ART BASEL A SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT FOR ART BASEL HONG KONG 2019
THE ENDURING INFLUENCE OF ANDY WARHOL | TURNING COLLECTIONS INTO MUSEUMS | 10 NEWCOMERS TO KNOW WOMEN ON THE VERGE | WHAT TO SEE AND WHERE TO BE SEEN | HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR TO COME
ART BASEL
IT’S HARD TO believe that 2019 marks only the seventh edition of Art Basel
Hong Kong, considering how much our city has transformed since the inaugural fair swept through the halls of the Convention & Exhibition Centre. From West Kowloon to Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong is now bursting with galleries, cultural centres, artist studios and auction houses. Still, at the centre of it all, stands Art Basel. For this year’s Prestige supplement on the fair and all the action surrounding it, we present the news and events you need to know — including our pick of the top 10 first-time exhibitors, art writer Stephen Short’s insider insights and a round-up of the shows, talks and performances you won’t want to miss.
A R T A P P R E C I AT I O N And what would contemporary art — not to mention our modern celebrityobsessed culture — be without the late, great Andy Warhol? As Christopher DeWolf explains in our cover story, the original Instagrammer is arguably more influential and relevant today than ever before. And speaking of influence, women continue to exert their power not only in politics and society but also across the art world. We talk to a range of female industry insiders, including Art Basel’s Encounters curator Alexie Glass-Kantor, leading gallerist Manuela Wirth, art experts Kate Bryan and Karen Smith, and Danqing Li of the latest international gallery to call the Fragrant Harbour home, Lévy Gorvy. It’s an exciting time for art, Art Basel and Hong Kong. Enjoy the issue and we’ll see you at the fair!
ANDY WARHOL, GREEN COCA-COLA BOTTLES, 1962. WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK; PURCHASE WITH FUNDS FROM THE FRIENDS OF THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART 68.25. © 2018 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC./ ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK
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MANAGING DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER Petula S Kincaid EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Tama Miyake Lung CREATIVE DIRECTOR Gigi Lee SENIOR EDITOR Jon Wall FASHION & FEATURES EDITOR Zaneta Cheng EDITOR AT LARGE Jing Zhang SOCIETY EDITOR P.Ramakrishnan SOCIETY EDITOR AT LARGE Jeremy Wong COPY EDITOR Stephen Reels HEAD OF DIGITAL CONTENT Michael Alan Connelly DIGITAL EDITOR Dara Chau DIGITAL WRITER Fontaine Cheng ART DIRECTOR Sepfry Ng SENIOR PRODUCTION MANAGER Philip Chan GENERAL MANAGER - SALES Perpetua Ngo ASSOCIATE SALES DIRECTOR Janet Wong ASSOCIATE SALES DIRECTOR Wendy Cheung HEAD OF MARKETING Aydee Tie CREATIVE SERVICES MANAGER Astor Chan HEAD OF CREATIVE PARTNERSHIPS Talia Jackson PARTNERSHIPS DIRECTOR Brian Bailey CONTENT LEAD Georgia Parungao CLIENT SERVICES MANAGER Linda Mak OFFICE MANAGER Prudence Ng ACCOUNTANT Annie Yung ACCOUNT OFFICER Daisy Wan CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, HUBERT BURDA MEDIA (ASIA) Sven Friedrichs Art Basel and Prestige Hong Kong are published by Hubert Burda Media Hong Kong Ltd. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the written permission of Hubert Burda Media Hong Kong Ltd. Opinions expressed in Art Basel and Prestige Hong Kong are those of the writers and are not necessarily endorsed by Hubert Burda Media Hong Kong Ltd. Rights reserved. Prestige is a trademark of Hubert Burda Singapore Pte Ltd. Hubert Burda Media Hong Kong Ltd accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, transparencies or other materials lost or damaged in the mail. Address all editorial and business correspondence to: Prestige Hong Kong, Unit 1401-04, 14/F, Universal Trade Centre, 3 Arbuthnot Road, Central, Hong Kong. Tel: (852) 3192 7010. Email: editor@burda.hk. Art Basel and Prestige Hong Kong are printed by C.A. Printing Co Ltd, 9/F, Cheung Wei Industrial Building, 42 Lee Chung Street, Chai Wan, Hong Kong. Tel: (852) 2866 8733. For local and overseas subscription information, email: subscription@burda.hk. Tel: (852) 3192 7020.
CLOCKWISE FROM BELOW: MICHAL CZANDERLE; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND PILAR CORRIAS; CHRISTOPHER BURKE © THE EASTON FOUNDATION/VAGA AT ARS, NY, COURTESY THE EASTON FOUNDATION AND HAUSER & WIRTH
Contents
4 SHORT CUTS Lesser-known attractions at this year’s show 6 TEN TO WATCH New exhibitors at Art Basel Hong Kong 10 CORNERING THE MARKET Lévy Gorvy makes a commitment to Asia 12 MATERIAL WORLD Alexie Glass-Kantor on curating installations 14 WARHOL’S WORLD We’re all living in it now 26 PRIVATE VIEWING The proliferation of private art museums 32 THE FEMALE GAZE Reflections on the position of women in art 38 THE SHOW GOES ON A round-up of art events in town this month 40 WORLD TOUR An international art calendar for 2019
FROM TOP GERASIMOS FLORATOS, PRESSING INTO CROWDS, THERE IS STILL SPACE UPSTAIRS, 2018-2019, IN ENCOUNTERS; ANNA HULAČOVÁ, UNTITLED, 2018, AT HUNT KASTNER; LOUISE BOURGEOIS, HAND, 2001, AT HAUSER & WIRTH
ART BASEL
ART BASEL IS A MAELSTROM OF AESTHETIC CONFRONTATIONS BLITZ-SCALING OVER A FRENZIED THREE-DAY PERIOD. BUT WHERE TO BE, WHAT TO SEE AND WHY TO BOTHER? STEPHEN SHORT PRESENTS HIS CHEAT SHEET
Short Cuts
ROAD TO ABSTRACTION American artist Mary Corse gets her first exhibition in Asia through Pace at H Queen’s, showing eight newly painted works that play to her strengths — perception, properties of light and ideas of abstraction. Corse uses glass microspheres in a limited palette of black, white and red acrylic paint to create simple geometric configurations that take on greater than conventional luminescence. As a result, Corse’s work doesn’t just represent light, but embodies and refracts and shifts and tilts it. Opens March 26
SHOW AND TELL For the entire month of March, Asia Art Archive puts performance art under the microscope. Form Colour Action showcases Lee Wen’s sketchbooks and notebooks for the first time. Zhang Peili, widely considered the father of Chinese video art, discusses the role of performance in his career at its annual art lecture, and at Art Basel The Body Collective examines the evolution of performance art in Asia from the 1970s.
AIRING A GRIEVANCE Everyone’s favourite Hong Kong artist, Elaine Yan Ling Ng, is back, this time under the auspices of UBS’s Cultural Programme. The Chinese-British designer has conjured an installation that explores global air quality (or, more precisely, the lack thereof) in Hong Kong, Shanghai and other major cities. Nexus is fed by data from air-quality monitoring stations, and analysed by the Evidence Lab, a specialist research facility within UBS.
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OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: MARY CORSE, UNTITLED (WHITE INNER BAND, WHITE SIDES), 1999, COURTESY KAYNE GRIFFIN CORCORAN, LISSON GALLERY AND PACE GALLERY; LEE WEN, THE LAND OF OBLIVION, 1990, DETAIL, LEE WEN ARCHIVE, ASIA ART ARCHIVE COLLECTION, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST; COURTESY UBS. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM RIGHT: © DEEPIX; MARIKO MORI, PLASMA STONE IV, 2019 (RENDERING), COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND SEAN KELLY GALLERY, NY; MARK BLOWER; COURTESY LISSON GALLERY
BUL RUN If you’re having a moment, milk it. Lee Bul, on the back of last summer’s phenomenally successful Hayward Gallery show, brings her stunning Zeppelin to Encounters, and shows Perdu from her recent Untitled series in the Kabinett section of Art Basel, through Lehmann Maupin. Her retrofuturistic imagery is rooted in biology but collages materials such as human hair with acrylic shards to broaden these concepts beyond the individual body.
MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE Sean Kelly shows at Art Basel Hong Kong for the seventh consecutive year with works by a number of its artists, among them Mariko Mori. The multimedia phenomenon of the 1990s is displaying new work in the form of sculpture. Produced using technically advanced methods, these luminous pieces centre on Mori’s inquiry into the mysteries of the universe through her deepening interest in unobservable energy.
LABEL MAKERS There’s no thirstier recreation than hiking the labyrinthine halls of the HKCEC, so why not cap things off with a case of Château Mouton Rothschild? Sotheby’s is auctioning 75 limited-edition Versailles Celebration Cases featuring five of its vintages with labels by artists Giuseppe Penone, Anish Kapoor, Bernar Venet, Jeff Koons and Lee Ufan. April 1
ON A ROLL It’s all go at Lisson. The London gallery opens a space in Shanghai (its Asian debut) on March 22, and brings an embarrassment of riches to Art Basel. Where to start? Ryan Gander, Ai Weiwei, Julian Opie, Djurberg & Berg — and that’s not even the main event. There’s also Wael Shawky’s hand-carved wood work, Laure Prouvost’s intricate tapestry work, and Carmen Herrera’s Estructura Amarilla (pictured) plus so much more.
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Ten to Watch
HUNT KASTNER PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC The first exhibitor from the Czech Republic in the Hong Kong show — the gallery was opened by an American and a Canadian in 2006 to support and promote contemporary Czech artists — has been participating in international art fairs since 2007. It presents an installation by Anna Hulačová entitled Pathetic Poetic in Art Basel’s Discoveries sector for emerging artists. huntkastner.com
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GALERIE GRETA MEERT BRUSSELS, BELGIUM Founded in 1988 as Galerie Meert Rihoux, this well-established gallery has always focused on minimal and conceptual art. Besides introducing Belgians to innovative international artists, it was one of the first in Europe to show works by the Vancouver School. The current exhibition presents some 50 years of work by eminent American minimalism artist Robert Mangold. galeriegretameert.com
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: UNTITLED, 2019, PHOTO © MICHAL CZANDERLE; COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GALERIE GRETA MEERT; EDITH WITH GREYHOUND, 1915, PRIVATE COLLECTION, COURTESY RICHARD NAGY LTD., LONDON, PHOTO © LEOPOLD MUSEUM, WIEN/MANFRED THUMBERGER; HERSTORY, 2018, COURTESY RICHARD KOH FINE ART
AMONG THE 242 GALLERIES PARTICIPATING IN THIS YEAR’S ART BASEL HONG KONG, 21 ARE HERE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME. ALL ARE INFLUENTIAL IN THEIR OWN MARKETS AND ARE SURE TO BRING SOMETHING UNIQUE TO THE SHOW. HERE WE INTRODUCE OUR 10 MUST-SEES
RICHARD NAGY LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM Modernist art dealer Nagy started London’s Dover Street Gallery in 1989, followed by his eponymous space in 2010. Among his many specialities are German expressionism, Symbolism and, in particular, the works of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. He stages one museum-quality exhibition a year and participates regularly in art fairs throughout Europe and the US. richardnagy.com RICHARD KOH FINE ART KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA Committed to emerging practices and a diverse range of media, Richard Koh Fine Art has been promoting contemporary art throughout Southeast Asia since 2005. Its travelling pop-up, Richard Koh Projects, reflects the latest developments in the regional art scene. For its ABHK debut, the gallery presents Your Past Is My Future by Bangkok-based Thai artist Natee Utarit. rkfineart.com REGEN PROJECTS LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES Founded in 1989 as Stuart Regen Gallery, this contemporary-art specialist has expanded several times and now occupies a 20,000-square-foot space on Santa Monica Boulevard. It’s become known for groundbreaking and large-scale exhibitions by well-known artists such as Catherine Opie, Raymond Pettibon and Charles Ray. Its most recent show featured multimedia works by Glenn Ligon. regenprojects.com
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP EGON SCHIELE AT RICHARD NAGY; NATEE UTARIT AT RICHARD KOH FINE ART OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM LEFT ANNA HULAČOVÁ AT HUNT KASTNER; ROBERT MANGOLD AT GALERIE GRETA MEERT
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GALERIE BÄRBEL GRÄSSLIN FRANKFURT, GERMANY This well-established gallery, in business since 1985, focuses on German positions of the 1980s and ’90s, such as Werner Büttner, Georg Herold and Markus Oehlen — all of who have been represented by the gallery since the start of their careers. It’s also been instrumental in the development of the Frankfurt art scene and its local talent. galerie-graesslin.de CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN COPENHAGEN, DENMARK Open since November 2010, Christian Andersen works with emerging local and international artists to stage solo and group shows in its 3,000-square-foot former garage in the Nordvest area of Copenhagen. Current exhibitions include a solo show of works by Astrid Svangren as well as a group show by Tom Humphreys and Rolf Nowotny. christianandersen.net
NOVA CONTEMPORARY BANGKOK, THAILAND With a focus on promoting exceptional Thai artists, this Bangkok-based gallery has helped spread the gospel of contemporary art across Southeast Asia and beyond. For its ABHK debut, it showcases emerging Burmese artist Moe Satt’s explorations into “the consequences of political uprising, violence and erasure” in his home country. novacontemporary.com
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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: TIN PONE CHAY, 2018, COURTESY NOVA CONTEMPORARY; UNTITLED, 2018, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN; CLOTHESPIN – 4 FT. – (SOFT VERSION), 1975, PHOTO BY STEVEN PROBERT, COURTESY PAULA COOPER GALLERY, NEW YORK; BECOMING FISH, 1996, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND EMPTY GALLERY
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PAULA COOPER GALLERY NEW YORK, UNITED STATES The first art gallery in New York’s Soho district celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, having expanded to showcase not only conceptual and minimal art but also music, dance, poetry and other creative performances. Its debut at ABHK includes works by Tauba Auerbach, Beatrice Caracciolo, Julian Lethbridge, Sol LeWitt, Paul Pfeiffer, Atsuko Tanaka and Robert Wilson. paulacoopergallery.com
EMPTY GALLERY TIN WAN, HONG KONG The host city’s own debutant may be closed for renovations until late March, but it is geared up for its Art Basel debut. It kicks things off with Tishan Hsu: 1984-1997, the Asian debut of New York-based artist Hsu’s works from his most prolific period and a continuation of his return from a selfimposed exile from the art world. emptygallery.com
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP CLAES OLDENBURG AT PAULA COOPER; TISHAN HSU AT EMPTY GALLERY OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM LEFT MOE SATT AT NOVA CONTEMPORARY; JULIA HALLER AT CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
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COURTESY LÉVY GORVY
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SELECT
OPPOSITE PAGE WU DAYU, UNTITLED-35
CO R N E R I N G THE MARKET
THIS PAGE LÉVY GORVY’S NEW GALLERY SPACE FORMERLY HOUSED GRAFF JEWELLERS
Contemporary-art powerhouse Lévy Gorvy makes its commitment to Asia official with a new gallery space in Central. tama lung reports HONG KONG’S REPUTATION as an international art hub, whether you agree with it or not, has much to do with Art Basel and its role as an entry point for galleries looking to open an outpost in Asia. This year, one of the fair’s longstanding exhibitors is taking the leap and will unveil a 2,500-square-foot space in Central’s historic St George’s Building.
“The gallery’s connection to the region began with its participation in the first Art Basel Hong Kong fair in 2013 with a stand focusing on Andy Warhol’s Dollar Sign paintings, and we’ve returned every year since,” says Danqing Li, senior director, Asia, for Lévy Gorvy. “The opening of our Asia headquarters further formalises Lévy Gorvy’s long-term commitment to this incredibly important region. It’s a constantly expanding and growing market of very sophisticated collectors who enjoy engagement with a gallery that’s both international and at the same time very focused on the needs and perspectives of an Asian clientele.” Established by respected Swiss art dealer Dominique Lévy and former Christie’s chairman Brett Gorvy when they joined forces in 2017, Lévy Gorvy specialises in modern, post-war and contemporary art. It maintains gallery spaces in New York and London, both of which are also located in landmark buildings. Its Hong Kong space, which was designed by Bill Katz in collaboration with HS2 Architecture, is to be inaugurated in conjunction with this year’s Art Basel. It continues the gallery’s mission to provide
bespoke services to collectors while pursuing a “robust programme of exhibitions and multidisciplinary events”. “We’ll have a balance of showcasing 20th-century masterpieces, along with curated contemporary exhibitions. Whether a collector, an artist or an art lover, we want visitors to feel the relevance of the exhibitions and for our programming to stimulate thought and discussion,” Li says. In addition to representing artists such as Enrico Castellani, Chung Sang-Hwa, Seung-Taek Lee, Karin Schneider and Frank Stella, Lévy Gorvy specialises in private sales in the secondary market with a focus on works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and other important 20thcentury and contemporary artists.
solid and unified than our own. Instead of seeing the affairs of humankind and the workings of nature as separate, they forge an intimate merging of the two.” With distinctive 3.5-metre-high ceilings and private viewing rooms, as well as its strong history of research and original scholarship, Lévy Gorvy is likely to become a prime destination for collectors in the region and beyond. “Asia has its own deep cultural roots and history of art appreciation. It has been challenged or influenced by globalisation — some have embraced this, and some have resisted. But collectors learn very fast and make efforts to educate themselves,” Li notes. “It will be our honour to grow with them and help them build their own legacy of collecting art.” P
Its inaugural Hong Kong show presents works that speak to the entanglement of the human and natural worlds. “Return to Nature presents a lineage of Eastern and Western artists (including the late Chinese oil painter Wu Dayu) who have returned to an essence: the calm assurance of ancestral roots and inherited traditions, the vibrant materiality of the natural realm, or the existential mysteries of spirituality,” Li says. “Featuring works made during the 19th century and through to the present day, the artists have responded to times of moral, cultural and economic crisis not by joining in human chaos and clamour, but by pursuing a reality that’s seemingly more
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M AT E R I A L WO R L D
Curator Alexie Glass-Kantor explains to christopher dewolf how the installations displayed at Art Basel’s Encounters section are selected
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT JOËL ANDRIANOMEARISOA, THE CARTOGRAPHIES OF DESIRE, THE SPACE BETWEEN US; SIMON STARLING, ZUM BRUNNEN; ALEXIE GLASS-KANTOR
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WHEN ALEXIE GLASS-KANTOR begins
curating the huge installations that comprise the Encounters section of Art Basel Hong Kong, it’s like the scene in a detective movie where the hero finally joins the dots of the mystery. “I basically sit on the floor and do a bit of old-school collaging with print-outs,” she says.
CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT: COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND SABRINA AMRANI; COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND NEUGERRIEMSCHNEIDER; ART BASEL ENCOUNTERS CURATOR, HONG KONG © ART BASEL
Every October, the Sydney-based curator flies to Hong Kong with Art Basel’s architects and operations team and tries to work out the connection between the dozens of installation proposals she receives from the fair’s participating galleries. “I don’t go into the process with a preconceived curatorial angle in mind,” she says. “I go in with an open mind. I pare it back, I look for relations between works, I look for diversity and intergenerationality.” When she’s arrived at a satisfying mix of work, she hands her print-outs to the architects. “They render them overnight and see if it’s feasible for them to be installed in time. So it’s a very collaborative effort.” As Glass-Kantor pored over the proposals for this year’s Encounters, she noticed that many of the works reflected the “disorientation and uncertainty” of an era of social upheaval and global warming, a time when the natural order of things seems to be in the throes of a dramatic readjustment. “There’s an unpredictability that’s amplified through a Trump-era politics,” she says. That was combined with an emphasis on materiality that Glass-Kantor found interesting. “Last year, I had a number of works that had a performance or durational element,” she says. This year, artists seemed to be questioning the very fibre of their work, which Glass-Kantor thinks is a response to the ephemeral nature of life lived in the digital realm. “When you’re living in a time when things are shape-shifting so quickly around us you turn to the things that you have at hand,” she says. “Labour and production embed a sort of meditation on process and engaging with your environment.”
As she decided on the installations that will be shown at Art Basel, Glass-Kantor was reminded of Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise. Like the poem, she says, this year’s Encounters is “a call to action and a proposition to re-energise, re-incarnate, re-innovate and rise”. It might seem a bit strange, then, that the first work many visitors will encounter is Lee Bul’s Willing To Be Vulnerable — Metalized Balloon, a 10-metre-long replica of the Hindenburg, the Zeppelin airship that exploded and crashed in 1937. Lee has long been fascinated by the limits of utopian ideas, and her work has been described by critic Laura Cumming as “beauty with menace”. That is certainly the case here, but there is room for optimism: after all, destruction is an opportunity for rebirth. Zhao Zhao mines similarly dark terrain with In Extremis, an interactive installation that draws from the artist’s 2018 show at Tang Contemporary Art in Beijing. “He would see dead cats pulverised on the highways and would go around drawing chalk outlines around the cats,” says Glass-Kantor. The work raises questions about mortality but also perseverance — and maybe even rebirth. “It’s this sense of reincarnating something that was meaningless and seeing how we can reconfigure.” Other installations include Homage to the Square by Jose Dávila, which explores the influence of artist Josef Albers, who posited that the colours we see are not actually the colours that physically exist. As visitors pass through Dávila’s installation, kinetic mobile sculptures move and refract colour. In City in the Sky, artistic duo Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset take Hong Kong’s densely packed cityscape and invert it, hanging it upside down.
Many of the artists in Encounters may be little known to the Art Basel public, including the Indigenous Australian Tony Albert and Mit Jai Inn from Thailand. “I try to make sure that at least half my artists may be well known in their local contexts but may not be so familiar on the Art Basel circuit,” says Glass-Kantor. After taking over Encounters from curator Yuko Hasegawa in 2014, Glass-Kantor and Art Basel Hong Kong director Adeline Ooi whittled down the number of installations from 30 to 12, to allow for larger installations. She’s also made a point of encouraging as much contact between visitors and the works as possible. “As much as I can, I try to make sure nothing is fenced off. It’s a bit ironic,” she says with a laugh. “I’m such a klutz, I’m always dropping and breaking things.” So are many others, and the first time she curated Encounters, “there was this heavy sense of apprehension about audiences being able to touch and engage with installations”, she says. Unlike the fairs in Basel and Miami Beach, Art Basel Hong Kong draws a large number of visitors from the general public, including schoolchildren and families. Some works have been damaged by rambunctious fair-goers in the past. But Glass-Kantor says audiences have become increasingly sophisticated over the years. And in any case, engaging with the installations of Encounters is not the same as looking at an image on a wall. From the time it begins life as a series of print-outs on the floor, Encounters is a physical experience. “We’ve moved away from a time where educating an audience is anachronistic,” says Glass-Kantor. “The audience is a collaborator.” P
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© 2018 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC LICENSED BY DACS, LONDON, COURTESY BASTIAN, LONDON/ANDY WARHOL POLAROID PICTURES AT BASTIAN, LONDON, FEBRUARY 2–APRIL 13, 2019, GALERIEBASTIAN.COM
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OPPOSITE PAGE ANDY WARHOL, SELF-PORTRAIT IN FRIGHT WIG, POLACOLOR ER, 1986
WA R H O L’ S WO R L D
More than 30 years after his death, Andy Warhol is arguably as relevant and influential an artist and cultural touchstone as ever, writes CHRISTOPHER DEWOLF WHEN THE WHITNEY MUSEUM of American Art opened its
retrospective on Andy Warhol last November, it was the first time in three decades that an American institution had taken such a comprehensive look at one of the country’s most renowned artists. “It seemed wildly overdue,” says Donna De Salvo, the museum’s chief curator. Although there have been smaller exhibitions over the years, and a retrospective at the Tate Modern in 2002, no major shows have been staged on the artist’s home soil since the Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective in 1989, two years after Warhol’s unexpected death following gallbladder surgery. “There’s a perception that we know everything about Warhol,” and that may be one reason why so many years had passed without a close look, says De Salvo. She set out to prove otherwise. “I think Warhol is complicated.” More than that: Warhol is influential. Very influential. “Warhol didn’t make a mark on American culture,” wrote art critic Peter Schjeldahl when the Whitney show opened. “He became the instrument with which American culture designated itself.” Warhol turned the culture of mass media inside out, creating prints, paintings, films, installations and performances that broke down the line between
fine and commercial art, representation and reality, authentic and artificial. He was the original YouTuber, the original Instagrammer, the first viral artist-celebrity. “If you speak about the larger culture, Warhol was prophetic in the way he used all manners of distribution, and in making himself a star to brand himself,” says De Salvo. “Now you have agency, you can create your own image, and Warhol never shied away from that. I’ve heard people say he was the Facebook of his era.” Warhol was born in 1928 to Slovakian parents in Pittsburgh, an industrial city whose steep hills and valleys were choked by a constant haze of coal smoke. He was a sickly child but a gifted artist, taking after his mother, Julia, whose drawings and embroidery decorated the family home. After earning a degree in pictorial design in 1949, he moved to New York and launched himself into the world of advertising and magazine illustration. He distinguished himself with his work for shoe manufacturer Israel Miller, creating whimsical drawings that he eventually began to reproduce and modify en masse. Around the same time, Warhol was drawing homoerotic sketches of cross-dressed male friends and making his own personal shoe
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drawings dedicated to the celebrities Warhol admired, including Truman Capote and Elvis Presley. Although these early works were overlooked until well after Warhol became famous, they planted the seeds of an important part of his later practice: the “queering” of things that represented mainstream American culture. “[He] questioned their validity, revealed their contradictions, turned them inside out,” notes critic Holland Cotter.
Woronov, one of the many people in Warhol’s entourage who went on to become a “Warhol superstar” thanks to their time in the Factory. Warhol filmed them, made art with them and used them to cultivate his own beguiling persona. Although the Factory massproduced physical art works — “It wasn’t called the Factory for nothing,” remarked musician John Cale — it was also an ongoing piece of performance art.
In the late 1950s, Warhol abandoned his career as a commercial artist and began exhibiting in galleries. But he maintained the techniques that had bolstered his commercial work, mass-producing silk-screen prints of Campbell’s soup cans and Coke bottles. It was art that flew in the face of the era’s dominant genre, abstract expressionism, which earnestly channelled the artist’s emotions on to canvas. Warhol’s work was wry and detached, befitting his perspective as a perpetual outsider — a gay, Catholic child of immigrants.
The mystique of the Factory contributed to Warhol’s allure, but so did his distinctive silk-screen portraits of public figures like Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon and — perhaps most famously — Chairman Mao. The prints exploded the myth of originality, of the artist as a genius hero, and embraced the potential of mass media, channelling Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 observation that “the medium is the message” into his work. “I think that Warhol understood something about mediated culture and used the silk screen as a way to convey that,” says de Salvo. “It’s where the form and content come together.” The meaning of Warhol’s prints is found in their repetition and ubiquity.
The 1960s saw Warhol become the artist that most people still recognise today. His succession of New York studios, all named the Factory, became a magnet for scenesters, drifters, artists, radicals and anyone drawn into the vortex of Warhol’s unlikely charisma. “The Factory was like a medieval court of lunatics,” recalled Mary
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Warhol was fascinated by the American mass media, but he was also captivated by the repetitive iconography of totalitarianism. In 1982, Warhol was invited to Hong Kong by entrepreneur Alfred Siu, who’d
OPPOSITE PAGE: TATE, LONDON; PURCHASE 1980 © THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS) NEW YORK. THIS PAGE: THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO; MR AND MRS FRANK G LOGAN PURCHASE PRIZE AND WILSON L MEAD FUNDS, 1974.230 © THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS) NEW YORK
THIS PAGE ANDY WARHOL, MAO, 1972
OPPOSITE PAGE ANDY WARHOL MARILYN DIPTYCH, 1962
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THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: RON AMSTUTZ © 2018 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC/LICENSED BY ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK; © 2018 THE ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM, PITTSBURGH, PA, A MUSEUM OF CARNEGIE INSTITUTE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. OPPOSITE PAGE: © 2018 THE ANDY WARHOL FOUNDATION FOR THE VISUAL ARTS, INC LICENSED BY DACS, LONDON. COURTESY BASTIAN, LONDON/ANDY WARHOL POLAROID PICTURES AT BASTIAN, LONDON, FEBRUARY 2–APRIL 13, 2019, GALERIEBASTIAN.COM
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commissioned portraits of Prince Charles and Princess Diana to hang in his new nightclub. When he arrived, Siu surprised him with a three-day excursion to Beijing, which had only recently opened to the outside world after three decades of Mao-induced isolation. Warhol was fascinated by the abundance of Mao imagery, along with the lookalike Mao suits worn by most people. “He was all about multiples, and at the time China was the ultimate multiple,” recalled Warhol’s personal photographer, Christopher Makos. Warhol continued making prints and celebrity portraits in the 1980s — including the series of Polaroid photographs showing at Bastian gallery’s London space until April 13 — but he also hosted a television talk show and began painting, further blurring the line between the hand-made and the mass-produced, the genuine and the fake. Warhol’s work was evolving in fascinating directions but, ironically, his popularity was on the wane, at least at home. “His career was being supported by sales in Europe, not in the US,” says De Salvo, who worked with him on a gallery show just before his death. Things have changed in the three decades since then. Contemporary art has become more Warholian than ever, with artists such as Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami tapping into the ethos of his work to become celebrities much in the same way Warhol was. And everyday life itself now looks more and more like the kind of world that Warhol built for himself: relentlessly documented, filtered and promoted. “He wanted to see how far you could push a photograph or a drawing or a painting and still have it called that,” says De Salvo. “That is an ultimate meaning for an artist today. Now we don’t even think twice if we have an artist who works as a sculptor but also in virtual reality. They avail themselves of new technology, and that’s what Warhol did.”
EVERYDAY LIFE NOW LOOKS MORE AND MORE LIKE THE KIND OF WORLD THAT WARHOL BUILT FOR HIMSELF: RELENTLESSLY DOCUMENTED, FILTERED AND PROMOTED
In many ways, Warhol seems more relevant today than ever before. “The response to the exhibition has been overwhelming,” says De Salvo. “It’s such an array of people that are coming. A lot of kids. I think there’s an acceptance of Warhol’s work in perhaps a way there wasn’t in the past. There’s a new generation for Warhol that comes at [his work] through the lens of digital culture.” Thirty-two years after his death, we are all living in Warhol’s world now. P
THIS PAGE ANDY WARHOL, LIZA MINELLI, POLACOLOR TYPE 108, 1977 OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP INSTALLATION VIEW OF ANDY WARHOL – FROM A TO B AND BACK AGAIN; STILL FROM THE ANDY WARHOL 16MM SILENT FILM EMPIRE, 1964
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LOGOMANIA BRACELET IN ROSE GOLD WITH CORAL RUBRUM, TURQUOISE AND DIAMONDS
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WILD STY L E S Andy Warhol and the exuberant ’80s provide the inspiration for Bvlgari’s colourful new high-jewellery collection
BOLD, BRIGHT AND larger than life, the 1980s were defined by
the artists and other creators of the times. Think Andy Warhol, David Bowie, Jean Michel-Basquiat, Michael Jackson and, when it comes to jewellery, Nicola Bulgari. The founder of the namesake Roman luxury brand lived in New York during the ‘80s, where he became friends with Warhol and began to make special pieces for private clients. The brand itself also became associated with the over-the-top fashions favoured by Warhol and his ilk, especially with its gold-coin and chain-link necklaces and bestselling logo jewellery and watches. Besides choosing Bvlgari pieces for celebrity photo shoots, Warhol also collected the Monete and Tubogas series and often spoke of his admiration for the brand. This close association, along with a visit to the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York, sparked creative director Lucia Silvestri’s idea for a new high-jewellery collection. Wild Pop, as the collection is named, pays tribute to the groundbreaking glamour of the ‘80s while celebrating the innovation and expertise for which the brand has become synonymous.
The designs celebrate colour, a hallmark of the maison, with kaleidoscopic hues centred around brilliant gemstones. Queen of Pop, for example, reinterprets an ‘80s jewellery silhouette in platinum with baguette diamonds, mint tourmalines and sapphires framing a stunning 24.80-carat sapphire. Other pieces, including Supreme Diamond Light, are designed to evoke the Manhattan skyline with a graphic blend of black onyx and white diamonds. Silvestri didn’t limit herself to Warhol and New York but also looked to movies, music and even the “big hair” that characterised the ‘80s. Iconic TV show Miami Vice provided inspiration for two necklaces and a timepiece, while Madonna and David Bowie’s music videos were the reference point for the Synthesizer and Pop Mics necklaces, bracelets and brooches. Even lovable stoner character Jeff Spicoli from the cult 1982 flick Fast Times at Ridgemont High gets a shout-out in what are probably the first high-jewellery pieces devoted to cannabis. At once disruptive and desirable, Wild Pop is a natural extension of founder Nicola Bulgari’s playful and cutting-edge vision for the brand. As Warhol once said, “When I’m in Rome I always visit Bvlgari because it is the most important museum of contemporary art.” P
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SYNTHESIZER NECKLACE IN WHITE GOLD WITH ONYX AND DIAMONDS
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POP MICS BROOCH IN WHITE GOLD WITH ONYX, COLOURED GEMSTONES AND DIAMONDS
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LIGHTNING BRACELET IN ROSE GOLD WITH EMERALDS, RUBIES, MOTHER-OF-PEARL AND DIAMONDS
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BUTTERFLIES NECKLACE IN PINK GOLD WITH COLOURED GEMSTONES AND DIAMONDS © ANDY WARHOL COLLECTION
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THIS PAGE MUSEUM MACAN DRAWS ENTIRELY FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF HARYANTO ADIKOESOEMO
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P R I VAT E VIEWING
What does it take to become the owner of a world-class art museum? MEI ANNE FOO asks a few ambitious collectors
WITH THE TOTAL value of art held by private individuals worldwide estimated at US$3 trillion, it’s no surprise to find that ardent collectors, with their collections outgrowing wall space in their residences, are increasingly choosing to open private art museums, allowing the public access to art that might not otherwise be seen while in private hands, or be lent to a public museum that lacks sufficient exhibition space to show it. Amid a global surge in collecting, and a diminishing flow of government funding, entrepreneurs and collectors are stepping up, both in the West and in the East.
According to Edie Hu, an art advisory specialist for Citi Private Bank, there were only 349 museums in China 40 years ago. That number has since increased to more than 5,000 today. By comparison, the US has over 35,000 museums. “Many of these museums are privately funded by newly minted billionaires,” says Hu. “For someone who has everything, it’s the ultimate ego project. Many museums have been criticised for being merely vanity projects and that there’s more emphasis on the architecture of the museum than the content.”
Red Brick Art Museum on the outskirts of Beijing was founded in 2012 by property developer and art collector Yan Shijie. With its monolithic brick walls dramatically slashed by narrow windows and skylights, it’s an astonishingly beautiful structure that’s largely devoid of art — though its website ambitiously states that the space is dedicated to boosting the development of Chinese contemporary art through artist programmes and academic research, offering a feasible reference for the operation and development of private museums. In 2006, Palazzo Grassi, an 18th-century building on Venice’s Grand Canal, was bought by French billionaire François Pinault, whose holdings include Gucci, Christie’s and the Château Latour vineyard. With the help of Japanese architect Tadao Ando, it’s been converted into a showcase for Pinault’s private art collection. Soon after, LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault implemented his own idea for a museum, which took the form of the Frank Gehry-designed glass sailboatshaped Fondation Louis Vuitton. Planted in the middle of Paris’s Bois de Boulogne, it’s believed to house works of art owned by both Arnault and LVMH. Another example is the Collezione Maramotti, the private contemporary art collection of Max Mara founder Achille
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ART BASEL
Maramotti, located in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia in a building that previously served as the brand’s warehouse. Yet, says Hu, the motivation for opening a museum varies. “Some are driven by vanity, while others want to share their newly acquired culture with the masses. Others want more control and to show off their collection, creating more value for the pieces and thereby controlling the art market. The public ultimately benefits from the sharing of the largesse of art. It gives people a chance to view, to study and to criticise the art. But you do have to be pretty confident about your art collection to present it to the public and open it up to criticism.” Savina Lee is one such person. The South Korean private-art museum founder is confident that she’s enriching her country’s prolific art scene. “I think I’m a discerning person in selecting good artists and art works,” says the founder of Savina Museum, one of more than a dozen such establishments in Seoul, the city with the highest concentration of privately founded contemporary-art museums in the world, according to a study on the subject in 2016 by Larry’s List. “I wanted to share my ability with everybody,” Lee continues. “The museum is a good medium for connection and communication between the artists and the public too.” Lee is not alone in her contention that the main beneficiary of private collecting should be the public. “Art should be exposed, especially contemporary art, which needs an ongoing dialogue with
its audience,” say the husband-and-wife art-collecting couple Can and Sevda Elgiz, who set up Turkey’s first private contemporaryart museum in 2001. “The public museums house mainly the past while private contemporary museums have the opportunity to house today’s art. “As our collection became wider, we felt responsible to share these pieces with art lovers; and to make these pieces visible. Friends would always see the art in our house and the office buildings, but a display in a public space allocated for the collection creates a different, much more powerful synergy.” When it comes to the significance and sustainability of private museums, many cursorily look to public participation as a crucial measurement. As a new museum, for example, Jakarta’s Museum Macan (the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara) measures its significance by the number of visitors, the number of public programmes produced and the number of people who have attended them. Opened in November 2017, it draws entirely from the private collection of billionaire Haryanto Adikoesoemo, a chemicals and petroleum mogul. His 26-year-old daughter Fenessa chairs the Museum Macan Foundation, which runs the museum as a non-profit organisation, working with partners to ensure the sustainability of its programmes. Asked if there are any hurdles to be faced when trying to improve operations and development of the museum, she admits, “As one of the first cultural institutions that focuses on modern and contemporary art in Indonesia, we barely had any benchmarks prior to our opening. The simplest example is finding our ticketing benchmark. We had to benchmark it against movie tickets, or a cup of coffee in a speciality coffee shop, to determine our price, simply because there weren’t any institutions like ours.” The ethos of making access to private art museums and their collections free of charge is one shared by Finnish-born British business magnate Poju Zabludowicz and his art-collecting partner Anita Zabludowicz. Tamares, the family’s holding company, bought 176 Prince of Wales Road in London, a former Methodist chapel and acting school, and leased it to the Zabludowicz Collection,
THIS PAGE TURKISH MUSEUM OWNERS SEVDA AND CAN ELGIZ OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM TOP MUSEUM MACAN IN JAKARTA; LONG MUSEUM IN SHANGHAI
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RIGHT: SHENGLIANG SU
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“EXHIBITING AND WORKING WITH ARTISTS IS NATURAL FOR US. WE DON’T COLLECT FISCAL OBJECTS, WE COLLECT ART WORKS THAT ARE STORIES AND PARTS OF PEOPLE’S LIVES”
INSTALLATION VIEW OF SAVINA MUSEUM’S MOST RECENT EXHIBITION, ENLIGHTENED MIND — THE ARTIST’S WAY TO MEDITATION
— ANITA ZABLUDOWICZ
a registered charity set up by the Zabludowiczs to produce contemporary-art exhibitions and events that are free for all audiences. “Exhibiting and working with artists is natural to us,” says Anita Zabludowicz. “We don’t collect fiscal objects, we collect art works that are stories and parts of people’s lives. They become part of our life as well and we want to share that passion as widely as possible. Art is increasingly becoming the only free politicised space these days and we need to nurture and keep that possibility alive.” Other collectors prefer sticking to a theme. Singaporean Dr Woffles Wu is a prime example. “I didn’t want to make any of the mistakes or have that diversity that I had in my previous collecting phases,” he says. The painter-turned-plastic-surgeon has collected various items since he was a child, ranging from football cards and comic books to paintings and sculptures. “I’m a bit of a hoarder,” he admits. But when it came to opening his own museum, the Museum of Contemporary Chinese Art in
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Singapore, Wu was adamant in displaying only Chinese contemporary art. “I said, if it’s going to be a museum, let’s be very disciplined. It will be a museum of Chinese contemporary art because it had a finite beginning, which started around 1989 at Tiananmen. What fascinated me about [Chinese contemporary art] was that it mirrored the social changes that were going on in China since that time. It was initially used as a message to the West about helping them to liberalise China.” Whatever the ethos behind the creation of a private art museum, does having art in a museum raise its value for resale? “It normally does help a piece to have been displayed in a public institution,” says Edie Hu. “If anything, it helps raise the confidence in a piece of art that it has been vetted by the museum and by the public and therefore people are willing to pay more.” But, he adds, “If it’s a piece in your own museum, who cares? Or if it’s in the National Gallery, who cares? At the end of the day, you’ve got to find a buyer and the buyer is going to want the piece for what it is and not for the fact that it’s been in a museum.” P
R O OT CAU S E S
Champagne house Ruinart taps Vik Muniz for its latest artist collaboration RUINART WAS FOUNDED almost three centuries ago during the Age of Enlightenment and has been collaborating with renowned artists ever since Art Nouveau pioneer Alphonse Mucha created a seminal ad for the house in 1896.
“Art is in the house’s very nature,” says Ruinart’s president Frédéric Dufour. “We are continuing our commitment to art by supporting major contemporary-art fairs, and giving carte blanche to an artist each year.”
For Art Basel Hong Kong 2019, the fair’s global champagne partner has teamed up with Brazilian photographer and multimedia artist Vik Muniz for a series of works to be displayed at the Ruinart lounge.
conditions of one of Europe’s northernmost
Described as an ode to the power of nature and its creative flow, Shared Roots is the result of Muniz’s stint as an artist-inresidence during the 2018 harvest in Reims, France. The artist used blackened wood and charcoal to depict the uniquely shaped trees that struggle to survive in the harsh
Panaïotis’s hands gripping a vine stock.
vineyards.
Muniz also captures the relationship
between humans and nature, as shown in his depiction of cellar master Frédéric “I wanted to express what couldn’t be
conveyed using language and present the complexity that goes into creating the
exceptional through a creative flow,” he
says, in a possible reference not only to art itself but also to winemaking. P
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THE FEMALE GAZE MANUELA WIRTH Co-founder of Hauser & Wirth, Manuela Wirth is one half of an art-world power couple helming a global network of nine galleries. As one of the world’s most influential gallerists, she’s been a pioneer of championing female-made work for decades. Tell us about your female artist programme. We’re very proud of the fact that we represent more women artists than any other gallery — we started working intensively with women artists long before it became a fashionable talking point. One of the most radical female gallerists, Pat Hearn, introduced us to the work of Louise Bourgeois, Mary Heilmann and Eva Hesse very early in Hauser & Wirth’s history. But really the origin of our in-depth focus on women artists goes back to my mother, Ursula Hauser. Her “discoveries” often found their way into our programme because we
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also loved the work and wanted to support it professionally. This way, strong women artists, particularly those that have been underrepresented, became an important part of our DNA. In May, we’re celebrating my mother’s 80th birthday by hosting an exhibition of her [all-female] collection at our arts centre in Somerset, UK. Women artists are still sorely underrepresented in museum and gallery shows, so it’s important to me that we use the international platform we have to give voice to their work.
when she was in her sixties. She quickly grew into one of the most important artistic voices in contemporary art, and even represented her country, Great Britain, at the last Venice Biennale. Ida Applebroog is another wonderful artist. Other women artists that have had a profound impact on me personally include Isa Genzken and Roni Horn, who each show great commitment to their creative practices, and the issues they deal with in their work mean a great deal to me.
Who are some of your female art heroes? The ultimate for me is Louise Bourgeois. She was one of the past century’s greatest artists, while at the same time a mother to three children, a wife and a profound thinker. I have admiration for the many women that have juggled family roles alongside a robust artistic practice. Phyllida Barlow is another artist who falls into this category, and her work only became known internationally
How do you see the art world addressing the current imbalance in the representation of male and female artists? I hope that we’re now living in a time where this balance is being readdressed, and that the art market will soon catch up. I have to believe that women artists aren’t equally represented currently purely because the historical canon favoured men, so the legacies of their female counterparts are
PAUL WETHERELL
Slowly but surely, women are changing the art world’s traditionally patriarchal landscape. JING ZHANG talks to three experts who are helping to drive change and shift perspectives from the inside out
MANUELA WIRTH
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not so widely known. This is certainly something we’re working to address by representing many female estates, such as those of Eva Hesse, Maria Lassnig and Geta Bratescu, and by commissioning new scholarship and publications devoted to their work. What’s it like to run a global gallery network alongside your husband? How does your partnership work? Iwan and I have been working together for 27 years. We have a shared vision and agree on almost all big decisions, but we also have complementary skill sets. Iwan has always been very spontaneous and is guided by intuition, and it’s this creativity that keeps us on our toes and constantly innovating. By nature I’m more calm, shy and rational, so I help nurture his ideas and shape them into practical plans. Having four children keeps us very grounded and disciplined. Since 2000 we’ve been joined by Marc Payot, our third partner. We feel privileged to work with artists, makers, thinkers. Nowhere else in the world do you meet so many brilliant and interesting people as in the art world. People have written plenty about the dominant Male Gaze but is there a specific way you would define the Female Gaze? I don’t know that the Female Gaze can be singularly defined, but in the women artists I’m drawn to I notice a predominant theme in that their investigations stem from their own psychological experience, or focus on exploring the capabilities and limitations of their own body. For example, Alina Szapocznikow made casts of her own body
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parts, Mary Lassnig developed her concept of “body awareness” painting to explore how her mind perceived her physical presence in the world, Luchita Hurtado literally looked down and painted her own body as she observed it from above, and Louise Bourgeois used her art to work through her emotional trauma. I find this makes for a more charged and meaningful practice than depicting more “passive” subjects. What excites you about the Louise Bourgeois show? Our exhibition of Louise Bourgeois in March is the first solo exhibition to offer her work in Hong Kong. It will introduce visitors to the overarching themes of Bourgeois’s practice, such as the pull between representing the world around her and her psychological realities. We’ll focus on the final two decades of the artist’s life, and show fabric sculptures, prints, sculptures, and rarely exhibited holograms. The exhibition coincides with Bourgeois’s first large-scale museum tour in China, The Eternal Thread, presented at the Long Museum, Shanghai, and the Song Art Museum, Beijing.
ABOVE AN INSTALLATION VIEW OF THE RONI HORN SHOW AT HAUSER & WIRTH HONG KONG RIGHT LOUISE BOURGEOIS, TÊTE II, 2004
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: CHRISTOPHER BURKE © THE EASTON FOUNDATION/VAGA AT ARS, NY, COURTESY THE EASTON FOUNDATION AND HAUSER & WIRTH; JJYPHOTO, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND HAUSER & WIRTH; DINO BUSCH
ART BASEL
K AT E B R YA N A contemporary-art expert and British television presenter who once lived in Hong Kong, Kate Bryan is a curator and art historian who joined the Soho House group in 2016 as head of collections. She’s visiting Art Basel Hong Kong with an eye on acquiring pieces for this city’s Soho House, which opens later this summer.
far. In North American and European museums it’s said that work by female artists accounts for less than 5 percent [of the total]. One of my favourite young British artists, Sarah Maple, has a piece that reads “Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction”, and it’s so true. I acquired that piece for Soho House in London the second I saw it.
Who are your female art heroes? Judy Chicago, not just for her pioneering Dinner Party but for her work as an art educator and great thinker. Frida Kahlo, because I’m only human. And Jenny Holzer — I’m amazed that I agree so much with a woman I’ve never met.
How do you address this in your role? When I became the head of collections for Soho House, it was an amazing opportunity to acquire female work but also to make an important dialogue happen. A big initiative was Vault 100, on permanent display at The Ned London in the heart of the City of London — the financial district we associate with patriarchy. I used loaded connotations of the area to make a point about gender inequality and how it affects the art world. Taking the FTSE 100 CEO gender ratio, which was 93 men and only seven women running top UK companies, I inverted it so that we acquired 93 pieces by female artists and seven by men. The response initially was crazy — people genuinely asked me if they were 93 great women artists in London. It felt so good to prove them wrong! We have work by Tracey Emin, Jenny Holzer, Helen Marten, Sarah Lucas and Lubaina Himid, as well as more emerging artists. It makes me so proud.
You’ve championed women artists for many years as a curator. How and why did this happen? About eight years ago when I was an art dealer I read some shocking statistics about the underrepresentation of women in the contemporary-art world. After a quick inventory of my own artists’ stable, I realised I was showing nearly 50 percent women and had this huge feeling of relief. But I realised that much more needed to be done. Being silent and inactive is a way of being complicit. Historically, women had a hard time becoming artists but many people don’t realise we haven’t come that
There are more female artist-themed shows, but do you think this will move towards thematically organised exhibitions where artists are female? How do you strike that balance between supporting and fetishising female art in 2019? This is such an important point. There’s not much point in creating a female ghetto, the original feminist artists in the ’70s realised this. There has to be one art conversation with everyone in it. That’s why I shied away from curating all-women shows when I was an art dealer. I felt that selling women together was insensitive to their practice — they aren’t women artists, they’re artists. As a
You’ve been coming to Art Basel since it started. How do you feel it’s evolved and what do you enjoy the most? It’s been an incredible catalyst for the city. I was there from the very first fair and remember being so overwhelmed by the number of kids who came at the weekend. It’s amazing to think they’re now maybe teenagers interning at Tai Kwun. I lived in Hong Kong for four years and left for London in 2011, just as things really took off. Returning to build a collection for Soho House that really speaks of the city and the local artists is such a privilege.
KATE BRYAN
curator I hope I can create that open, liberal contemporary and non-gendered context for the work rather than a female art theme. How do you feel about the current representation of women, their viewpoints and curation in the field? I’m really optimistic about the growing status and visibility of women at the very top of the art world that will undoubtedly have an impact. Frances Morris runs a very progressive exhibition programme at Tate Modern and Maria Balshaw became the director of all the Tate Museums, making her the first female director of a national museum in the UK. Nancy Spector occupies a very senior position at the Guggenheim and even the Vatican Museum now has a female director. It’s extremely important that women are decision makers as well as men — it’s already affecting what’s being shown, validated and therefore sold.
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KAREN SMITH Director of Ocat Xi’an contemporary-art centre and art director at Shanghai Center of Photography, Karen Smith is an expert in Chinese contemporary art and a writer and curator with decades of experience. She’s lived in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, overseeing the rise of the Greater China art scene and its greatest names. You’ve worked extensively in Chinese art. Tell us about how accepting the industry has been with female curators and artists. It has in terms of how many of the galleries who contribute to the scene here are [run by] women — beginning from critic and curator Liao Wen in the 1980s, the writer Tao Yongbai and younger individuals such as Sun Ning, who was effectively one of the “founders” of Beijing’s 798. But perhaps it’s still true that male counterparts aren’t confident enough to feel comfortable working with women curators to allow them to rise up beyond being underlings. Tell us about projects you’ve worked on that focus on female artists. I’ve done several projects — solo exhibitions such as Qin Jin’s I Wish I Could Be Your Companion for a Longer Time [Magician Space, Beijing 2009]; Miss P [Pei Li, Platform China, Beijing 2011]; and more recently solo projects for Qin Jin, Carol Lee Mei Kuen, Liz Hingley, Ma Qiusha and Pei Li at Ocat Xi’an. This year we have more coming at Ocat — Hao Jingban, Wu Di, Xiong Wenyun and Edy Ferguson. At the Shanghai Center of Photography, we’ve had Anna Fox and Karen Knorr, and Gan Yingying and Wang Yingying. It’s important that women support women. I dislike the fact that society today is in a position where we still need to make women a conscious focus. You’d have hoped by now that we’d have achieved a
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state of natural equilibrium. But since we haven’t, I do what I can as far as possible to support women artists clearly deserving of opportunities. There are more “female artist”-themed shows, but do you think this will move to thematically organised shows that feature female artists? How would you strike that balance between supporting and fetishising female art in 2019? This will continue to go in cycles. The argument is found in facts of how short a memory the human race possesses; we adjust to new situations, we integrate and then socio-political and economic situations change and old ideas re-emerge as we fall back into default modes of self-preservation which require the putting down of one group to favour the social status of another. So, yes, we need these kinds of shows from
time to time to remind us of better modes of thinking via-a-vis our less egalitarian proclivities. Personally I try not to put “women” in front of every description and discussion, and instead keep talk focused on the work. To reference to what makes an art work compelling may or may not be related to gender, or the gender of its author. It’s important not to create new divisions by suggesting that women should receive exceptional treatment. How was this dealt with in China in the rise of its contemporary scene? In the 1990s, women artists in China felt extremely uncomfortable being corralled into all-women shows. They didn’t want to feel marginalised, or separated from the wider art scene, even though they were often marginalised within it. Shows happened — the attitudes of the
OPPOSITE PAGE KAREN SMITH THIS PAGE LIANG WEI, SOUNDLESS REBOOT
largely male critics were supportive but condescending at best. What was lacking then was a really good public media platform that could debate the fact that artists like Lin Tianmiao and Yin Xiuzhen were breaking moulds and boundaries, and making art that was at the very least as progressive as the next contemporary [male] artist in China. Each generation has produced outstanding women artists in China. The more opportunities that women have to show their work the better. All artists have to know how to handle relationships with curators who may or may not have their own agenda. You can only be fetishised if you let yourself be.
Is the art world consciously moving to address the gender imbalance? Should it? Yes, and yes. The art world ought to be as liberal and permissive in its thinking as it must be open to creative and innovative activities and ideas. If we really believe that art speaks to people, and is able to convey human ideas and experiences across borders and boundaries, then we’re bound to contend imbalance whenever and wherever we encounter it. Who are some of your female art heroes? Generally, Agnes Martin, Sarah Lucas; here in China Cao Fei, Ma Qiusha, Pei Li, Ju Ting, Wu Di and Alice Wang. P
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ART BASEL MAY BE THE MAIN EVENT BUT THERE’S PLENTY MORE FOR ART DEVOTEES TO SEE AND DO IN HONG KONG THIS MONTH
The Show Goes On
NOGUCHI FOR DANH VO: COUNTERPOINT M+ PAVILION, WEST KOWLOON CULTURAL DISTRICT Until April 22 The eighth exhibition at Hong Kong’s museum for 20th- and 21st-century visual culture presents a unique dialogue between noted Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi and Vietnamese-Danish artist Danh Vo. It features a wide range of drawings, objects and sculptures by Noguchi as well as selected pieces produced by Vo in the past eight years. mplus.org.hk/counterpoint UNFOLDING: FABRIC OF OUR LIFE CENTRE FOR HERITAGE, ARTS & TEXTILE March 17-June 30 The inaugural exhibition at the Centre for Heritage, Arts & Textile (CHAT) at The Mills in Tsuen Wan, which celebrates its grand opening on March 16, showcases works and performances by 17 contemporary artists and collectives from Asia. In keeping with the centre’s mission and home at former cotton mills, textiles are woven throughout the works to signify the experiences of textile labourers in the era of globalisation. mill6chat.org
THIS PAGE AN INSTALLATION VIEW OF EAU DE COLOGNE, BERLIN, 2015 OPPOSITE PAGE, FROM LEFT CEDAR BY ASIA CONTEMPORARY ART SHOW FEATURED ARTIST WU QIONG; PALIMPSEST, 2016, BY ART CENTRAL FEATURED ARTIST HOON KWAK
HKWALLS WAN CHAI March 23-31 Hong Kong’s annual street-art festival welcomes local and international artists to realise their visions on exterior walls just a stone’s throw from Art Basel in the vibrant district of Wan Chai. Besides a front-row seat to live painting, visitors can enjoy pop-up exhibitions, workshops and special events throughout the week. hkwalls.org EAU DE COLOGNE HART HALL, H QUEEN’S March 27-April 12 The groundbreaking contemporary-art series – known for establishing a powerful discourse around art, feminism and power – makes its Asia debut, featuring Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer and three more of the seven seminal female artists who participated in the original project in 1983. Also featured are Astrid Klein and Kara Walker, presenting compelling messages about today’s social, political and cultural environments. spruethmagers.com ART CENTRAL CENTRAL HARBOURFRONT March 27-31 The fifth staging of the second major fair of Hong Kong’s so-called Art Week welcomes 32 first-time exhibitors to its ranks of 107 international galleries. With 75 percent hailing from Asia-Pacific, expect a range of high-quality contemporary art from established and emerging artists in the region. Check the website for the full programme of talks, performances, partnerships and curatorial projects. artcentralhongkong.com
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CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE: TIMO OHLER; M & T ART; COURTESY THE ARTIST AND PHOSPHORUS & CARBON
5TH COLLECTORS’ CONTEMPORARY COLLABORATION PAO GALLERIES, HONG KONG ARTS CENTRE March 27-April 22 In an effort to understand the phenomenon of contemporary art in mainland China, the Hong Kong Arts Centre and curator Ling Min of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts explore the habits and interests of two distinct groups of Chinese collectors: those who are artists themselves and those with their own art spaces or museums. Featured collectors include Guan Yi and Zheng Hao. hkac.org.hk
ASIA ARTS GAME CHANGER AWARDS HONG KONG FOUR SEASONS HOTEL HONG KONG March 29 Honouring artists and art professionals making significant contributions to the contemporary arts in Asia, this gala celebration hosted by the Asia Society is also a chance for major artists, gallerists and collectors from around the world to reunite and reconnect. Past honorees include Zeng Fanzhi, Takashi Murakami and Park Seo-Bo. asiasociety.org/hong-kong
SOUTH ISLAND ART DAY WONG CHUK HANG AND TIN WAN DISTRICTS March 29 The South Island Cultural District welcomes art lovers to its growing gallery hub, with 16 local art spaces throwing open their doors for a variety of special events and exhibitions. Another 10 local and international artists have also contributed outdoor installations, while prestigious speakers will discuss art-related topics during the Art World Forum. sicd.com.hk ASIA CONTEMPORARY ART SHOW CONRAD HONG KONG March 29-April 1 Now in its 14th year, the longest-running hotel art fair in Asia returns to the Conrad Hong Kong with a wide-ranging array of art and art-related programmes. Highlights include a series of Artist Dialogues that enable artists and art enthusiasts to connect with one another as well as more than 2,000 works by artists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, South Korea, the UK and more. asiacontemporaryart.com
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ART BASEL
MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR MORE INTERNATIONAL CONTEMPORARY-ART EVENTS TAKING PLACE IN 2019
World Tour
ART BASEL BASEL, SWITZERLAND June 13-16 The original Art Basel, widely considered the benchmark of the contemporary-art fairs, continues to be the nexus of the international art world. Last year, the fair kicked off with “a mild-mannered stampede” as collectors splashed out millions on the most coveted pieces. artbasel.com/basel SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA September 12-15 The fifth staging of Australasia’s leading art fair returns to the Carriageworks arts centre. What it lacks in size it makes up for in diversity — with artists from more than 30 countries, an array of curated sectors, and even pop-up restaurants by top Aussie chefs. sydneycontemporary.com.au
OPHELIA BY JULIA FULLERTON-BATTEN, SHOWN AT LAST YEAR’S PHOTO BASEL
PHOTO BASEL BASEL, SWITZERLAND June 11-16 Switzerland’s first and only fair dedicated to photography-based art aims to feature emerging as well as established exhibitors and artists, and bring its audience closer to photography as a medium. It helps that it runs parallel to Art Basel. photo-basel.com
CHART ART FAIR / CHART DESIGN FAIR COPENHAGEN, DENMARK August 30-September 1 The leading Nordic contemporary-art fair, Chart was established in 2013 with a mission to “challenge the boundaries and experiences of a traditional art fair”. Its three pillars consist of the commercial art fair, Chart Design for collectible design and Chart Social, a nonprofit programme exploring alliances with music, performance and other creative arts. chartartfair.com
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FRIEZE LONDON LONDON, UK October 3-6 The first of the four Frieze fairs, Frieze London showcases works by more than 1,000 artists alongside a full programme of films, talks and more at scenic Regent’s Park. Last year’s edition swept in with a wave of women artists and feminist power, perhaps signalling more shifts to come? frieze.com/fairs/frieze-london WEST BUND ART & DESIGN SHANGHAI, CHINA November 7-10 Drawing art lovers to the glittering streets of Shanghai and its West Bund Art Center, this nearly five-year-old fair offers an established platform for international exhibitors of modern and contemporary art. A full range of associated events doesn’t hurt either. westbundshanghai.com ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA December 5-8 Art Basel’s American edition gathers leading galleries from the region and around the world, attracting more than 70,000 visitors annually — no doubt in part for the celebspotting and party-hopping that the fair has become known for. artbasel.com/miami-beach
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