March 29–31, 2018
Encounters at Art Basel in Hong Kong
Curated for the fourth consecutive year by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Executive Director of Artspace in Sydney, Art Basel’s Encounters sector is dedicated to institutional-scale installations and site-specific projects, with nine new works created specifically for this year’s presentation in Hong Kong. The 2018 edition will bring together 12 artists from across the world. Alexie Glass-Kantor’s focus for this year’s curation centers around inviting the audience to make contact with objects, artists and ideas.
Erwin Wurm’s iconic series “One Minute Sculptures” (2000-2018) will be jointly showcased by Lehmann Maupin, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac and König Galerie. First performed in 1997, the ongoing series instructs the audience to “make one minute sculptures,” questioning and reflecting on sculpture itself and limiting the sculptures’ lifetime to 60 seconds.
7 Curtains (2017), a new site-specific work by Ulla von Brandenburg will be presented jointly by Pilar Corrias and Meyer Riegger. Interested in theatre and absurdity, von Brandenburg’s installation will consist of a sequence of seven monumental stage curtains.
neugerriemschneider will present Untitled (2009, 2017) by Cuban artist Jorge Pardo. Inspired by medieval manuscripts, Pardo has choreographed a series of objects that intersect architecture, sculpture and design, challenging our expectations of these categories.
Start. Stop (2008) by Subodh Gupta will be presented by Arario Gallery. The installation consists of a large and slowly moving sushi belt with scores of tiffin boxes and gleaming pots, recalling the life of the “dabbawallas,” who transport tiffin boxes filled with home-cooked lunch on wheelbarrows in a rapidly changing urban environment.
Edouard Malingue Gallery will premiere a new performance by Chou Yu-Cheng titled Refresh, Sacrifice, New Hygiene, Infection, Clean, Robot, Air, Housekeeping, www.agentbong.com, Cigarette, Dyson, Modern People (2017). Blurring the boundaries between public and private spaces, Chou Yu-Cheng explores the concept of hygiene, technology and the distribution of labor.
Lisson Gallery will showcase Potent motif of ambition (Dramaturgical framework for structure and stability) (2018) by Ryan Gander, which considers technology and mechanics to rethink the body through new anthropomorphic forms.
Exposing invisible forces, Shinji Ohmaki’s Liminal Air Space-Time (2018), presented by Mind Set Art Center, takes a once solid object and dissolves it into kinetic sculpture, creating an illusion of air as form.
Left Wing Project (Belok Kiri Jalan Terus) (2017-2018), a new large-scale, site-specific installation by the artist duo Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan will be presented by Yavuz Gallery. Activated by air, the installation is concerned with mass migration and the complex social and political realities of contemporary agrarian societies in Asia.
Gäna (self) (2018) by Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, one of Australia’s most celebrated Aboriginal artists, will be presented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. This sculptural installation comprises powerful and totemic bark paintings and larrakitj poles, which were traditionally used as hollow coffins created to hold the bones of the dead.
Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran will create Mud Men Volume II (2017) for this year’s show. Presented by Sullivan+Strumpf, Nithiyendran’s large-scale ceramic works are rough-edged New Age symbols that reference Hindu and Christian imagery and gender fluidity.
Presented by SCAI The Bathhouse, Mona-ha artist Toshikatsu Endo will display Void – Wooden Boat, Hong Kong (2009-2018), an 11-meter-long boat carved out of a single timber soaked in tar. Born to a family of shrine architects, Endo is interested in ritual involving the classical elements fire, water, earth and air.
Paul Kasmin Gallery will debut Iván Navarro’s Compression (2018). The new work transforms the globe of the earth’s surface into a cube, essentially rendering its surfaces flat, challenging the notion that the globalization offers a level playing field and that all things are equal.
The Encounters sector is supported by MGM Resorts Art & Culture. More information on the sector is available at artbasel.com/hongkong/encounters.
Art Basel, whose Lead Partner is UBS, takes place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from Thursday, March 29 to Saturday, March 31, 2018.
