After decades of being overlooked, it’s fair to say that 73-year-old American artist McArthur Binion is having a moment. With a spate of recent exhibitions, notably his inclusion in the 2017 Venice Biennale Viva Arte Viva and a 2018 solo exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Detroit, this past month the artist has also celebrated the opening of several … Continue reading
Previous years have seen Belgian collector, art and antiquities dealer, gallerist and celebrated designer, Axel Vervoordt, stage some of the most beautiful exhibitions during the Venice Biennale at the Palazzo Fortuny. Filled with works from his collection –– paintings by Gutai and Dansaekwa masters Kazuo Shiraga and Yun Hyong-Keun, Ghanaian artist El Anatsui, as well … Continue reading
Shanghai-born artist Chen Danqing was only 14 when he started painting Mao propaganda posters in the 1970s. “I painted more than 100 portraits of Chairman Mao on the street walls in Shanghai and its suburbs and also on factory iron sheets,” he says. “During that time, there were millions of amateur and professional painters in … Continue reading
The Violence of Gender: Performing Society, at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts, Hong Kong In the wake of the #metoo movement, where power, activism, feminism and gender collide, a new exhibition at Tai Kwun Contemporary at Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and the Arts proposes to look at … Continue reading
Contagious Cities: Faraway Too Close 26 January – 21 April, 2019 Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong In 2003, the SARS outbreak led to a shutdown of Hong Kong. The virus infected 1,755 people in the city, killing 299. Fear of the epidemic led many, mainly expats, to flee. Those who didn’t leave avoided public spaces. A … Continue reading
If with the advent of Artificial Intelligence, and the concomitant displacement of jobs that ensues, only those servicing the über wealthy will remain employed, then it would appear that the art world, with its numerous advisors, dealers, collection managers and specialists catering to wealthy collectors––minted by the minute like Zimbabwean currency––should be just fine. It … Continue reading
A charred and reflective post-apocalyptic scene looms large in the entrance to Qiao Space in Shanghai. On a sheet of mirror, a cone-shaped architectural structure is etched on the surface, referencing Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Tower of Babel (1563), rising like a utopian Brigadoon out of the ashes of a scorched recomposed landscape. Pieced … Continue reading
