Month: October 2023

Julie Curtiss 朱莉·柯蒂斯

Hair, both beautiful and abject, ornamental and beastly, is a semiotic system that holds a powerful attraction for French-born, Florida-based artist Julie Curtiss. Born and raised in Paris, Curtiss studied at l’École des Beaux-Arts and then at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden before making her way to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Arguably, the Chicago imagists of her alma mater, like Christina Ramberg – to whose work Curtiss’ is often compared – and her years working as a studio assistant to both Jeff Koons and Brian Donnelly (aka KAWS) have informed Curtiss’ aesthetic, with its vibrant colours, cartoonish figuration and smooth, skilfully rendered lines. It’s a highly stylised visual language that helped her work get noticed on Instagram and reach stratospheric heights of success in the art world. But unlike Kaws’ Happy Meal cartoons and figurines, Curtiss’ work is personal, a deep dive into the female psyche and femininity through Jungian archetypes. Bitter Apples, Curtiss’ first exhibition at White Cube Hong Kong, brings together works across varied media, including …

Andrew Eldon at Blue Lotus Gallery

Published by Artomity Magazine

Andrew Eldon /Tribe / Oct 27 – Nov 12, 2023 /Artist talk: Saturday, Nov 4, 11am – 12.30pm / Blue Lotus Gallery G/F, 28 Pound LaneSheung Wan, Hong Kong +852 5590 3229 Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm bluelotus–gallery.com The gallery is pleased to present an intimate photographic exhibition by Andrew Eldon titled Tribe. This thought-provoking series offers a rare glimpse into the world of the Suri, a semi-nomadic tribe inhabiting the remote Omo Valley of Ethiopia. Through vivid portraits and cultural scenes, Eldon’s lens captures the grace and splendor of Suri life and traditions before they are irrevocably altered by modernisation. His images reveal the tribe’s distinctive practices of body modification and adornment. Women wear large clay lip plates and both men and women engage in ritual body scarring—testaments to the Suri’s unique concepts of beauty and identity. Eldon’s photographs also unveil the Suri’s elaborate floral headdresses and face painting, artful preparations usually reserved for special occasions. Beyond aesthetics, the exhibition invites viewers to understand the daily rhythms and values of Suri life. Their semi-nomadic pastoral existence revolves around …

Maria Hassabi at Tai Kwun Contemporary

Published by Artomity Magazine

Maria Hassabi: I’ll Be Your Mirror /Oct 13 – Nov 26, 2023 / JC ContemporaryTai Kwun10 Hollywood Road Central, Hong KongTue – Sun, 11am – 7pm taikwun.hk One of the leading figures of live art, the artist and choreographer Maria Hassabi (b. Cyprus) has long pioneered live installations which explore the relations that the human figure has with the still image and the sculptural object, while disrupting our sense of time. Her works bring the performing body into museums, theatres, and public spaces, shifting the boundaries between visitors and performers, subjects and objects. I’ll Be Your Mirror is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Asia, bringing together her practice of choreography, sound, sculpture, photography and painting, in two connected live installations. In this exhibition, Hassabi uses her signature choreographic style, defined by sculptural physicality, stillness, and quietness, to confront the notion of one’s own image through a gold scheme of reflections. Proposing an alternative to the way we perceive ourselves and those around us, she invites viewers to question the fluidity of an image, one that is similar to …

Frank Walter

Published by Brady Ng

Pastorale / David Zwirner / Hong Kong / Sep 14 – Oct 28, 2023 / When Frank Walter was born in Antigua in 1926, the British had freed slaves on the island roughly 90 years before. Yet the wounds of humans owning humans had merely been scabbed over; the aches were persistent. Children and grandchildren of former slaves were part of a system of labour that still rhymed with the treatment of their forebears. Case in point: 22 years later, Walter was the first black man to become a manager at the Antiguan Sugar Syndicate. He wanted to improve the industry and give his fellow Antiguans fair pay and better working conditions. It was not a smooth path, but Walter did everything he could to make his homeland a better place, including tolerating the bigotry of racial prejudice in England, Scotland and Germany when he sought to learn new ways to farm. It’s easy to imagine that, upon returning to Antigua, Walter’s act of putting that knowledge into practice picked at those wounds. How do …

Hong Kong’s Forgotten Masters at Ping Pong Gintonería

Published by Artomity Magazine

Antonio Casadei, Brian Brake, Cheung Yee, Douglas Bland, Arthur Hacker, King of Kowloon (Tsang Tsou Choi), Luis Chan, Antonio Mak Hin-yeung, Yau Leung / Oct 13, 2023 – Jan 28, 2024 / Ping Pong Gintonería 129 Second StreetL/G Nam Cheong House Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong +852 9035 6197 Tuesday – Sunday, 6pm – 10pm pingpong129art.com Hong Kong’s Forgotten Masters focuses on the critical contributions of departed artists who had a significant influence on Hong Kong’s art scene from the 1960s to 90s, featuring an enriching collection of over 20 paintings and sculptures. Additionally, it will provide a thoughtful compilation of archival material, casting a retrospective lens on an era of Hong Kong’s art history that was more subdued, in contrast to the vibrant, bustling scene of the present day. Amid Hong Kong’s once dormant art ecology, these largely overlooked artists thrived in a time of minimal cultural infrastructure and scarce patronage. Their struggle took place in a markedly different Hong Kong, devoid of the rich private and public support we see for artists today. Their work bears testament to their resilience in …

Welcome >_< Take a Seat Wherever (cringevibing on a downward spiral)歡迎光臨矛盾漩渦 >_<

Published by Artomity Magazine

Various artists / Tomorrow Maybe at Eaton / Hong Kong / Aug 13 – Sept 3, 2023 / Ilaria Maria Sala / As you enter the exhibition space on the fourth floor of the Eaton Hotel, you are greeted by a small print of an image macro, a digital picture with text superimposed, hanging from the roof, attached with string and clips. It features an image of a manga girl sitting on a messy bed with her legs bent against her chest, provocatively showing the back of her upper thighs, left uncovered by her pink miniskirt – coordinating with her pink baby shoes – her mouth hiding behind a mobile phone. The floor is strewn with all sorts of items: shopping bags and takeaway containers, bits of paper and other undecipherable debris. On top is the sentence that gives the show part of its title: “Welcome >_< take a seat wherever” (not that there is anywhere to sit in this rubbish-piled room). Internet neologisms, and neologisms from internet neologisms – like the cringevibing of the show’s title – …