticket art pieces like Andy Warhol’s contemporary silkscreens or Damien Hirst’s provocative installations present. Exhibition booths are substituted with hotel suites at the JW Marriott, where paintings and photographs hang. Some rest on beds and by the windowsills, or are propped up by wine glasses. Many even lean against bathroom mirrors near mini bars.

Each hotel room conjures an intimate viewing experience at the show and there is something special about looking at artworks with Hong Kong’s skyline as a backdrop. It is also in this somewhat quirky setting that you might find hidden art gems and surprises, often with wallet-friendly price tags at around HK$20,000 (around $2,500)

“I think being the leading satellite fair at this time of year is a great opportunity for both galleries and visitors,” said Mark Saunderson, director of Asia Contemporary Art Show. “They get to experience the glitz of Art Basel and also visit the more engaging, intimate, and fun atmosphere of Asia Contemporary Art Show.”

Back for its second edition, the Asia Contemporary Art Show is one of the top satellite events of Art Basel in Hong Kong this year and has grown in size and expanded to a three-day event, hosting over 70 galleries from 16 countries including France, Spain, Korea, the U.S., Australia and, of course, Hong Kong. It runs from May 24 to 26 and spreads over four hotel floors.

The fair aims to promote works by young, emerging, and mid-career artists with affordable art pieces. The Gallery Eumundi from Australia, for example, has brought along a series of paintings on music and dance by Madeleine Ekeblad. The artist and her works, which are inspired by free musical rhythm and fluid choreographs (priced from HK$15,800 to HK$38,500 — $2,000 to $5,000), are new to the Hong Kong audience.

“I think it’s quite edgy and funky [to exhibit in a hotel room]” said Karen Beardsley of the Gallery Eumundi, who is exhibiting in Hong Kong for the first time. “It’s a bit of a gamble I suppose because it’s our first time here, but we’re very excited and hopefully there is a good mix of people here.”

Indeed, at the VIP preview on May 23, guests filled the hotel floors and crowded out the 74 participating galleries.

Of the 2,000 art pieces being showcased here, a majority of them are paintings, while some notable artworks are also available. At the VIP view, the crowd-pleasers included works by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami at suite 2803, Ai Weiwei at 2704, Pipp Todd Warmoth at suite 3023, and Sanzi at 2807.

The show is also playing host to the Hong Kong Art Prize, for which an emerging local artist is awarded for his or her submitted work. This year, 26-year-old Jims Lam Chi Hang won HK$80,000 ($10,000) for his painting “Beacon, Sheung Wan Hours - 01.05,” which is now showcased alongside a selection of shortlisted works at the Wheellock Gallery in Queensway, Admiralty until June 2.

“Asia Contemporary Art Show,” May 24 to May 26 at the JW Marriott Hotel. Tickets are available here at HK$240.

Yayoi Kusama, Zhan Wang, Zhang Xiaogang Sell at Art Basel in Hong Kong

Adeline Chia — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:33:24 +0000

Yayoi Kusama, Zhan Wang, Zhang Xiaogang Sell at Art Basel in Hong Kong

Published: May 24, 2013

HONG KONG — Sales continued to be strong into the third day of Art Basel in Hong Kong, with many galleries doing brisk business after the lukewarm opening amid stormy weather.

Works by top Chinese and Japanese artists led the way. At Pace Gallery, which has branches in New York, London, and Beijing, all four of prominent Chinese artist and auction darling Zhang Xiaogang’s painted bronze sculptures of children’s heads, priced from $100,000 to $350,000, were sold.

Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara also did well at the booth, selling out the handful of pencil drawings of cutesy cartoon figures on view, as well as a large acrylic-on-wood panel “Balance Girl” for about $350,000.

At the joint booth by Japanese gallery Ota Fine Arts and London-based Victoria Miro, 15 works by superstar dot artist Yayoi Kusuma were sold on the first day of the fair, half to Asian collectors and half to Europeans and Americans. The works are priced at six-figure sums each, said Victoria Miro’s director Glenn Scott Wright, who declined to be drawn into details but added that he has sold another three paintings since opening night. The highlight sale was a $2-million triptych painting titled “Flame of Life — Dedicated to Tu-Fu (Du-Fu)” — depicting a writhing mass of red tadpole shapes.

The cash register was also ringing at top Beijing gallery Long March Space, which attracted a strong following of Mainland collectors who snapped up works by their compatriots. All three of Zhan Wang’s abstract nickel-coated resin works, priced at 600,000RMB ($98,000) each were sold, together with his stainless steel sculpture titled “Artificial Rock No.146,” at $280,000.

Most visitors will have seen the installation “Play 201301” by Shanghai-based MadeIn Company, a hanging cathedral made from leather fetish gear that stands at the entrance of the fair. Long March sold the work for 2 million RMB ($326,0000) to the White Rabbit collection in Australia, a prominent collection of Chinese contemporary art.

Chinese “thread” artist Lin Tianmiao was the star of New York- and Paris-based Galerie Lelong’s booth, and her large-scale installation “More or Less the Same,” comprising parts of the human skeleton and industrial objects wrapped in silk thread, went for $300,000. At the same booth, Spanish artist Jaume Plensa’s “Sitting Tattoo VIII” — a polyester resin sculpture of a crouching man with glowing light in the middle — sold for €260,000 ($336,000).

Meanwhile, over at top New York gallery Paul Kasmin, a set of three sheep statues titled “Famille De Moutons” by French duo Les Lalanne trotted home with a Hong Kong collector for $650,000.

Art Basel in Hong Kong continues till May 26 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Detroit's Debt Could Gut DIA, Clooney Casts van Eyck Picture, and More

BLOUIN ARTINFO — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:10:47 +0000

Detroit's Debt Could Gut DIA, Clooney Casts van Eyck Picture, and More

Published: May 24, 2013

– Detroit Institute's Art May Be Sold: The city of Detroit is $15 billion in debt, and its emergency manager Kevyn Orr is reportedly looking into whether or not the invaluable collection of its foremost museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, could be sold off to get the city out of the red. "We have to look at everything on the table," said Bill Nowling, Orr's spokesperson. "As much as it would pain us to do it, and it does, I’m a great lover of art and so is Kevyn, we’ve got a responsibility to rationalize all the assets of the city and find out what the worth is and what the city holds." [Detroit Free Press]

– Clooney's Nazi Loot Movie Uses Real Masterpiece: Directed by and starring George Clooney, "The Monuments Men" tells a tale of Allied soldiers rescuing countless works of art from the Nazis during World War II. To this end, it prominently features Jan van Eyck's famous Ghent altarpiece, albeit in replica form. Still, the movie is calling attention to the real cathedral in Halberstadt, Germany, used as a stand-in for Ghent's St. Bavo cathedral. Apparently, Halberstadt cathedral's art collection is so renowned that it earned a visit from British Museum director Neil MacGregor last year, who was amazed that it includes two very rare and fragile silken cloths from the Middle Ages. "He threw up his arms and exclaimed 'It’s not fair!'" recalled Thomas Labusiak, curator of the Halberstadt cathedral collection. "I never thought I would have to console the director of the British Museum… I told him, ‘Well, you have a good collection too.’" [Bloomberg]

– Cattelan Comes Out of Retirement: At the time of his 2011 Guggenheim retrospective, Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan claimed he was retiring, but he is scheduled to open a solo show titled "Kaputt" at the Beyeler Foundation next month, running June 8-October 6, and timed to coincide with this year's Art Basel in Basel fair. Exhibition details are scant, but it will consist of one work that "is a classic subject in art history" and will be "presented in a new way," Cattelan said. Beyeler director Samuel Keller also added that it may involve a horse. [NYT]

– France's Nuclear Authority Nixes X-Ray Art: Following an exhibition of about 100 X-ray images of participants' hands by the Strasbourg-based artist Marc Ferrante, France's Nuclear Safety Authority issued a reminder that by law X-ray technology and other forms of radioactive interactions with the human body are only permitted for medical, and not artistic, use. "Though the doses received by the volunteers were not sufficient to have a significant impact on their health," the Authority said in a statement, "they may not be administered without a medical justification." [AFP]

– Inside Gioni's "Encyclopedic Palace": In her profile of New Museum associate director and 2013 Venice Biennale curator Massimiliano Gioni, Times scribe Carol Vogel reveals choice details of the 39-year-old star curator's epic Venice show "The Encyclopedic Palace," which will include a boat full of horn players floating at the Arsenale in a piece called the "S.S. Hangover" by Icelandic art star Ragnar Kjartansson, and a mini exhibition-within-the-exhibition curated by Cindy Sherman. "Image plays a big role at this year’s Biennale," Gioni said, "and Cindy has spent her life representing herself as others." [NYT]

– Rolling Stone Gathers Another Art Show: Ronnie Wood, the guitarist from the Rolling Stones, has a new solo exhibition at London's Castle Fine Art Gallery featuring some 100 new artworks including portraits of bandmates Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts, all priced between £3,000 and £150,000. "When I get inspired, I get almost possessed and I just have to paint," Wood said. "There is no kind of therapy like the one you have from starting and seeing a picture through to the end." [Hennemusic]

– Houston Picasso Vandal Gets Two Years: Uriel Landeros, the young artist who stenciled Pablo Picasso's "Woman in a Red Armchair" at the Menil Collection in Houston last year, has received a two-year prison sentence. Following the art attack he originally fled to Mexico before turning himself in. "My intention was never to destroy Pablo’s painting or to insult the Menil," Landeros said of his motives in a YouTube video. "My intentions are to give a voice to the public, to all those who go unheard of. Unfortunately, our society has become nothing but a corrupt, war-making, murdering, raping society." [TAN]

– Artist Asks for Blood: For his new exhibition at the Void Gallery in Derry, "Catholic Blood," artist Andrei Molodkin is asking visitors to contribute their blood to the installation, but only if they're Catholic. Once drawn, their blood samples are stored in a fridge and then pumped through a hollow replica of the Rose Window from London's Houses of Parliament, producing a blood-red stained glass-like effect. "Some people were angry that I hadn't used both Catholic and Protestant blood," he said. "It was never my intention to mix religions — the intensity is in the separation… In Derry, there is a legacy of people who have given their blood for freedom, politics, and religion." [Independent]

– Meet Leonard Lauder's Curator: The $1-billion selection of Cubist paintings that Leonard Lauder recently donated to the Metropolitan Museum — including pieces by Picasso, Braque, and Léger — is part of a larger masterpiece: the vast collection that Lauder's curator Emily Braun has assisted the billionaire in amassing over the past 26 years. "A lot of my job has been saying no before things get to him," Braun said. Added Lauder, "We formed, I think, a very, very powerful partnership. She and I are joined at the hip." [WSJ]

– Receipt for Goya From Boyle Film Goes to Auction: Next month Sotheby's London will offer the original, signed 1798 receipt for the sale of Francisco Goya's "Flight of the Witches" — the painting at the center of Danny Boyle's new heist movie "Trance" — as part of its Music and Manuscripts sale. In the film, the painting is sold for £27.5 million by an auctioneer for the auction house "Delancey's," who is played by Sotheby's deputy chairman Mark Poltimore. The Goya receipt has a pre-sale estimate of £25,000-£30,000. [Press Release]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Andrei Molodkin's "Crude"

Crude: Andrei Molodkin from The Calvert Journal on Vimeo.

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American Art Auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's Soar to Pre-Crisis Heights

Sarah Hanson — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:30:03 +0000

American Art Auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's Soar to Pre-Crisis Heights

Photo Gallery:

Slideshow: American Art at Christie's and Sotheby's in New York

Published: May 23, 2013

NEW YORK — Auctions of American paintings this week at Sotheby’s and Christie’s found their strongest footing since the market crisis of 2008, earning almost $80 million in total.

On May 22, Sotheby’s turned in a sale that notched $28,087,750, in line with last November’s $27.6 million total, but with better sell-through, and 81 percent of the 52 sold lots exceeding their high estimates. “Our strategy of smaller sales with things of real quality seems to be working,” says department head Elizabeth Goldberg. “This is our third consecutive sale that’s topped its estimate.”

Things got off to a rousing start when Max Weber’s daringly modern “Soloist at Wanamaker’s” (1910), a gouache on paper laid down on board from the estate of La Jolla, California-based James and Helen K. Copley, flew past its $4,250 opener — and $20,000 high estimate — to $112,500. The buyer was New York- and Bloomfield Hills-based dealer Jonathan Boos, who revealed that it was for his personal collection. The next lot, Andrew Wyeth’s spare, fraught watercolor “Elsie’s House” (1983) (est. $120–180,000), ratcheted up to $245,000.

Of the handful of institutional consignments, Stanton Macdonald-Wright’s “Trumpet Flowers” (1919) ($400-600,000), went from the Museum of Modern Art to another East Coast museum after a plodding back-and-forth that netted $785,000 for MoMA’s acquisitions fund. Russian-American transplant Nicolai Fechin’s “At Home in New York” (1924), a domestic interior with an almost pixilated effect from the Copley collection (est. $100–150,000), had at least four bidders duking it out on the way to $413,000.

Works by Norman Rockwell, sporting estimates that were lower and more enticing than last season, did well. Rockwell took up four of the top ten berths. The most successful was “He’s Going to Be Taller than Dad” (1939) (est. $500–700,000), which sold for $2,629,000 to a phone bidder. Keeping the estimates reasonable has proved to be “an effective way to get a strong result,” notes Goldberg.

Top honors, however, went to John Singer Sargent’s “Marionettes (Behind the Curtain),” painted in 1903 and sporting its original frame, having been passed down in the artist’s family (est. $5–7 million), which took in a sale-high $5,205,000. A new record was set for Milton Avery when “The Music Makers” (1946–47) (est. $1–1.5 million), from the collection of matinee idol Gregory Peck, realized $2,965,000.

One of Goldberg’s clients picked up a passel of iconic images. Maxfield Parrish’s “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” (1902) (est. $200–300,000) soared to $845,000 under a protracted three-way tussle. The same deep-pocketed bidder snapped up Rockwell’s “Doc Mellhorn and the Pearly Gates” (1938) (est. $500–700,000), for $1,145,000 and “The Veterinarian” (1961) (est. $300–500,000) for $905,000, plus Frederic Remington’s oil “Call the Doctor” (1889) (est. $1–1.5 million) for $1,085,000 from the Art Institute of Chicago on the back end of the sale.

Two surprise tug-of-wars erupted for Western works, including for William Keith’s “Yosemite Valley” (1876) (est. $70–90,000). Joe Caldwell, of Caldwell Galleries in Manlius, New York, explained: “Anyone who realized what they were looking at knew it would go for ten times that.” It sold for $755,000 to a telephone bidder. Shortly thereafter, a tiny bronze by Charles Marion Russell, “An Enemy That Warns” (ca. 1921), standing just 5¼ inches, achieved $460,000 on an estimate of $40,000 to $60,0000.

***

Christie's also pulled off a strong sale on May 23, taking in $50,848,750, up from last November’s $38,469,650 and its highest total since May 2008. Some 99 lots sold of the 135 offered.

The house would appear to have clobbered its rival, but a large part of that total came courtesy of a large, important Edward Hopper painting, “Blackwell’s Island” (1928) (est. $15–20 million), included in the recent Hopper exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris. “It’s from this great moment in Hopper’s career that bridges his Ashcan training, when he was working with Robert Henri, with his mature modern aesthetic,” notes Liz Sterling, head of the department, of the work.

Bidding opened at $9 million and petered out into a silent, excruciating duel between two phone bidders. “Speak to me,” implored auctioneer James Hastie to break the tittering silence as he wrung out the last few hundred thousand dollars from the phones. The gavel came down at $19,163,750, making it the most expensive painting sold at an American art sale since 2008, and the second-highest price for a Hopper at auction. Shortly thereafter, a watercolor on paper by the artist, “Kelly Jenness House” (1932), climbed past its $3 million high estimate to earn $4,155,750, a record for a Hopper work on paper.

Virginia collectors James and Frances McGlothlin, accompanied by their art advisor Michael Altman, cleaned up at Christie's, nabbing several big fish — including works by Stuart Davis, Theodore Robinson, and Elizabeth Catlett — plus a handful of Averys, including “The Musicians” (1949) (est. $400–600,000), from the estate of singer Andy Williams, for $843,750. They tacked on another piece from the Williams collection, “Moon River” (1984) by Millard Owen Sheets, a hotly contested canvas that overtopped its $5,000 high estimate at $81,250.

But there was broad participation from collectors who had come for one or two works, determined to win them. Such was the case for advisor Nan Chisholm, who chased Henrietta M. Shore’s knockout “Untitled (Cypress Trees, Point Lobos)” (ca. 1930), to $687,750, more than four times the $150,000 high estimate, on behalf of a Midwestern client. “That was a really aggressive estimate for that artist at auction,” says Sterling, “but I think the final price is a testament to her cult following.” Gil Waldman, a Santa Fe-based collector of Western art, was pleased to take home Granville Redmond’s California landscape “Snow Capp Spring” (1927) (est. $100–150,000) for $123,750. New York dealer Mark Murray wielded the paddle on behalf of a local collector couple who wanted, and won, George Bellows’s “Village on the Hill” (1916) (est. $150–250,000), for $231,750.

Among 19th-century works, Sanford Robinson Gifford’s luminous “Tappan Zee” (1879–80) (est. $200–300,000), described by Sterling as “a rediscovered masterwork,” had six ardent admirers who pushed the final price up to $1,179,750. The sale’s sole Rockwell, “Starstruck” (1934), took in $2,027,750 from a bidder on the telephone with specialist Eric Widing against an estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million. Childe Hassam's sunny “In a French Garden” (1897), was picked up by San Francisco-based art advisor Steven Platzman for a mid-estimate $963,750.

As for the buy ins, the priciest came from the Eric and Cynthia Sambol collection of assorted Wyeths.

Both department heads pointed to an upswing in demand for illustration artists like Rockwell and Parrish. “Consistently, you’re seeing good works by them doubling and tripling their estimates,” says Sterling. “There are a lot of people willing to bid aggressively in that category.”

Overall, both houses were encouraged to see new faces — primarily crossover buyers from the contemporary sphere coming in for modern paintings — and old collectors returning, which bodes well for future sales. “In the American market, it’s a smaller group of people,” Goldberg points out, “so when both houses can produce good results, it sends a strong signal.”

To see highlights from New York's American Art auctions, click on the slideshow.

Slideshow: American Art at Christie's and Sotheby's in New York

Thu, 23 May 2013 20:50:48 +0000

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Will Art Basel's Revamped Hong Kong Fair Pay Off?

Darryl Jingwen Wee — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:30:03 +0000

Will Art Basel's Revamped Hong Kong Fair Pay Off?

Published: May 23, 2013

HONG KONG — Although Art Basel in Hong Kong (ABHK) is promising to draw a record throng of 70,000 visitors to its inaugural edition — quite a bit more than even the main flagship fair in Switzerland next month — the overall atmosphere at the VIP preview and vernissage was fairly relaxed. Visitors and artworks alike had space to breathe and circulate, the corridors felt broad and maneuverable, and everything seemed to be running with clockwork-like efficiency.

That said, many dealers, collectors, and critics also reminisced half-jokingly about the early, somewhat messy and disorganized days of Art HK, which started up only in 2008. As the fair has grown, expectations have also run higher. “You might say that ABHK has become a bit too well-organized, in a very Swiss manner,” Jan Verhein, publishing director of the Hong Kong-based Pipeline magazine told BLOUIN ARTINFO. “On the other hand, I also get the impression that galleries are not pushing the envelope as far as they could — maybe as a result of them second-guessing what Hong Kong and Asian collectors are interested in buying. I would have liked to see more experimental works, installations and videos, for instance. The Art Unlimited section at the main Basel fair had some very exciting work last year, but I don’t see that so much here in Hong Kong, where it’s still mostly painting and sculpture.”

In other ways, though, the double branding of the new ABHK helps to put things into a new context. Even if some of the same artists and galleries are reconfigured under the promotional auspices of a recognized global brand, in Hong Kong they manage to make new statements, and connote something fundamentally different from what has come before. Over at Berlin’s Carlier Gebauer, Ming Wong was showing “After Chinatown,” a video of the artist’s self-aware, theatrical stumbles through a warren of winding back alleys partly shot in Hong Kong. In it, Wong hams up his trademark approach to play-acting and role-playing identities as a Berlin-based Asian artist performing “Asian-ness” for a globetrotting Euro-American-Asian art world who find themselves converging on “Asia’s World City” for the first time ever.

What a difference a canny rebranding exercise and change of ownership makes. It’s as if tendencies that have been long discussed finally found visible, expansive platforms to make statements that have been rephrased in slicker, more eloquent language. At the Yuko Hasegawa-curated Encounters section of large-scale installations, Italian artist Flavio Favelli’s “China Purple” wistfully references the antique patina of Oriental furniture with its reconstructed tumble of lacquered Chinese cupboards and dressers, adorned with fluorescent lamps with red motifs scrawled over them — a loving, postmodern homage to recognizable design elements that have become global cultural property, free game for anyone to draw on.

Guan Huaibin’s “Lethargic Aesthetics,” another work in the Encounters showcase, resembled a giant inflatable scholar’s rock slowly breathing in and out. It struck a delicate balance between references to Chinese literati traditions and the kinetic inflatable sculptures of the 1960s German Zero movement. If the laid-back, slow breathing in and out of Guan’s floppy rock sculpture suggested anything, it was the promise of easy, flowing dialogue between Western and Eastern aesthetic traditions that comes as naturally, breezily, and instinctively as the regular, timed movements of this artwork.

Even for many Asian galleries, Hong Kong represents a sort of neutral territory where, according to Ranjana Steinrucke of the Mumbai-based Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, West and East have come together to produce a series of inspiring, explosive encounters, where “one plus one equals eleven, instead of two.” The gallery’s booth was devoted to a solo presentation of the 33-year-old Indian artist Manish Nai, with dyed jute paintings and sculptural columns made out of solidly compressed old newspapers and other waste materials. “We have already sold 30-40 percent of the booth, all to Hong Kong collectors who have previously visited our gallery in Mumbai and been following the artist for some time now. Compared to the India Art Fair, for instance, where the quality can be quite mixed, ABHK is a real high-quality proposition, and we’re very pleased to be here,” confided Steinrucke.

But perhaps the fair is not quite the vaunted milestone meeting of formerly disparate art worlds that some have made it out to be. Josef Ng, director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art, was presenting a group show of artists including Hong Kong-based collective Map Office, Taiwanese artist Michael Lin, and Singaporean artist Robert Zhao. Ng had already fielded several interviews earlier in the week from members of the Chinese art press, asking him what ABHK symbolized in the context of the nascent and ongoing dialogue between the West and East.

“Art Basel’s strategy seems to consist in trying to attract more Americans and Europeans with a showcase of Asian art,” mused Ng. “But we tend to forget that those in the so-called Asian art world have long been traveling to Europe to accomplish much the same thing. The most influential ones have already carved out a presence there, too. At this year’s Venice Biennale, for instance, there are going to be lots of parallel satellite events involving Chinese artists.”

Rather tellingly, though, it was Rirkrit Tiravanija’s “Untitled (Same But Not Equal)” that seemed both to sum up and stealthily skirt some of the larger issues at stake that ABHK is putting into sharp relief this time around. Tiravanija had scrawled in large black capital letters “SAME BUT NOT EQUAL” across a collage of Thai newspaper khaosod on linen canvas, which was itself perched delicately on top of two identical-looking mounds of Thai rice. Closer inspection, however, reveals that the pile in the left corner is “normal” rice, while the one in the right corner is premium, export-grade Thai jasmine rice (Hong Kong, along with Singapore, apparently being one of the largest overseas markets for this prized delicacy).

Two art worlds, apparently, have converged in Hong Kong for this landmark event, seemingly ushering in a new age for a coterie of elite cultural producers and consumers who are driving the churning engines of our restless contemporary age. Like these two piles of rice, they now look almost indistinguishable from each other — so it’s going to take some sharp connoisseurship to sniff out the differences.

Looted Banksy May Break $1M, China Frees German Art Shipper, and More

BLOUIN ARTINFO — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:16:26 +0000

Looted Banksy May Break $1M, China Frees German Art Shipper, and More

Published: May 23, 2013

– Boosted Banksy May Break $1M: The Banksy mural "Slave Labour," which disappeared from a wall in north London last year only to turn up at a Miami auction in February and be removed from the sale at the last minute, will be up for grabs again on June 2 at a members-only sale held by the Sincura Group in London's Covent Gardens area, with organizers floating a $1-million pre-sale estimate for the satirical street art piece, which depicts a child laborer sewing the Union Jack. "Our goal is to find a buyer who will keep it in the U.K.," said Sincura Group director Tony Baxter. "We know the sale of this Banksy has caused great controversy. We’ve done our due diligence and there is no legal issue." [Bloomberg]

– China Releases Art Shipper: Nils Jennrich, the Beijing-based general manger of the art shipping company Integrated Fine Art Solutions who was arrested in March of 2012 and detained for 100 days, was released in August of last year, but had been barred from leaving the country to return to Germany until recently. He and a colleague were arrested at the time of last year's Art HK (now Art Basel in Hong Kong) fair on suspicion of under-reporting the value of art they were handling and evading taxes, charges that come with a prison sentence of 10 years to life in China. [TAN]

– Pussy Riot Member on Hunger Strike: Maria Alyokhina, one of two members of the Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot still serving a two-year prison camp sentence stemming from an anti-Vladimir Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral last year, has begun a hunger strike after being denied the right to be present for her own parole hearing. She advised her lawyers not to attend any more hearings until she is allowed to participate in person, and refused to continue attending the proceedings via a video link. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, the other imprisoned Pussy Riot member, was denied parole last month. [BBC]

– Emirates Lease Permanent Venice Pavilion: The United Arab Emirates is the latest nation to sign a lease on a permanent home at the Venice Biennale after its Ministry of Foreign Affairs settled on a 20-year lease with the Biennale for one of the spaces in the Arsenale's Sale d'Armi complex, which is in the midst of a €20-million renovation. "By securing a permanent pavilion for the UAE in Venice, we hope to ensure that the focus of the nation's international artistic programming remains centered on promoting and empowering our local Emirati talent at the highest level possible, through our ongoing participation in the offerings of La Biennale de Venezia," said Dr. Lamees Hamdan, commissioner of the UAE pavilion. [The National]

– Zurich Will Host Manifesta in 2016: The board of the biennial international exhibition Manifesta has settled on the Swiss city of Zurich to host Manifesta 11 in 2016. The roving exhibition, which has taken place in a different European city every year since the early 1990s, will take place at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg next year, its first time teaming with a specific institution. "With full awareness that initiating a Manifesta Biennial involves unpredictable outcomes Zurich embraces the critical discourse including the opportunities and risks that it entails," said Manifesta director Hedwig Fijen. "That is why we are thrilled to be going to Zurich for Manifesta 11 ." [ArtDaily]

– M+ Buys Tehching Hsieh's One Year Performances: On the opening day of Art Basel in Hong Kong, the West Kowloon Cultural District and the forthcoming M+ Museum announced that they had acquired six performance pieces by Tehching Hsieh, including all five of his one-year-long works and the 13-year work "Tehching Hsieh 1986-1999 (Thirteen Year Plan)," from Sean Kelly Gallery. The M+ Museum now boasts the largest collection of Hsieh's work of any public institution in the world. [Press Release]

– L.A.'s Private Skyspaces: James Turrell may be the subject of a major upcoming retrospective at LACMA — and shows at the Guggenheim and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — but Los Angeles has long been home to a plethora of the Light and Space artist's signature Skyspace works, which are installed in the backyards of countless SoCal collectors. "It has to be watched as one would a movie or a TV show," collector Jarl Mohn says of his Turrell Skyspace, which doubles as a home theater. "One can't just look at it for 10 seconds and get it at all. ... Part of the joy of sharing the work is to notice that people talk a lot for the first 10 minutes, then quiet a bit with some talking. By the last 15 minutes almost no one speaks. ... And it's done with no sound, no words, no text and no images. Just light." [LAWeekly]

– Tate Keeps Constable in the U.K.: Thanks to a successful £23.1-million fundraising campaign, Tate has acquired John Constable's "Salisbury Cathedral form the Water Meadows," ensuring that the beloved landscape painting with its cheerful rainbow will remain in the U.K. It had hung in London's National Gallery for decades on long-term loan from the descendants of Lord Ashton of Hyde, who bought it in 1850, until they opted to sell in 2008. "It is unimaginable that this particular painting could have ended up anywhere except a British public collection," said Jenny Abramsky, chair of Heritage Lottery Fund, whose £15-million grant helped secure the purchase. [Guardian]

– China's Museum Boom Means Empty Institutions: Though an average of 100 museums are opening every year in China — including almost 400 at the boom's peak in 2011 — museum attendance isn't keeping pace. "New York City and Paris are financial centers. They are also indisputably cultural centers of the world," Teng Junjie, artistic director of Shanghai's Administration of Culture, Radio, Film, and TV, said. "Shanghai is now in that process but hasn't yet reached that level." Others are less optimistic. "They might have a grand opening or a press conference with great photographs and government officials," said Jeffrey Johnson, who runs Columbia University's China Megacities Lab, "but if you return to this museum, which officially has been open for three months, it... might be closed and locked." [NPR]

– Cahiers d'Art Republishing Picasso Catalogue: Paris-based art magazine and book publisher Cahiers d'Art plans to republish the revered "Zervos Picasso Catalogue," a 33-volume, 16,000-work catalogue raisonné of Pablo Picasso's output that Cahiers founder Christian Zervos began publishing in 1932. English and French versions of the new edition of the "Zervos Picasso Catalogue" will be available exclusively through Sotheby's. "Christian Zervos dedicated his life to Picasso, and it is our great honor to continue the Zervos/Picasso story and legacy. I think it is essential for the Zervos to be back in print and available to collectors, scholars and the trade," said Cahiers d'Art owner Staffan Ahrenberg. [Press Release]

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Tehching Hsieh's "One Year Performance" (1980-1981)

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Botero, Murakami, Others at Art Basel in Hong Kong's VIP Kickoff

Tim Cheung — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:37:04 +0000

Botero, Murakami, Others at Art Basel in Hong Kong's VIP Kickoff

Published: May 23, 2013

HONG KONG – From high-profile patrons of the arts to local celebrities and politicians, the VIP vernissage for Art Basel in Hong Kong on Wednesday received its fair share of red carpet action. Affable Colombian painting maestro Fernando Botero held court at a free-wheeling book-signing session in the afternoon, while Japanese artist Takashi Murakami dropped into the fair for a surprise visit. Meanwhile, there was no shortage of local artists and collector-socialites who were seen in the exhibition halls.

Click on the slideshow to see photos of figures from the VIP vernissage of Art Basel in Hong Kong.