The seventh edition of Art Basel Hong Kong (at HKCEC, 29-31 March) showcasing 242 leading galleries from 35 countries and territories, has brought together aficionados and collectors from over 70 countries and markets. Apart from generating sales and interest, the fair is also a fascinating destination to view the world's premier Modern and contemporary art. Check out the fair highlights!
Top Works
Installation View: Carol Bove, Art Basel HK 2019
Sculptures
Stainless steel and urethane paint, size variable
David Zwirner
A set of four orangey red and lemon yellow painted-steel sculptures by Swiss artist Carol Bove(b. 1971), featured in David Zwirner's booth, is characterised by intricate folds that explore steel's formal and poetic possibilities.
Combined with highly-polished black discs and in dialogues with each other, these twisted forms look astonishingly flexible and lightweight. Though they can be perceived as human shapes, interpretations are open-ended, and that's why the pieces are so engaging and compelling.
Aki Inomata, Why Not Hand Over a "Shelter" to Hermit Crab? - (Hong Kong Island), 2019
Sculpture
Resin, 3D printing
5 × 5 × 4 cm
Maho Kubota Gallery
Hermit crabs, the little crustaceans which don't have fixed shells of their own and always forced to migrate, have spurred the Tokyo-based artist Aki Inomata (b.1983) to build permanent shelters for them. By appropriating accurate measurements from a real shell, Aki creates crystalline sculptures adorned with the skylines of NYC, Bangkok, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc. Combining benevolence, imagination and scalable craftsmanship, what underpins this acclaimed project (2009-) is an inquiry into the sociopolitical issues of ownership, nationality and immigration.
Zhang Yu, Tea Feeding, 2019
Work on paper, tea, xuan paper
300 × 100 cm
Pifo Gallery
Beijing-based Zhang Yu (b.1959) creates his xuan paper paintings not with ink, brushes and calligraphy but by willfully infusing it with tea stains. During his daily performance at around 4 p.m., he will cautiously pour tea to rows of bowls from a kettle and stop only when each bowl becomes full. As such, tea gradually drips to formulate abstract brown rings on the paper. While subverting the traditional ideology centring on pen and ink, the artist stresses that his installation-based performance does not directly convey any messages except to reinterpret the nature of art.
Samson Young, Music While You Work, 2018
Installation
Drivable bumper car with custom-designed shell and audio Base: electronics and custom-designed audio tracks Shell: 3D printed nylon, soft pastel
200 × 120 × 140 cm
Edouard Malingue Gallery
A signature eye-candy art piece in an art fair, this bumper car in the shape of a gigantic 3D-printed sneaker calls to mind fond memories of an amusement park. While it slowly meanders, the post-war theme song from the classic BBC radio programme ‘Music While You Work’ gradually becomes audible. Samson Young (b.1979), the multi-disciplinary artist and music composer from Hong Kong, strives to explore the dissemination of music and its hidden social commentary through provocative visual gadgets.
Cheyney Thompson, Set 1, 2019
storageDevice (1[a-g]), 2019
Acrylic on canvas; oil on canvas, various materials in acrylic binder on canvas
7 parts: 103.5 x 78.4 cm each
Andrew Kreps Gallery
A new line of minimalist floor sculptures? What is in store for them? Anyone passes the booth are likely intrigued by these seven sleek metallic rectangular boxes, entitled storageDevice by New York-based artist Cheyney Thompson(b. 1975). He has long developed a painting practice based on self-imposed constraints and has accumulated seven typologies exemplified by the seven canvases hung on the booth wall.
Each storageDevice houses a unique set of seven paintings - monochromes, abstractions, appropriations of Ruben's painting in greyscale, among others - but only one from each device can be on view at a given time.
Leung Chi Wo, A Countess From Hong Kong, 2016
Installation
Belilios Public School uniform, cloth hanger, 1967 Hong Kong 50-cent coins, vinyl record This Is My Song by Petula Clark (1967), motor system
134 × 68 × 19 cm
Blindspot Gallery
"The Countess of Hong Kong", named after Charlie Chaplin's last film, depicts a swinging schoolgirl uniform while playing a vinyl record of a UK pop "This is my song" by Petula Clark - narratives that look irrelevant yet vividly assembled the occurrences in 1967.
Leung Chi Wo (b.1968), through meticulous archival research, gathers fragments of historical events to re-examine the "Hong Kong 1967 leftist riots". Subtly portraying a bygone era of turmoil, his kinetic installation attempts to negotiate a solution for the precarious future.
Jose Davila, The Most Famous Problem in the History of Mathematics is That of Squaring the Circle IV, 2019
Painting
Silkscreen print and acrylic paint on loomstate linen
260 × 300 × 6 cm
OMR
Unlike many of Jose Dávila's (b.1974) works which provoke discourse, the Mexican artist has come up with an alternative solution to an ancient mathematical question - "squaring a circle", metaphorically represents the ordeal to achieve something impossible. Through this wall sculpture of 11 separate canvases, the artist let the circle and squares interact and conform with each other, exemplifying notions of equilibrium, stability and permanence.
Zhao Zhao, In Extremis, 2018
Installation
Brass, stainless steel, black iron, blue steel, asphalt
Tang Contemporary Art
This ground installation resembles an ordinary road surfaced with asphalt which we take for granted. But in close inspection, it is inlaid with pieces of metallic plates, representing the flattened dead bodies of stray cats being smashed by vehicles across a busy road in Beijing. Zhao Zhao (b.1982), an emerging Chinese artist and once an assistant to Ai Weiwei, has turned what he witnessed into a eulogy which laments the lack of empathy in our contemporary culture. In Extremis was the title of the artist's solo exhibition which featured this concept in 2018.
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Lee Bul, Willing to be Vulnerable - Metalized Balloon, 2019
Installation
Nylon taffeta cloth, polyester with aluminium foil, fan, electronic wiring
230 × 230 × 1000 cm
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Lehmann Maupin, PKM Gallery
Drawing inspirations from the infamous Hindenburg zeppelin and its well-documented destruction in 1937, Korean artist Lee Bul (b.1964) has created a 10 metre long floating silver balloon that mimics the airship to symbolise the crushed dreams of modernity in the early 20th century.
Confronted with this compelling installation, we are at once bewildered by its sensational existence and obliged to ponder humanity's obsession with perfection and utopian ideals.
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Jong Oh, Line Sculpture, 2018
Installation
Metal rod, string, paint, fishing wire, chain
Sabrina Amrani
New York-based Korean artist Jong Oh (b.1981) is described as a composer of space, and there is a certain poetic quality that permeates his work. For this occasion, he creates several almost invisible line sculptures made with strings, fishing wire and thin metal rods, alongside some wall-fixed minimalist white sculptures.
Upon entering his immersive space, there is no reason not to slow down our pace, wondering whether that subtle line is a string or a pencil line, and that cast shadow is real or just an optical illusion.
Upon entering his immersive space, there is no reason not to slow down our pace, wondering whether that subtle line is a string or a pencil line, and that cast shadow is real or just an optical illusion.
Top Booths
Sean Kelly - New York
Matthew Marks Gallery - New York, Los Angeles
Project Native Informant - London
Tang Contemporary Art - Beijing, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, Hong Kong
10 Chancery Lane Gallery - Hong Kong
Ink Studio - Beijing, Seattle
Konig Galerie - Berlin, London
Leeahn Gallery - Seoul, Daegu
Pi's Artworks - London, Istanbul
Nanzuka - Tokyo
