Furthermore, Saha World Music Group has created a medley, titled “Phantasmapolis,” for the Biennial, interweaving music and melodies to present the diversely cultural vision represented by Taiwan and demonstrating a fresh music style that surpasses national borders and time in world music. Betty Apple’s performance combines sound art and performance art to convey a free attitude of the future and a uniquely undefinable presence. Through splendidly diverse world music and a future party that surpasses imagination, the 2021 Asian Art Biennial opens the gate to Phantasmapolis and invites all citizens to enter this city state and step into the future.

Asian Art Biennale 2021 exhibition view

Highlights of Phantasmapolis: The Transnational Curatorial Team X New Visions of Asian Contemporary Art Creation X Multiple Forms of Extended Projects

This edition of the Biennial is curated by a multinational, interdisciplinary curatorial team headed by Takamori Nobuo with Hou Yu-Kuan, Filipino curator Tessa Maria Guazon, Indian curator Anushka Rajendran, and Thai curator Thanavi Chotpradit. Through the transnational collaboration of emerging Asian curators and with 38 artists and art groups from a total of 15 countries, the Biennial unveils a diverse range of creative perspectives and viewpoints that collectively construct an imaginative city state closest to the future.

Exhibition view, 2021 Asian Art Biennale

The exhibition of this year’s Biennial draws inspiration from Taiwanese architect Wang Dahong’s sci-fi novel, Phantasmagoria, based on which the curatorial team proposes the theme of “Phantasmapolis” and utilizes “Asian futurism” and “Asian sci-fi culture” as the main concepts to explore the importance of sci-fi in the Asian context. The exhibition showcases a total of 417 works, among which 28 are newly created and envelopes an interdisciplinary range of creative diversity that crosses various media, including two-dimensional painting, video art, large-scale installation, architectural project and literature.

To respond to this curatorial theme, the exhibition team has specially designed an imagery of “spacecraft gates,” using light, color and arrangement of traffic route to craft a serene, futuristic atmosphere. As every visitor entering the city state walks through the gates of different exhibition gallery rooms, they become the protagonist of Phantasmagoria by Wang Dahong – Prince Dino in his space drift in the year of 3069 – and tour this unknown city state interwoven with reality and fiction.

Taiwanese artist Joyce Ho brings her new project, entitled DOTS, for the Biennial and creates a distinctive landscape in the city state. Observing the pandemic, the artist re-designs the temporary body temperature check point and the real name registration facility in the museum lobby. By converting them into an entry gateway that resembles a “quarantine lobby,” which not only continues the artist’s creative context but also responds to a future world that has seemingly arrived, the artist provides the audience with a unique pseudo experience of traveling abroad and “arriving” in a future city.

Exhibition view, 2021 Asian Art Biennale

Bakudapan is a food study group from Indonesia with members from different fields and disciplines. Their project, The Hunger Tales, explores political relations involving food crises and re-examines social situations from the production to the distribution of food. Bakudapan transforms the process of studying and thinking about resource shortage into a table game, in which players can play roles like farmers, wholesalers or the mayor. By experiencing the process of circulating and plundering food, players are encouraged to further reflect on the suppression and exploitation of food providers in the overall food supply chain. Using “game-based learning,” the project extends the depth of related issues. Players of all ages are welcome to experience this limited edition of a table game from the future world.

In addition to numerous new works from Taiwanese and foreign artists, audiences will also have a chance to see the classic works of established Taiwanese artists, such as Yuyu Yang, Liu Kuo-sung, Wang Dahong and Cheng Mei while glimpsing into the context of sci-fi text in Taiwanese art history through the works of Shu Lea Cheang, Wang Jun-Jieh, Hung Tung-Lu and many more artists.

Exhibition view, 2021 Asian Art Biennale

In addition, the curatorial team also transcends the form of one single exhibition to extend the exhibition concept to various projects, including the “Archive and Research Project,” the “Video Art Project” and the “Forum and Reader Project,” attempting to reflect on the possibility of Asian futurism based on varied specimens of architecture, archives, texts and videos from different Asian regions. Filipino curator Tessa Maria Guazon and Taiwanese researcher I Chun (Nicole) WANG are also invited to respectively tease out and present the archives from the Philippines and Asian sci-fi queer archives. The video art project, “Phantasmapolis: Looking Back into the Future,” is curated by Indian curator Anushka Rajendran and features 15 important video artists from 13 countries in Asia and North America, utilizing video works of divergent style to showcase the future look of Asian contemporary video art.

The “Archive and Research Project” comprises the first-wave event, the “Songs from the Moon Rabbit—The 2021 Asian Art Biennial Forum,” which will run from October 30 to 31 and the bilingual essay collection, entitled The Midnight Sun and the Owl—Reader of 2021 Asian Art Biennial, supported by Winsing Art Foundation to engage visitors in unfolding unlimited imagination of the future through reading. Curated by Thai curator Thanavi Chotpradit, the forum and the essay collection invite the curatorial team, Taiwanese and foreign scholars as well as the participating artists to explore together issues of various aspects, ranging from sci-fi space, ecology and architectural environment, natural phenomena and so on to expand the cultural horizon of Asian diversity.

Connecting with Phantasmapolis: A Satellite Exhibition X A Satellite Event X Promotional Activities to Release the Biennial’s Fresh Energy

To expand the exhibition site of the NTMoFA and cultivate the public’s attention to and vision of the Asian region, the Biennial especially co-organizes a satellite exhibition with the Ministry of Culture’s Mongolian and Tibetan Cultural Center and co-organizes a satellite event with the Digital Art Center, Taipei (DAC). As a special topic of the 2021 Asian Art Biennial, both events further extend the discourses about Asia to Mongolia and Central Asia while broadening the aspects of gender and digital technology issues to render the interdisciplinary perspective of the exhibition richer and fuller. The brilliant exhibition and event will be staged in the spring of 2022. During the length of the Biennial, a series of activities will be presented, including film screenings, guided tours, educational outreach programs for parents and children and for cultural accessibility, to expand public participation and demonstrate the new energy of pluralistic inclusiveness and the interdisciplinary practice of this future city state.

Opening of the 2021 Asian Art Biennale

The NTMoFA director Liang Yung-Fei states that, “through the transnational, interdisciplinary curatorial team, the Biennial successfully displays a new curatorial mode based on transnational connection and collaboration. In the post-pandemic era, the Biennial offers audiences new possibilities of imagining the future and unfolds multifaceted thinking of Asian sci-fi and future through its theme, the diversified curatorial perspectives and the participation of artists from different parts of the Asian region. The NTMoFA will continue to organize the Asian Art Biennial to expand the multilayered and interdisciplinary dialogue of culture and art with contemporary art.”

Phantasmapolis—2021 Asian Art Biennial will run from October 30, 2021 to March 6, 2022. For more information about the activities and events in Phantasmapolis, please follow the updates announced on the official websites and Facebook pages of the NTMoFA and the Asian Art Biennial.

Exhibition view, 2021 Asian Art Biennale

Phantasmapolis – Exhibition Video Online Platform:

The NTMoFA YouTube: https://reurl.cc/NZQYnq
The Asian Art Biennial Facebook Page: https://fb.watch/8vFuY_ybHE/

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA)

Web: https://www.ntmofa.gov.tw/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ntmofa
Asian Art Biennial Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aabntmofa

Exhibition Coordinators: Lin Hsiao-Yu, Liao Chia-Cheng  Tel: (04)23723552 #304、701

Media Contact: Yan Bi-Mei  Tel: (04)23723552 #123

Dates

Dates: 2021.10.30 to 2022.03.06

Opening Hours

To cope with the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the museum opening hours have been adjusted to Tuesdays to Sundays, from 09:00 to 17:00 (closed on Mondays).

Since August 24 (Tues.), 2021 onward, visitors with reservations will be prioritized for admission (the maximum for group reservation is 80 people). A system of entry times with limited number of visitors is implemented. Each entry time for visitors with reservations is 2 hours. Flexible admission of visitors without reservations will depend on the number of visitors in the museum.

Full list of the 38 participating artists/artist groups

(listed according to alphabetical order of last name)

Catalina Africa (The Philippines)

Bakudapan Food Study Group (Indonesia)

Bang & Lee (South Korea)

Shu Lea Cheang (Taiwan)

CHEN Chen Yu (Taiwan)

CHEN Chun Yu (Taiwan)

Genevieve CHUA (Singapore)

Sharbendu De (India)

Mattie Do (Laos)

GAN Siong King (Malaysia)

HE Kunlin (China)

HIRATA Minoru (Japan)

Joyce HO (Taiwan)

HUNG Tung Lu (Taiwan)

ISOMURA Dan + UNNO Rintaro (Japan)

KIM Ayoung (South Korea)

KIMURA Tsunehisa (Japan)

LÊ Giang (Vietnam)

LEE Yung Chih (Taiwan)

LI Yi Fan (Taiwan)

LIN Shu Kai (Taiwan)

LIU Kuo-sung (Taiwan)

LIU Yu + WU Sih Chin (Taiwan)

Yuko MOHRI (Japan)

Hootikor (Lama Motis & Cheku Chelagu, Taiwan)

UuDam Tran NGUYEN (Vietnam)

office aaa (Taiwan)

OGINO Shigeji (Japan)

Pad.ma (CAMP & 0×2620, India / Germany)

Monira Al Qadiri (Kuwait)

Mark Salvatus (The Philippines)

Chulayarnnon Siriphol (Thailand)

Lim Sokchanlina (Cambodia)

TAN Zi Hao (Malaysia)

WANG Jun-Jieh (Taiwan)

Yuyu YANG (Taiwan)

Tuguldur Yondonjamts (Mongolia)

Alvin Zafra (The Philippines)

Special projects

Prospecting: Archival documents from the Philippines

Curator: Tessa Maria Guazon

Beyond Time and Sex: An Opsis of Queer Sci-Fi in Asia

Researcher: I Chun (Nicole) WANG

Participating artists:

Shu Lea Cheang, KU Kuang Yi, LIN An Chi (Ciwas Tahos), Thunska Pansittivorakul,

Very Theatre & ActNow Theatre, WU Tzu Ning

This project is co-organized by the Cultural Taiwan Foundation and in partnership with SEA plateaus.

Video Art Project

Phantasmapolis: Looking back to the future

Curator: Anushka Rajendran

Artists:

Abdul Halik Azeez / Sri Lanka

Vibha Galhotra / India

Ayham Jabr / Syria

LI Kuei Pi / Taiwan

Mariah Lookman / Pakistan / UK

Umber Majeed / USA

Tuan Andrew Nguyen / Vietnam

Afrah Shafiq / India

Karan Shrestha / Nepal

Sikarnt Skoolisariyaporn / Thailand

Angela SU / Hong Kong

Natasha Tontey / Indonesia

UTAMURA Hanae / Japan

Paul WONG / Canada

ZHANG XU Zhan / Taiwan

Satelite Events

“Life in-betweens: Mongolia and Central Asia through the Perspective of Contemporary Art” Exhibition

Exhibition Dates: 2022.02.19 (Sat.)~2022.07. 23 (Sat.)

Venue: 1F & 2F, Mongolian and Tibetan Cultural Gallery (No.3, Ln.8, Qingtian St., Da’ an Dist., Taipei City

Curators: Takamori Nobuo, Chen, Hsiang-wen

DAC – “JELLY BABIES feat. Asian Art Biennial Day”

Date: 2022.02.25 (Fri.)~03.06 (Sun.)

Venue: Digital Art Center, Taipei (https://dac.tw/)

Guided Tours

Curator Talks

Speaker: TAKAMORI Nobuo, HO Yu Kuan

Time: 2021.11.06 (Sat.)

2021.12.12 (Sun.)

2022.02.20 (Sun.)

Expert Guided Tours

Speaker: WU Cheng Hsuan, WEI Tze Chun, I Chun (Nicole) WANG, CHEN Hsiang Wen

Sign Language Guided Tour

Time: 2021.11.07 (Sun.)

Audio Description Tours

Time: 2021.11.25 (Thur.)

Learning Programmes

Special Education Resource Program

Time: 2021.11.11 (Thur.)

2021.11.18 (Thur.)

“Creating Future Metropolis” – Parent-Child Creative Activities

Time: 2022.01 ~ 2022.02

* For dates and information of activities and events, please see subsequent announcements on the NTMoFA website.

Jointly sponsored by China Arts and Entertainment Group (CAEG) and Evergrande Tourism Group, organized by China International Exhibition Agency (CIEA) and Ocean Flower Island Museum, co-sponsored by the Co-Innovation Art Creation and Research Center on Silk Road of Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), and with academic support from CAFA, the media briefing for “The Tides of the Century – 2020 · Ocean Flower Island International Art Exhibition”, was held at the CAFA Art Museum on December 22.

View of the Media Briefing

Fan Di’an, Chairman of the China Artists Association, President of CAFA and Chairman of the Exhibition Academic Committee, Li Baozong, General Manager of CAEG, Li Denghai, Vice President of Evergrande Tourism Group and General Manager of Ocean Flower Island Company, Euthumios Athanasiadis, Press and Public Diplomacy Counselor at the Embassy of Greece in China, Zhang Zikang, Director of CAFA Art Museum, Liang Anna, Curator of Evergrande Ocean Flower Island Museum, Liu Zhenlin, Director of CIEA, Sui Jianguo, Artist and Academic Committee Representative, and curators including Wang Chunchen and Yue Jieqiong were in presence.

Fan Di’an, Chairman of the China Artists Association, President of CAFA, delivered a speech.

Li Baozong, General Manager of CAEG, delivered a speech.

Li Denghai, Vice President of Evergrande Tourism Group and General Manager of Ocean Flower Island Company, delivered a speech.

As a large modern marine museum built by Evergrande Group with huge investment, the Ocean Flower Island Museum covers an area of about 74,000m₂, including about 23,000m₂ for gross building area. The museum is composed of eight modern buildings. The inauguration ceremony “The Tides of the Century – 2020 · Ocean Flower Island International Art Exhibition” will be started on February 8, 2021, and the opening ceremony and academic activities will be held in May 2021.

More than 140 works of diversified cultural backgrounds, made by over 80 artists from 23 countries including Greece, France, South Korea, Cameroon, USA, Japan, Thailand, Venezuela, Singapore, Iran, Italy, India, UK, Vietnam, and China, will be displayed during the exhibition.

Wang Chunchen, Vice Director of CAFAM and the Main Curator of this Exhibition, introduced the exhibition.

At the critical moment of global fight against COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide artists have actively responded to the invitations from China. The premium works from all over the world gather at Hainan Ocean Flower Island, expressing the unanimous efforts and wishes for helping each other and fighting against the pandemic.

Xu Bing, Background Story: Thousand Li of River and Mountain,  450x932x30cm,  2014  Provided by the artist studio.

Sui Jianguo, Cloud Garden, Handprint #3, Photopolymer 3D Printing and steel frame, dimensions: 700×300×600cm, 2019 Provided by the artist studio.

Zhang Xiaogang, The Drawer of Time, composite materials: cement slabs, electronic industrial screen, color printing photos, etc., dimensions: 300 x 868 cm (variable as per site), 2018 Provided by the artist studio.

The prestigious artists, such as Tony Cragg (UK), Marc Quinn (UK), Xu Bing, Tatsuo Miyajima (Japan), Leandro Erlich (Argentina), and Loris Cecchini (Italy) will display their works, while Gabriel Dawe (Mexico) and Kedgar Volta (Cuba) will make their debuts in China. And Gabriel Dawe (Mexico) will display his brand new “rainbow” work specially made for the exhibition.

Gabriel Dawe, Exhibition View of Rainbow, Courtesy of the Artist.

In addition, the installation created by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot with Danzhou Diaosheng, one of China’s national intangible cultural heritages, as core elements, will provide groundbreaking local tactile experience for audiences. The artists, including Wang Jianwei, Song Dong, Choi Jeong-Hwa (South Korea), Sinta Tantra (Indonesia), and Liu Jiayu will display their new works for the exhibition.

For the “Youth Resident Artists”, six artists, namely Cai Yaling, Yue Yanna, Li Linlin, Hu Qingyan, Tian Xiaolei, and Li Yuanchen, will perform resident creations by focusing on the Ocean Flower Island Museum to express their thoughts on marine environmental protection, life, consumerism, natural environment, etc.

Greece is the guest-of-honor and a main part for the exhibition. The part is planned and designed by Katerina Koskina, a well-known curator. Her concept is based on the theory of Socratic dialectics, namely the cognition changes of things are generated through three stages: thesis, antithesis and synthesis. This is both the theoretical basis of Greek philosophic thinking and the origin of modern western philosophy, complying with China’s notion of respecting history and the dialectical thought of keeping pace with the times.

Portrait of Katerina Koskina

The Greek guest-of-honor section for the exhibition has obtained substantial support from the Embassy of Greece in China as well as the confirmation from Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China. Important works, created by over 30 Greek artists from the 1970s to present, will be displayed during the exhibition. Many of them are collected by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece and have participated in numerous international exhibitions such as Venice Biennale and Kassel Documenta on behalf of Greece.

As the miniature of Greek contemporary art, the exhibition displays the works of the late artist TAKIS, George ZONGOLOPOULOS, Costas VAROTSOS, Aemilia PAPAPHILIPPOU, and Theo TRIANTAFYLLIDIS, the backbone forces of Greek art as well as the latest highlights of Athens Digital Art Festival. Besides displaying the contemporary art development achievements of Greece in a distinctive and multidimensional manner, the exhibition responds to the dialogues between China and Greece as two civilizations.

Aemilia PAPAPHILIPPOU, Chess Continuum

Costas VAROTSOS, Horizons

Marianna STRAPATSAKI, Invisible Places- The Vast White, 2008

George ZONGOLOPOULOS, Tel-Neant, 1997

Theo TRIANTAFYLLIDIA, Nike, 2018

THEODOULOS, Aftofota—Eterofota, 1996

Planned by Yue Jieqiong, Vice Director of Co-Innovation Art Creation and Research Center on Silk Road of Central Academy of Fine Arts, “An Azure Rendez-vous” section has invited the artists from Venezuela, USA, and Austria. The artists will jointly make an installation on the basis of the blue “seawater” installation made by Lu Yuanzheng, a Chinese artist, to present the concept of a Community of Shared Future for Mankind connected by the oceans.

The Ocean Flower Island Museum is located in Danzhou, the final workplace of Su Dongpo, a famous poet in China, as well as the origin of Hainan’s culture. For this purpose, Xu Jialing, a curator at CIEA, has invited the famous Arabian poet Adonis and seven Chinese poets and artists, Lyu De’an, Che Qianzi, Dai Guangyu, He Canbo, Tian Wei, Jia Qiuyu, and Fu Xiaotong to display their paintings and installations for the event themed by “Oriental Poetics” and respond to the historical context of Su Dongpo by demonstrating the evolution and development of oriental poetics in contemporary works.

The “2020 · Ocean Flower Island International Art Exhibition”, previously scheduled for the end of 2020, has been postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Academic Committee and curators, the exhibition title will remain unchanged even it has been postponed.

Georgios Iliopoulos, Ambassador of Greece to China, delivered a speech via the video.

Liu Zhenlin, Director of CIEA, hosted the media briefing.

Leaders of The Art Department of Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China, the Bureau of International Exchange and Cooperation, CAEG and Evergrande Tourism Group, submitted appointment letters to academic committee representatives and curators (Fan Di’an, Zhang Zikang, Wang Chunchen, Sui Jianguo and Yue Jieqiong).

As Chairman of the Academic Committee for “The Tides of the Century – 2020 · Ocean Flower Island International Art Exhibition”, Fan Di’an has invited 10 experts at home and abroad to be the committee members, including Zhang Zikang, Sui Jianguo, Wang Duanting, Zhu Qingsheng, Adrian George, Caitlin Doherty, Paul Gladston, Nanjo Fumio, Chiba Shigeo, and Tatehata Akira. Wang Chunchen, Vice Director of CAFA Art Museum, acts as the main curator; Dr, Katerina Koskina, former Curator of National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Greece and Culture Counselor of Athens Municipal Government, acts as the curator for the Greek guest-of-honor section; Yue Jieqiong, Vice Director of Co-Innovation Art Creation and Research Center on Silk Road of Central Academy of Fine Arts, and Xu Jialing, a curator at CIEA, are the curators for other sections.

Fan Di’an, Chairman of the China Artists Association, President of CAFA, answered to the reporter’s question.

Li Baozong, General Manager of CAEG, answered to the reporter’s question.

Li Denghai, Vice President of Evergrande Tourism Group and General Manager of Ocean Flower Island Company, answered to the reporter’s question.

Wang Chunchen, Main Curator of this Exhibition, answered to the reporter’s question.

Artist Representative Sui Jianguo answered to the reporter’s question.

About the Exhibition:

Organizational structure:

Academic supporter:

Central Academy of Fine Arts

Sponsors:

China Arts and Entertainment Group, Evergrande Tourism Group

Organizers:

China International Exhibition Agency, Ocean Flower Island Museum

Co-sponsor:

Co-Innovation Art Creation and Research Center on Silk Road of Central Academy of Fine Arts

Chief media supporter:

CAFA ART INFO

Academic Committee:

Chairman: Fan Di’an (President of China Artists Association, President of CAFA)
Members:

Zhang Zikang (Director of CAFA Art Museum)

Sui Jianguo (Professor at CAFA)

Wang Duanting (Director of Foreign Fine Art Research Laboratory, Institute of Fine Arts, Chinese National Academy of Arts)

Zhu Qingsheng (Professor at Peking University)

Adrian George (Associate Director of Exhibitions, ArtScience Museum, Singapore)

Caitlin Doherty (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville)

Paul Gladston (Professor at University of New South Wales)

Nanjo Fumio (Special Advisor of Mori Art Museum, Japan)

Chiba Shigeo (Researcher, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Professor at Chubu University, Japan)

Tatehata Akira (President of Tama Art University, Curator of Yayoi Kusama Museum)

Organizing Committee Members:

Liu Zhenlin, Liang Anna, Fang Qi, Ma Ruiqing, Hong Ning, Chen Xiangning

Curators:

Chief Producer: Liang Anna

Chief Curator: Wang Chunchen

Greek guest-of-honor curator: Katerina Koskina

Section curators: Yue Jieqiong, Xu Jialing

Exhibition planner: Zhang Jinhao

Guest-of-honor curator assistant: Wang Ying

Exhibition affairs: Liu Wenbin

Operation & maintenance: Zhang Xiujun, Yuan Ye

Public educational activities: Gao Yue, Li Yunyun

Promotion: Zhang Yaowen, Zhu Li, Zhuang Zhuang, Li Tiantian, Yang Yanyuan

Logistics: Liang Yufei, Fan Chuangeng

Assistants: Chen Gengjiang, Chen Siyu, Gong Jian, Huang Lei, Huang Yutao, Jiang He, Li Chaoshi, Liu Yang, Lu Shengqiang, Na Xu, Qiu Yukui, Tang Shunguo, Wang Jianxing, Wang Jingbo, Wang Wanqi, Wang Wenbin, Xue Lijia, Yang Jie, Yang Lai, Zhang Mengyi, Zhang Xinxin, Zhou Bingxue (in alphabetic order)

Gallery Weekend Kuala Lumpur
15-17 November 2019

Malaysia rarely makes global headlines, and neither does its art, but the Southeast Asian nation has a new optimism that is spilling into its culture after the first ever successful opposition win and transfer of power in the 35-year history of the ostensible democracy in May 2018. The diverse Nusantaran home of some 30 million people is frequently overshadowed by its immediate neighbors: size and vibrancy gives fellow Muslim majority nation Indonesia a spotlight, while the small and orderly fellow former British colony Singapore has tighter cultural and economic ties with the West.

The breadth of Malaysia’s small but energetic art scene took center stage last November for the fourth edition of Gallery Weekend Kuala Lumpur. Organised by collector and art advisor Shalini Ganendra, the nonprofit GWKL aims to raise Malaysia’s cultural profile through a particular focus on expanding local art audiences. With its Luminaries programme, a roster of six to eight visiting Asia-Pacific art professionals convene for an intensive tour of art venues in the Malaysian capital, and join panels with local artists and curators.

Its 2019 participants included senior curator of Singapore’s National Gallery Adele Tan, deputy director of curatorial programmes at Singapore’s NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Karin Oen, indigenous Taiwanese independent curator Biung Ismahasn, and Aga Khan Museum curator Marika Sardar. This year saw the expansion of Malaysian panelists to 25% of the total, including Islamic Art Museum Malaysia’s head of curatorial affairs Heba Nayel Barakat, textile historian Edric Ong and artist Ahmad Fuad Osman. “The response this year is the strongest so far, and the organic growth was evident in the very full Luminary sessions, filled tours and increased gallery traffic,” says Ganendra.

“GWKL is a cultural platform providing an immersive introduction to quality culture in Kuala Lumpur,” says Ganendra. She lists its immediate goals as “facilitating engagement between public and culture through enjoyable, accessible and free programming” –  with no charges for audiences or participant galleries and institutions, which this year included galleries Suma Orientalis, Taksu and Ganendra’s SG Advisory and Residence Gallery and nonprofits Rumah Lukis, the Sekeping Collection and Badan Warisan Heritage Society. Also, it “connects experts, both local and global, for the development of transnational engagement [while] growing cultural tourism to Malaysia.”

Last year’s dramatic elections saw the upset win of side-switching former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, now 94, over entrenched religious populist Najib Razak. Najib was subsequently detained for corruption charges including his role in the 1MDB embezzlement scandal. The corruption crackdown has taken a toll on art sales; of its four art auctioneers Edge Galerie has folded, and KL Lifestyle, Masterpiece Malaysia and Henry Butcher are reportedly struggling. Butcher organises local fair Art Expo, running 13 years. “An expected market correction is happening now,” Ganendra says. “The new government has been supportive of culture in principle, supporting independent efforts through endorsement and promotion.”

“There are not many changes since the new government, as [art] has always been a ground up initiative. But there are more activities for a few years now, as there are more active galleries,” says Richard Koh, who represents Southeast Asian artists through his eponymous gallery opened in Kuala Lumpur in 2005 and now with locations in Singapore and Bangkok. “The local auctions have slowed down like most markets, but dealers here are not as badly hit as it’s still a pretty small market.” He describes it as “still inward and mainly local” with a handful of established collectors buying regionally or globally. “We do have some pretty good and interesting artists and they are slowly getting the exposure they deserve,” such as sculptural weaver Anne Samat, who in 2019 had shows in Taiwan, South Korea, Norway, New York and Bangkok.

With the new government, Ganendra says, “there is a sense of a more responsible and open censorship policy, with more confidence in the expression of ideas. [It's] a more confident government.” Earlier incidents of censorship included the removal of a work titled Under Construction, by collaborating collectives Pusat Sekitar Seni and Population Project from Malaysia and Indonesia, ostensibly for Communist content, during the inaugural Kuala Lumpur Biennale in 2017. A second edition of the biennale, at the state-run National Visual Art Gallery, is in the works for 2020.

As the luscious greenery and water cascades, the gigantic projected image distorts in response to software collecting weather data – temperature, wind speed, air pressure – each of which are continuously collected from a localised weather forecast website. Transmitted and shared from one corner of the world to the other, ‘Madakaripura’ reflects on how, as technology evolves, we shift the way we contemplate. More pointedly, the immersive installation questions how we channel our self with the world, from nature to the realm of data.

‘Madakaripura’ – in its imagery, sound and setting – is engulfing, prompting thought on ecology, technology and our relationship with each: what it has been, is, and will be. Both are shifting continuously, but what do the developments of each mean for the way we connect and what, as well as how, we experience. Following from the two previous exhibitions in the project space that have investigated voyeurism and tranquility respectively, this final show calls into question the lines we draw between reality and fiction, and our consciousness of each.

Engaging with the notion of hyperreality in the digital age, Tromarama explores the interrelationship between the virtual and the physical world. Initiating as a collective in 2006 in Bandung, Indonesia, Febie Babyrose, Ruddy Hatumena and Herbert Hans create works that combine video, installation, computer programming and public participation depicting the influence of digital media on society’s perception of its surroundings. Channelling language, text, wit, sequence as well as interaction through their varied practice, Tromarama reflect on the cornerstones of Indonesia’s political and cultural environment [1], a form of perceptive engagement that applies globally.

Tromarama are widely considered one of Indonesia’s most exciting rising talents and have been exhibited around the world. They have held solo exhibitions at Centre A, Vancouver (2017); Liverpool Biennial Fringe, Liverpool (2016); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2015); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2015); and Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2010) among other locations. Their group exhibitions include the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila (2018); Singapore Art Museum, Singapore (2017); Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju (2016) ; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2015); Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide (2014); and the 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane (2012).

nrm curatorial project

SGA Three on the Bund announces its new exhibition, Aftermath余波, a dramatic vision by Gao Weigang and Michael Joo of environmental uncertainty and a post-technological world.

“Aftermath余波” masquerades as neutral while suggesting the dystopian outcome of a precipitous event. It conjures dreams of what comes after civilization, history and society – perhaps an endless post-apocalypse, an interminable twilight of the gods. Here history has become civilization’s wasteland, an enervating desert of consumption, littered with objects with forgotten stories and bizarre adaptations. The present is brooding and the future opaque. But there is evidence to sift through to glean what happened, and perhaps find something to help us glimpse what might have been. Welcome to the Aftermath余波.

Gao Weigang, Ten Thousand Years, 2017, Oil on canvas, LED light, 200x200cm, 高伟刚_一万年_布面油彩 LED光源

Gao Wei Gang presents seascapes and mountain-scapes at a scale that invites the viewer to be physically present within the canvas, simultaneously creating anxiety about the fate of the individual enveloped by these harsh environments and sublime awe at the towering beauty of the mountains, terrible and elegiac. Elsewhere Gao’s shipwrecks, abandoned and repurposed containers and even his shadow studies, where glass has replaced glaze for the purposes of creating a sfumato effect, leave us pondering the percussive events that have led to us standing before works of such beguiling intrigue.

Michael Joo’s carbonized sculptures, silver nitrate paintings and blown-glass versions of plastic shopping bags and steel and rope exhibition stanchions each present impermanent things and environments that have been destroyed and distorted in the process of production into works of permanence. Resurrected in alien beauty, the inherent fragility of Joo’s transformed man-made objects suggests an aftermath as yet to be realized.

Michael Joo, Entasis (phloem), 2016, Silver nitrate and epoxy ink on canvas, 335.3×243.8cm, 迈克尔·朱_卷杀（韧皮部）硝酸银油墨画

Gao Weigang and Michael Joo

Gao Weigang 高伟刚

Gao Weigang (born 1976, Heilongjiang, China), his works employ a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, installation, and performance, he evades categorization of his artworks into a particular genre, reflecting his intention while challenging mainstream visual culture through questioning the apparatus of common knowledge and perception. Gao Weigang has widely exhibited across mainland China as well as in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, and New York City, etc. His works have also been collected by many art institutions and foundations such as the Burger Collection, Switzerland; the DSL Collection, Paris, France; Long Museum, Shanghai, China; White Rabbit Collection, Sydney, Australia; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong, China, and the Louis Vuitton Group, Hong Kong, China. Gao Weigang currently lives and works in Beijing, China.

Michael Joo 2019

Michael Joo (born 1969, Ithaca, USA) is a conceptual artist who explores the physical boundaries of materials and objects, from glass stanchions to silver nitrate paintings, contemplating questions of ontology, epistemology and entropy based on place and history. Michael’s work is represented in FNAC, Paris; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Samsung Centre for Art and Culture, Seoul and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Michael lives and works in New York and Seoul.

Michael Joo, Single Breath Transfer (posterior basal) 2017, Mold-blown glass, 52.5x20x21.7cm, 迈克尔·朱_单呼吸转运（后底部）模制玻璃

About SGA – an open platform for contemporary art and culture 

SGA is a new model for art production and exhibition. Working with local and international partners, SGA instigates, develops and realises cross-cultural projects for contemporary art with leading artists, institutions and international private galleries.

An open platform for exhibitions, collaborations and curatorial projects, SGA is an agent of expanding engagement between art and the wider public, connecting and contextualising the art of greater China and South East Asia with the wider international art worlds. Our objective is to decompartmentalise the art world through situating local understanding within and in contrast to global conversations.

To drive this new direction, nrm have been appointed Artistic Director of SGA. Led by Josef Ng, Andrew Ruff and Christopher Moore, nrm brings over 3 decades of combined experience in art curating, collecting and publishing in Asia.

Gao Weigang “Pantheon”, 2019, Mixed media on canvas, 150x120x10 cm, 高伟刚_万神殿_布面综合材料

Press Enquiries

Floria Xu
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Objects of Belief and Kbach Teuk are presented together in the solo show, Currents. The title is applied dually to register the different encounters each of the works have with the concept of time; Objects of Belief is a registering and recording of objects while Kbach Teuk revisits water forms as a method of reflection. Than Sok utilizes a wide range of media in creating his work, including sculpture, installation, video and performance. Through his work, he considers religious and spiritual beliefs, rituals, karma and merit, the social roles of monks and artists, and the power structure in a society that contains all the aforementioned.

Objects of Belief is a documentation and sampling of various objects used in Theravada Buddhist pagodas of today’s Cambodia. They include items that are indicative of syncretic practice, including Hinduism and animist beliefs that existed before Buddhism became the national religion and concurrently, items suggesting the influence of the cultural and economic diversity present in Cambodia today. At its core, the body of works reveals an important dialectic between the notion of belief and truth; that religious objects’ materiality and ritual function, like language, change over time. Than Sok’s research thus often concludes with no single truth but instead a variety of interpretations.

In Kbach Teuk, Than Sok works from both traditional stories such as the Jatakas and Reamker, which he studied its narrative and style on temple walls as part of his education with one of Cambodia’s most esteemed female painters, Duong Saree, at Reyum Art School and his lived experience. Within this body of works, the artist draws reference from different narratives in ancient literature as well as his own personal memories of watching boat races with his father and when his village worked together to dig a new pond as a shared water source. While traditional representations of water in Cambodian painting have tended to be a secondary and complimentary subject to human and mythical characters’ drama, the artist’s study isolates water as the subject itself. As stated by Than Sok, “The ancient stories relate to today. For example, we are geographically divided by water, but water has the potential to bring us together.”

Objects of Belief and Kbach Teuk are presented together in the solo show, Currents. The title is applied dually toregister the different encounters each of the works have with the concept of time; Objects of Belief is aregistering and recording of objects while Kbach Teuk revisits water forms as a method of reflection.Than Sok utilizes a wide range of media in creating his work, including sculpture, installation, video andperformance. Through his work, he considers religious and spiritual beliefs, rituals, karma and merit, the socialroles of monks and artists, and the power structure in a society that contains all the aforementioned.

Objects of Belief is a documentation and sampling of various objects used in Theravada Buddhist pagodas oftoday’s Cambodia. They include items that are indicative of syncretic practice, including Hinduism andanimist beliefs that existed before Buddhism became the national religion and concurrently, items suggestingthe influence of the cultural and economic diversity present in Cambodia today. At its core, the body ofworks reveals an important dialectic between the notion of belief and truth; that religious objects’ materialityand ritual function, like language, change over time. Than Sok’s research thus often concludes with no singletruth but instead a variety of interpretations.

In Kbach Teuk, Than Sok works from both traditional stories such as the Jatakas1 and Reamker2, which hestudied its narrative and style on temple walls as part of his education with one of Cambodia’s most esteemedfemale painters, Duong Saree3, at Reyum Art School and his lived experience. Within this body of works, theartist draws reference from different narratives in ancient literature as well as his own personal memories ofwatching boat races with his father and when his village worked together to dig a new pond as a shared watersource. While traditional representations of water in Cambodian painting have tended to be a secondary andcomplimentary subject to human and mythical characters’ drama, the artist’s study isolates water as thesubject itself. As stated by Than Sok, “The ancient stories relate to today. For example, we are geographicallydivided by water, but water has the potential to bring us together.”

Barthélémy Toguo, I am Flying, Jack! – acrylic and watercolour on canvas – 100 x 100 cm – 2018 杰克，我在飞翔呢! – 布面水彩、丙烯 – 100 x 100 cm – 2018

HdM GALLERY London is pleased to present ‘Human Nature’, a solo show by artist Barthélémy Toguo and curated by Chris Spring. It will be Barthélémy Toguo’s first solo show in London, and highlights a key player in the unfolding richness of contemporary visual practice by artists of African heritage, increasingly valued and sought after in the international arena. ‘Human Nature’ will open on June 13th and last till August 23rd.

Once met, never forgotten, Toguo has made a remarkable contribution to this development, both through his own visual art practice and the creation of the extraordinary Bandjoun Station in his native Cameroon, a cultural centre which combines art, education and agriculture in and around a building which utilises the technological wizardry of the 21st century while paying homage to ancient architectural styles. Toguo’s new HdM show, curated by former British Museum Africa specialist, Dr. Chris Spring, and provocatively titled ‘Human Nature’, helps us not only to see how his aesthetic has evolved over the past decade – but also how his guiding principles have remained the same:

A key feature of the show –  exhibited in the UK for the first time – is Toguo’s ‘Fragile Bodies’ series of large, porcelain vessels which he created in Jingzhen, China. Each is painted with representations of different creatures and topped with a cast of the artist’s own head. While Toguo’s vessels acknowledge the ongoing connections between Africa and China and the supreme achievements of China within the arts, the African heads on the ‘Fragile Bodies’ remind us that it was in Africa that the capacity to think symbolically, to create art and to become modern humans evolved.

Alongside these sculptural works Toguo will show a series of his celebrated watercolour paintings on the subject of human nature.

Barthélémy Toguo

Was born in M’Balmayo, Cameroon, in 1967. He currently lives and works between Paris, France and Bandjoun, Cameroon.

Toguo was shortlisted for the 2016 Prix Marcel Duchamp and was included in the group exhibition of finalists at the Centre Pompidou, Paris. He has participated in numerous international biennials, including the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). He was recently featured in Intriguing Uncertainties, The Parkview Museum Singapore, travelling to Beijing; Art/Afrique Le Nouvel Atelier, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; and Fragile State, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kiev, Ukraine. In 2011, Toguo was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature in France. His works are included in public collections worldwide, including the Tate Modern, England where the work ‘Purification’ (2012) is on display now; Centre Pompidou, France; Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, France; Studio Museum Harlem, New York; and MoMA, New York. Both artist and activist, Toguo also founded a non-profit art centre ‘Bandjoun Station’ in 2008 in Cameroon.

The large pot herethetimeflies (2019) incorporates texts from Singaporean Modernist poet Teo Poh Leng’s book-length F.M.S.R. which was published in the UK in the 1930s. The pot takes the point of view of a sailor sinking to the bottom of the sea and glimpsing visions of the end of empire amongst the dappled light and shiny shells.

Employing straight-forward coiling and other hand-building methods, Barkley’s use of words in his pots and collages often reference popular songs and poetry, with the intentional removal of spacing between them that corresponds to hashtags. The title of the exhibition comes from the song Sea of Love, first written and recorded by Phil Phillips in 1959 and later recorded by The Honeydrippers in 1984, the latter version first heard by the artist in his youth. Barkley imagines the song as a mirror to the shell, coral and poetic motifs that decorate the pots and collages in the show. “I imagine this as a song someone may have sung to their sweetheart before departing for or upon returning from war.”

The Singapore Art Museum (SAM) announces the first roster of artists for Singapore Biennale 2019: Every Step in the Right Direction. One of Asia’s most exciting contemporary visual art exhibitions – the Singapore Biennale 2019 (SB2019) will explore curatorial and artistic threads common to our human conditions and the catalytic role ‘hope’ plays in pushing for change.

Under the artistic direction of Patrick Flores, SB2019 will explore the title with over 70 artists from Singapore, Southeast Asia and beyond, in a presentation of site-responsive and newly commissioned contemporary works never seen before on the biennale circuit. The highly anticipated four-month long international contemporary art exhibition is scheduled to take place from 22 November 2019 to 22 March 2020.

Let’s Walk, 2018 is a public participatory performance by Amanda Heng presented at the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2018: Let’s Walk. Image courtesy of the artist.

SB2019: Every Step in the Right Direction Explorations
In the midst of a rapidly changing social and political climate, the notion of self and the world has significantly changed in recent years. Being mindful of such change, SB2019: Every Step in the Right Direction will draw on the importance of making choices and taking steps to consider current conditions and the human endeavour for change and betterment.

Every Step in the Right Direction invites the ethical gesture from both artist and public through the creative mediation of the artworks and projects on view, which will be gathered from sensitively selected geographies, to encourage the audience to reflect on right actions to take and decide on which activities to engage in, as an effort to offer possibilities for a more humane world.

With the artistic and curatorial direction anchored in regional history, SB2019 aims to reflect on pressing concerns relevant to the global cultural community through artworks presented. This is done through ‘festival-seminars’, where action and reflection are interwoven through the presentation of convivial, participatory, and community-responsive projects and reflective, archival, and research-oriented works.

The artists participating in SB2019 embody this worldliness through several conceptual threads in their works. This artist line-up features recognised names from Southeast Asia and beyond, along with younger artists, presenting an international stage to discover newly commissioned artworks.

SB2019 Artist Highlights
In addition to the five artists already announced at the end of last year, SB2019 will feature the following 14 artists: Busui Ajaw (Thailand), Raymundo Albano (Philippines), Kray Chen(Singapore), Amanda Heng (Singapore), Hu Yun, (China / Serbia), Soyung Lee (South Korea), Min Thein Sung (Myanmar), Okui Lala (Malaysia), Alfonso Ossorio (USA), Gary-RossPastrana (Philippines), Wu Tsang (USA), Marie Voignier (France); as well as the artist collective Phare, The Cambodian Circus (Cambodia), and the collaboration between Zakkubalan (USA) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (Japan).

The Starting Point
Every effort to transform begins with introspection, a reassessment of how self-consciousness through modernism has developed and come to constitute the present production of art. A revisiting of modernist works and their juxtaposition with the art of our time will be exemplified by the presentation of artworks by artist-collector Alfonso Ossorio. Providing further context of modernism and its relationship with what we now call the contemporary as a moment in the history of art is the practice of the Filipino artist Raymundo Albano, whose work as an interdisciplinary artist and a visionary curator will shed light on the constant translations of modernity.

(Festival)
Through the gathering of people, the public can make a step and decide on what could be the right direction with others in an atmosphere of warm encounters and possible solidarities. These works invite the audience – whether onlookers or participants – to affirm common aspirations as well as discuss differences. It is in this vein that Singaporean artist Amanda Heng will examine the relationship of humans to the outside world, and the inner emotional and psychological resources of the body. She will stage a new edition of and elaborate on her renowned Let’s Walk series, which speaks directly to the title of the 2019 edition Every Step in the Right Direction. Building on the participatory festival aspect of the Biennale, Phare, The Cambodia Circus will be commissioned to create a contact zone where people share space and create memories in a community experience.

Zakkubalan, in a collaboration with esteemed Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, will feature an adaptation of Sakamoto’s multimedia work that immerses audiences in a rich and ever-shifting ambient soundscape, while Gary-Ross Pastrana from the Philippines will look into the way objects and materials shape narratives and translate into different states, through the staging of a play which will be periodically activated by Singapore-based performers

(Seminar)
Decisions on making the step in the right direction require thoughtfulness and attentiveness, reflecting the other aspect of the festival-seminar presentation. These works prompt the public to pause, take stock, and consider an array of options for the change that must happen. Malaysian artist Okui Lala will create a new work – Language Class (working title) – looking at the complexity of multi-ethnicity, and how language policy organises national and personal history; while French artist Marie Voignier explores intense migration and relocation, sensitive contact and precarious exchange through a film on African women traders.

Korean artist Soyung Lee’s video installation and artefacts will investigate the conditions of the post-human and inter-species relationships, which further broadens the scope of the biennale into the realm of environment and our position in the anthropocene; while Chinese artist Hu Yun discusses the form of the diorama in relation to craft and the cosmology of the future, revisiting and reimagining alternative histories. Singaporean artist Kray Chen’s work engages the experiences of viewers of matrimonial rites through Chinese wedding customs, while challenging cultural, social and collective norms.

New Commissions
SB2019 will present site-specific commissions for the audience to encounter new artists and register innovative experiments. Community and personal experience beyond the centre will be explored by self-taught Thai artist Busui Ajaw in her paintings. This showcase will mark the first time she will be presenting her work outside of Thailand. Min Thein Sung will deal with the complex environment of Myanmar in a philosophical and poetic artistic gesture that is sensitive to the interventions of the atmosphere. American filmmaker and performance artistWu Tsang will present a work that explores the enigmatic histories, intimate narratives, and the act of performing itself.

Announced earlier were artists Arnont Nongyao, Vandy Rattana, Dennis Tan, Zai Tang, and Boedi Widjaja. The full artist list and programme of SB2019 will be announced later this year.

Key Dates and Venues
Commissioned by the National Arts Council, Singapore and organised by SAM, the exhibition will take place in multiple nodes across a network of sites and will feature prominently at National Gallery Singapore and Gillman Barracks. Following the model of the 2016 edition, other cultural and heritage venues – including sites within the Bras Basah Bugis precinct – will also be explored to showcase SB2019 artworks.

The Singapore Biennale 2019 is an affiliate of the Singapore Bicentennial.