Summer holidays are over! That means, thankfully, an end to the summer filler group shows at galleries and the beginning of a new art season.

In the next two weeks, corks will be a-popping throughout Hong Kong’s galleries, and dodgy red wine galore will be spilled down shirt fronts aplenty as new and exciting solo shows open. Aside from newly tanned gallerina legs and cleavages, here’s what else will be on show in the Hong Kong art world.

Bernard Frize recently kicked off another Hong Kong solo exhibition, following on from his Simon Lee Gallery show earlier this year, this time at Galerie Perrotin. ‘On the Side Where There Is No Handrail’ brings together eight never-before-seen abstract paintings of different series.

Frize creates his hypnotic paintings from a process of adding layers of colour and scraping back paint in one fluid movement, resulting in works that are alive and pulsing with gesture and movement. The layering of translucent colour results in several works (like ‘Ploria, above) with a wonderful jewel-like quality to them, resembling beautiful sliced polished geodes.

Galerie Perrotin
50 Connaught Road, Central, 17th Floor
T: +852 3758 2180
Exhibition dates: 29 August – 28 September 2013

Teresita Fernández’s first solo show in China at Lehmann Maupin Hong Kong features large-scale new works which explore traditional landscape painting and the cultural significance of gold. Inspired by landscape and natural phenomena, as well as diverse historical and cultural references, Fernández’ works demonstrate her remarkable ability to transform a multitude of materials and the surrounding architecture into unique perceptual experiences.

New drawings made with Indian ink on reflective chromed metal from her series ‘Golden’, as well as a group of wall pieces comprised of hundreds of small convex glass mirrors and polished black gemstones, will be on show.

Lehmann Maupin
407 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder St, Central
T: +852 2530 0025
Exhibition dates: 13 September- 9 November

At Gagosian, Florian Maier-Aichen will also present his first solo exhibition in the city. A photographer schooled on both sides of the Atlantic, Maier-Aichen’s work reflects on the dual influences of the history of photography and the history of painting, whether drawing on such dichotomies as German Romantic painting and the pioneers of German Objective photography, or applying his post-factum experience of American frontier art to his own topographical depictions of landscape subjects.

Gagosian
7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder St, Central
T: +852 2151 0555
Exhibition dates: 14 September- 26 October

White Cube will show new works by Chicago-born artist and social activist, Theaster Gates, in an exhibition titled ‘My Back, My Wheel and My Will’. This will be part of two exhibitions by Gates, running concurrently at the White Cube Hong Kong and White Cube São Paolo galleries.

Gates’ work, which attempts to catalyse social and economic change through direct artistic agency, bridges the gap between art and life. These exhibitions aim to connect two sites, two cities and two continents through a series of artworks that reflect on the poetics of repurposed and salvaged materials. The work in both exhibitions, which includes installation, sculpture and two-dimensional objects, will bring together artworks and materials gathered from Gates’ earlier project entitled 12 Ballads for Huguenot House, realised for dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany in 2012.
Very excited about this one!

White Cube
50 Connaught Road Central, Central
T: +852 2592 2000
Exhibition dates: 13 September- 2 November

Renowned American conceptual artist, Jenny Holzer, presents her solo show of LED works at Pearl Lam Galleries. The centerpiece of the exhibition,’Light Stream’ (2013), is Holzer’s largest gallery installation to date comprising of over 25 LED elements with a selection of phrases from Holzer’s historic series, ‘Truisms’ (1977-79), ‘Living’ (1980-82) and ‘Survival’ (1983-85). Shown for the first time in Chinese as well as English, it will bring to fruition the artist’s long-time desire to produce a swarming mass of texts in one work. Shown alongside the LED works Holzer will present a new series of white marble benches, carved with short poignant statements in Chinese such as ‘MONEY CREATES TASTE’ and ‘DON’T PLACE TOO MUCH TRUST IN EXPERTS’. Indeed.

Peal Lam Galleries
601-605 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central
T: +852 2522 1428
Exhibition dates: 19 September – 2 November 2013.

After a brief hiatus, Sundaram Tagore Gallery will reopen this month newly renovated to coincide with the gallery’s fifth anniversary in Hong Kong. The gallery will launch the autumn art season with a dual exhibition of works by Israeli-American painter and sculptor Nathan Slate Joseph and American sound installation artist Taylor Kuffner. Joseph is noted for his vividly coloured pure pigment on steel paintings, addressing issues of globalization and the environment. Kuffner creates original compositions using Balinese gamelans and robotic technology which result in an all-encompassing meditative and magical experience.

Sundaram Tagore Gallery
57-59 Hollywood Road, Central
T: +852 2581 9678
Exhibition dates: 26 September – 2 November