Author: Artomity Magazine

Jeremy Denk

Notes of Profundity / Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, University of Hong Kong / Hong Kong / Jun 1, 2018 / Ernest Wan / American pianist Jeremy Denk’s debut recital in the city, presented by the University of Hong Kong’s Cultural Management Office, is one of those unusual cases where a classical concert is given a title that is not merely a factual description of the programme, pressing certain preconceptions of the music on the audience rather than just letting them make their own minds up as they listen. One can try in vain to find out from the programme notes what this recital’s title, Notes of Profundity, is intended to bring to mind. The words “deep”, “deeper”, “deepest”, “depth”, “profundity” and “profundities” appear nearly 30 times yet remain unexplained, as if we all already had an idea, and even agreed on, what musical or aesthetic “depth” is all about. Such an unhelpful attempt to sound profound is especially unfortunate as it must be anathema to Denk, a widely admired writer on music known for his lucid, engaging prose that deftly demystifies his subjects. Much of …

Hank Willis Thomas

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My Life is OursBen Brown Fine ArtsHong KongSep 20 – Oct 27, 2018Valencia Tong American conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas is known for examining issues of identity, race, intolerance and protest. For his first solo exhibition in Asia, at Ben Brown Fine Arts, he reinterpreted archival photographs he found of protests in Hong Kong and mainland China from past and present to highlight theuniversality of recurring themes of oppression across history. The artist also explores the notions of materiality and audience engagement, deliberately screen-printing the images onto retroreflective sheeting, which is usually used to make road signs visible in the dark. On top of that, painterly brushstrokes sit on the outermost layer, giving it the illusion of abstraction. It is only when the images are manually activated by light, such as a camera flash or a torch, that the full details of the historical images come to view. Since the appearance of the works keeps changing, mirroring the constant state of sociopolitical flux in the world at large, the viewer is literally and metaphorically invited to look closer and dig deeper, beyond what is …

Asia Art Archive Annual Fundraiser Auction

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Please join our fundraiser by bidding at http://www.aaa2018auction. Give a loving home to one—or more—of 76 pieces very generously donated by artists, galleries, and collectors. You can bid on online only lots until about 11pm HKT on 3 November. Please contact Crystal Li at crystal@aaa.org.hk by noon (2 November) if you wish to bid by telephone or place an absentee bid for live auction lots. This year’s fundraiser includes artworks by Louise Bourgeois, Carol Bove, Luis Chan, Fung Ming Chip, Antony Gormley, Amar Kanwar, Ko Sin Tung, Liu Ye, Yurie Nagashima, Catherine Opie, Sopheap Pich, Qiu Deshu, Angela Su, Wang Chuan, Samson Young, Zhang Huan, and more.

Fictioning as Method: Constructing Mythologies and The Other Story

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By Christie Lee As Simon O’Sullivan says in Myth-Science and the Fictioning of Reality, the power and function of contemporary art have always been in summoning forth the thing that has “yet-to-come”. In an era of post-truth and alternative facts, when it appears increasingly difficult to sift through deluge of materials on social media and arrive at the truth, and when reality has become stranger than fiction, where does that leave contemporary art? Two recent Hong Kong shows, Constructing Mythologies at Edouard Malingue Gallery and The Other Story at Karin Weber Gallery, might provide some clues. At first glance, the two shows seem to take different approaches – curated by Caroline Ha Thuc, Constructing Mythologies tells of the myths, be it from folklore or constructed by official authorities, that penetrate Southeast Asia, while Ying Kwok’s The Other Story asks that we ignore the fictitious aspect of art for a moment to focus on the process of art-making. But both shows bring to the fore the importance of fictioning, the idea of venturing beyond oneself into the unknown. Upon entering Constructing Mythologies, viewers …

Kader Attia at Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong

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Héroes Heridos November 1 – December 22 Lehmann Maupin will present Kader Attia’s first exhibition in Hong Kong, showcasing recent works on canvas, collage, sculpture, and his film Héroes Heridos (2018), which debuted at the Miró Foundation in Barcelona this summer. In 2017, Attia was awarded the prestigious Joan Miró Prize, preceding his exhibition Scars Remind Us that Our Past Is Real at the foundation. That exhibition, along with this one at Lehmann Maupin, both embody Attia’s career-spanning examination of the notion of repair as a global, cultural phenomenon in response to historic, collective trauma. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, November 1, at the Pedder Building, from 6 to 8pm. 407 Pedder Building 12 Pedder Street, Central T (852) 2530 0025 Tu-Fr 10am to 7pm, Sa 11am to 7pm Image: Mirrors by Kader Attia, Canvas and thread, 30.2 x 24.1 cm, 2014. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul.

Robert Rauschenberg

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Vydocks Pace Gallery Hong Kong Sep 19 – Nov 2 Diana d’Arenberg Parmanand The “enfant terrible of the New York school”, as poet Frank O’Hara dubbed Robert Rauschenberg, reshaped 20th-century American art and left behind a boundary-breaking body of work characterised by experimentation and unorthodox use of different media. His early works, made in the 1950s and 60s, featured composites of found objects – bottles, a taxidermy goat head, newspapers, chairs, rubber tyres, photographs – and painting; Rauschenberg referred to them as “combines”. The Vydocks series, created in 1995, are essentially a two-dimensional continuation of the composites of found objects for which the artist was known. The lastseries in which Rauschenberg incorporated silk-screening before shifting into digital processing, the works are a rendezvous of diverse media, a synthesis of painting, photography and drawing. Pace Gallery Hong Kong features eight out of 13 identically sized white sheets of bonded aluminium works – the remainder are still held by the Rauschenberg foundation – sized to human scale so the panels are the height and width of a person’s reach, and the viewer can figuratively get into the paintings. The verticality of …

Microwave International New Media Arts Festival 2018 – Much Ado About Everything

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October 26 – November 11, 2018 With the theme of Cyberia, the 2017 festival presented a series of media art works, performances and programmes to the general public that tried to redefine the notion of “live”. We questioned the concept in the context of people’s reactions to social media and live streaming, asking what’s next when technology has granted everyone the right on broadcast in real time. With so much enthusiastic participation next year, it posed the question of how to progress further. We know that technology has changed the way we live, behave and believe; we now have Uber, Airbnb, couchsurfing,blockchain, the development of artificial intelligence and other world-changing technologies. The main exhibition of the 2018 festival at Hong Kong City Hall, Much Ado About Everything, will showcase a series of art works made using technologies including artificial intelligence, data visualisation, immersive media, machine learning, blockchain technology, 3D printing. Another festival highlight will be our non-traditional conference, known as Unconference, at the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Center at the City University of Hong Kong in Kowloon Tong …

2018 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair

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November 8–11, 2018 Collectors Preview: November 8–9, invitation only Public Days: November 10–11, 11am–6pm ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair will return to the Shanghai Exhibition Centre for its sixth annual edition from Thursday, November 8 to Sunday, November 11, 2018. 103 premier galleries from 30 cities spanning 18 countries will participate in the sixth edition–marking the broadest geographical range of galleries ever presented by the art fair–and will present an array of contemporary art by both established and emerging artists. 2018 ART021 includes 5 sections: MAIN GALLERIES, the primary section of the show, will feature 78 exhibitors specialising in contemporary art. 15 galleries will participate in ART021 for the first time this year, including: Ceysson & Bénétière ; DAG (New Delhi); Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (New York); kamel mennour (Paris); KASMIN Gallery (New York); kurimanzutto (Mexico City); Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery (Hong Kong); Liang Project Co Space (Shanghai); Nukaga Gallery (Tokyo); Pilar Corrias (London); Sies + Höke (Düsseldorf); Shixiang Space (Beijing); Szydłowski Galeria (Warsaw); The Third Line (Dubai); and Yavuz Gallery (Singapore). APPROACH invites participating galleries to present either a solo or a group show organized around a curatorial theme, featuring no more than three artists. BEYOND is a platform for large paintings, sculpture and installation works, located in the public …

Hong Kong International Black Box Festival – Don’t miss this month’s exciting performances and workshops

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Five Easy Pieces: A provocative, groundbreaking performance that probes the limits of what children know, feel and do Five Easy Piecesby Milo Rau/International Institute of Political Murder/CAMPO (Switzerland/Germany/Belgium). Photo: Phile Deprez. Wednesday to Friday, 31 October – 2 November 2018, 8:00pm Saturday, 3 November 2018, 3pm Hong Kong Arts Centre Shouson Theatre 2 Harbour Road Wan Chai, Hong Kong $380, $280, $200 Tickets now available at URBTIX Half price for senior citizens aged 60 or above and full-time students, as well as people with disabilities and their accompanying minders. Five Easy Pieces, an award winning play from Belgium by Milo Rau, the International Institute of Political Murder and CAMPO, is a profound, confrontational experience that blends realism and brutality. In five simple exercises, short scenes and monologues, seven young actors re-enact scenes based on the life of the Belgium’s most notorious criminal, child killer Marc Dutroux. At times funny, at times deeply disturbing, these scenes unfold against a projected backdrop of moments from Belgium’s history, from Congo’s declaration of …

Sara Tse

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Re Visit Tai Kwun Hong Kong Jun 8 – Jul 8 Christine Chan Chiu Touch Ceramics, in Hong Kong’s newest centre for heritage and arts, Tai Kwun, kicked off with an inaugural show of Sara Tse’s newest works. An artist long fascinated by the transience of time and the impermanence of life, Tse is known as much for her tactile abilities in modelling and manipulating clay as for the sentimental content of her pieces. The exhibition was not only a tribute to technique and craftsmanship but also a timely throwback to things past. Tse discovered her signature method by chance, when the cloth used to clean her ceramic work table had hardened along with the clay. Experimenting by heating up the cloth, she discovered that while the cloth itself had been incinerated, what remained after the process was the exact replica of the cloth, but in porcelain, creating something that will last forever. Tse applies this method faithfully to her latest works, where she has turned her attention to cartography to highlight how Hong Kong …