Press Release
Vincent Leong
Keeping Up With the Abdullahs 1, 2012
Digital chromogenic print in artist’s frame, 65 x 99 cm, edition 2/8
EXHIBITION: No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia
VENUE: Asia Society Hong Kong Center
LOCATION: 9 Justice Drive Admiralty Hong Kong
DATES: October 30, 2013——February 16,2014
MEDIA PREVIEW: Monday, October 28, 2013, 14:30
The Asia Society Hong Kong Center will present No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia, the inaugural touring exhibition of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, from October 30, 2013, to February 16, 2014. Featuring recent work by 13 artists from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, No Country presents some of the most compelling and innovative voices in South and Southeast Asia today. The exhibition was first seen in New York at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (February 22–May 22, 2013) as part of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, a multi-year collaboration that charts contemporary art practice in three geographic regions—South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa—and encompasses curatorial residencies, international touring exhibitions, audience-driven educational programming, and acquisitions for the Guggenheim’s permanent collection. All works have been newly acquired for the Guggenheim’s collection under the auspices of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Purchase Fund. Following its presentation in Hong Kong, the exhibition will travel to Singapore.
Tayeba Begum Lipi
Love Bed, 2012
Stainless steel, 81.3 x 213.7 x 185.4 cm
No Country: Contemporary Art for South and Southeast Asia was curated by June Yap, Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, South and Southeast Asia, with assistance from Helen Hsu, Assistant Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and guidance from Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Nancy Spector, Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, and Joan Young, Director of Curatorial Affairs, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, are providing curatorial oversight for the entire multi-year Initiative. Dominique Chan, Exhibition Curator, and Sharon Chan, Curatorial Officer, Asia Society Hong Kong Center will work closely with June Yap and the Guggenheim curatorial team in staging the exhibition in Hong Kong.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
The Treachery of the Moon, 2012
Color video, with sound, 12 min., 37 sec., edition 1/7
Drawn from the opening line in W.B. Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium” (1928), which was later adopted by Cormac McCarthy for his novel No Country for Old Men (2005), the exhibition title No Country evokes the concept of a culture without borders. Investigating the diversity of contemporary artistic practice in South and Southeast Asia through the work of a cross-generational selection of artists and in the context of the region’s historically-shifting borders, the exhibition traces the complex relationships and cultural influences that connect the area’s people to each other and the rest of the world. Among the works’ themes are: concepts of nation, identity, and religion; cross-cultural encounters and negotiation; and historical interpretation and narrative.

Of the works chosen for the exhibition, Yap notes: “There is a tremendous diversity of artistic practice in South and Southeast Asia, and certainly more artists and artworks than any single project can accommodate. In this exhibition, the intention is both to present the range of aesthetic developments and subjects of interest to contemporary artists, and simultaneously challenge the privileging of nation and national narrative as the basis for understanding aesthetic practices from different countries. The hope is that these artworks will contribute to a deeper and more critical understanding of the region, both for audiences in the United States and those in Asia. Accompanied by programs for engagement with different local and international audiences, No Country is more than an exhibition alone, it is a platform for discussion and exchange, and for the undoing of barriers to mutual understanding.”
