Almanac 2023

ArtAsiaPacific

Contemporary Visual Culture

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Artasiapacific FOUNDATION
ArtAsiaPacific Foundation is an educational platform committed to spreading awareness and understanding of modern and contemporary art through publishing projects and public activities. Art plays a vital role in creating and maintaining a tolerant an
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ArtAsiaPacific Almanac-
EDITOR & PUBLISHER Elaine W. Ng DEPUTY EDITOR & DEPUTY PUBLISHER HG Masters SENIOR EDITOR Don J. Cohn ASSOCIATE EDITORS: Tiffany Luk, Pamela Wong ASSISTANT EDITOR Nicole M. Nepomuceno, EDITORIAL INTERN Monica Gabrielle Fernandez, Diana Kim, Catherine
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Contributors
PIO ABAD is a Filipino artist based in London. His work is concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. DAPHNE CHU is an art coordinator, writer, and translator who recently relocated to London from Taipei. From 2013 to 2022, s
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One Step At A Time
After three years of upended reality, nearly every country in the world has finally pushed ahead with the resumption of what we remember as regular life. In some places, this transition came gradually while in others substantial restrictions on movem
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Unseeing Leap
The science fictional started making more sense to me amid the reality-bending events of 2022—which at times were like a repeat of 2020, at least for us in Hong Kong. We fell into a time-loop before the Lunar New Year holiday, as the Omicron wave pas
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I Don’t Make Art – To Call What I Do Art Is Already A Mistake!
Johannes Hoerning How should we think about Heidi Bucher’s art? We know from interviews that she rejected calling her work “art,” a familiar sentiment that returns to Duchamp and was loudly stylized by the postwar neo-avant-garde. We also know that s
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What Is A “Museum” For, Anyway?
On August 24, the nongovernmental International Council of Museums (ICOM) approved a new definition of “museum” at its general assembly in Prague—the first significant overhaul since the consultative body was established in 1946. Its new 57-word text
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Problems Of Europe
Even before its 100 day-run from June 18 to September 25, documenta fifteen landed at the center of Germany’s culture wars. The quinquennial’s artistic directors, the Indonesian collective ruangrupa, faced a climate of skepticism from nationalist pol
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Struggling Against The Elements
As natural disasters wreaked havoc across the globe, communities came together to share aid and provide relief. Following the eruption of submarine volcano Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai on January 14, the art organization TBA21-Academy encouraged donatio
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Leading Lights
1949–2022 Drawing on the culture and environments of his birthplace in Iran and adoptive home of Australia, Hossein Valamanesh explored the intertwining of love, spirituality, and nature in installations and mixed-media works. His retrospective “Puis
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Tough Times
As the world entered the third year of co-existence with Covid-19, the pandemic faded to the background in many places as political and social strife took center stage. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 marked a major escalation in the conf
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Relocation Services
Hong Kong witnessed many personnel shifts in the cultural sector. After its November 2021 opening, M+ saw the retirement of Victor Lo Chung-wing as board chair and his replacement with Bernard Charnwut Chan on April 1. From the museum’s team, Lesley
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Growing Fits And Pains
As the global economy muddled through its post-pandemic recovery, art organizations ploughed ahead with their plans. The Sydney Modern project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) welcomed the public on December 3 with a robust program of ex
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Serious Winners
Cultural prizes recognized border-spanning influences. The Hasselblad Award honored Dayanita Singh, the first South Asian artist to win the Swedish photography prize. In Japan, artist-activist Ai Weiwei received the Praemium Imperiale prize for sculp
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Newly Re-ordered
Covid-19 was the big disruptor, giving opportunities for new ventures. But that doesn’t mean it will be easy in 2023, as many trying to get back to business in the commercial art world face added pressure while global inflation swells and recession l
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Deep Freeze Cometh
After a successful 2021 when NFTs generated a total of USD 25 billion in sales and entered the mainstream consciousness, in 2022 it became clear that a frosty season was coming for digital collectibles. While sales of “non-fungible token” art in 2021
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Race For Recovery
In most parts of the world, in-person art fairs returned in more-or-less full scale, particularly in the second half of 2022. Art fans and collectors also seized the chance to visit global art events in person, in the mode of “revenge travel,” especi
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Paradigm Shift
Despite outperforming pre-pandemic figures, auctions in 2022 struggled to outdo 2021’s exceptional turnover. Global contemporary art sales yielded USD 2.7 billion from July 2021 through June 2022, slightly less than the previous year’s USD 2.73 billi
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Beyond Corporeal
The continuing waves and phases of the Covid-19 pandemic brought heightened attention to our physical bodies. The poles of proximity-distance, community-isolation, vulnerability-resilience were stretched to their limits. These extreme experiences, va
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Lu Yang
Before Covid-19 introduced “self-quarantine,” the otaku was the modern-day hermit who, absorbed in the world of ACG (animation, comics, and games), loyally practices their rituals connecting the physical and the virtual realms. Artist Lu Yang, perhap
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Mire Lee
The abject—in particular the intersection of body horror and sexuality—is integral to Seoul-and Amsterdam-based artist Mire Lee’s exploration of the 21st-century human condition. Challenging aesthetic conventions with her use of heavy-duty materials
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Ali Cherri
Life emerged from mud—from the first creatures that evolved to live on the land, to the ancient mythologies of humans created from clay. For Beirut-born, Paris-based artist Ali Cherri, these origin stories intersect with contemporary struggles in his
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ProppaNOW
In 2003 Meanjin/Brisbane artists Vernon Ah Kee, Jennifer Herd, and Richard Bell, laid the groundwork for the collective proppaNOW, whose aim was to support urban Indigenous Australian artists and challenge cultural expectations about “Aboriginal art.
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Jes Fan
Departing from the forms and substances of the human body, Jes Fan’s artworks, attend to states of fluidity and transformation. As societal debates rage about the mutable nature of gender categories, Fan’s creations intersect with increasing scientif
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Tammy Nguyen
At the 1955 Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia’s President Sukarno remarked that a storm of reawakening against colonial powers had swept the two continents. The ensuing historical demise of alternative, utopian futures formed the basis of T
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After The Aftermath
The 2021 soft launch of the post-pandemic new normal in places around the world came to its full fruition in 2022 with the return of in-person art fairs and major loan exhibitions. But after three years of canceled exhibitions and festivals, online-v
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There And back Again
The year 2022 began with Naarm/Melbourne slowly emerging from one of the world’s longest Covid-19 lockdowns. Art institutions and those who run them waited with bated breath to see how the city’s first year of “Covid normal” would unfold. Conversatio
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Next Stage
Founded in 1984, Japanese collective Dumb Type is known for their decentralized structure and pioneering multimedia works in the 1990s, which responded to the urgencies of the time and touched on the core of human experience in a digital age. The gro
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Life In The Limelight
In March 2022, Korea’s new president Yoon Suk-yeol was elected by the narrowest margin in Korean history—less than a single percentage point. The so-called “election of the unfavorables” was marked by the candidates’ divisive campaign strategies and
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Rooting, Grounding, And Centering
As you entered “Phantasmapolis,” the 8th Asian Art Biennial (10/30/21–3/6) at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, you collected a round yellow sticker at the end of a catwalk platform with illuminated markers bearing the social-dista
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Conflicting Cycles
In early December 2021, we encountered local culture bureau officials for the first time, who had questions about our fall 2021 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) at NYU Shanghai, “Do Rocks Listen?” (scheduled: 10/14/21–12/18/21)
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Soft Power, Hard Truths
How would you describe the energy in Manila this year? I was in Manila from March to May 2022 to do the show “Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts” (4/19–8/6) at Ateneo Art Gallery. Coming back for the first time since 2018 was a bit of a shock becaus
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Reimagined Histories
What have you this past year? I just completed my MFA thesis at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where been working on over the course of a year, I was able to consolidate my ideas and art practice. I also participated in the exhibition “emo gym”
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Holding On
2022 was a tough year for Myanmar artists. While trying to hold on strenuously after the February 1, 2021, military coup d’état and the government’s crackdown on its citizens, many artists eventually decided to leave the country, including the artist
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Decentralization Dilemma
For the last five years Jakarta has been undergoing a major transition. It is undeniable that the megapolis is an important cultural center in Indonesia and has made a significant upgrade in its art infrastructure. However, despite the spirit of dece
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With Feelers Out
If 2022 was a year of getting back to a pre-pandemic pace of activity in the Kuala Lumpur scene, then there was a blooming of new spaces and initiatives, and dare we say, new audiences. We felt something of a shift, an expansion, and a tentative ener
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The sensorial City
How has it been in Dhaka in the last couple of years for artists? It’s been sad. It’s a brutal city, it’s a fast city. Highly dense, highly populated, highly polluted. It’s difficult to breathe sometimes, but there’s also an electrifying culture of i
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Resolute Resilience
As soon as people in Pakistan became relaxed again and started returning to normal life patterns after another wave of the pandemic in 2022, the country was hit by another calamity: the floods. Since June, one third of the nation’s territory had been
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Coming On strong
In January 2022, a boycott stirred Berlin’s art scene. Art professionals, loudest among them artist Candice Breitz, started a grassroots campaign against the new exhibition venue Kunsthalle Berlin that suddenly nested in the former Tempelhof Airport—
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Elasticity And Flexibility
What affected you the most this year in New York? Most events have been violent in the United States. I’ve read so much about gun violence and the war in Ukraine through the lens of the American press, which really affects the politics. I’ve tried to
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Looking Beyond Repair
Documenta was not the only mega-exhibition with a decolonial agenda that became plagued by controversy in Germany. Led by artist Kader Attia, the 12th Berlin Biennale (6/11–9/18) faced criticism over the display of the French artist Jean-Jacques Lebe
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Kathmandu Triennale 2077
In its fourth edition, the Kathmandu Triennale 2077 bore the date from the Nepali Bikram Sambat calendar corresponding to the year 2020 when the event was originally due to be held. The pandemic-induced postponement became a fitting metaphor for arti
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23rd Biennale of Sydney
For the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, titled “rīvus” (Latin for “stream”), artistic director José Roca explored the political agency of water ecosystems, inspired by countries that have granted personhood to bodies of water. Featuring more than 80 artists
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Documenta Fifteen
Guided by the spirit of the Indonesian collective rice barn (lumbung), ruangrupa, as artistic directors of documenta 15, devised a decentralized model for resource-sharing among invited collectives and artists. This distributed approach produced a me
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Aichi Triennale 2022
Following national controversy surrounding depictions of Korean comfort women in the 2019 edition, the Aichi Triennale 2022 was helmed by Mori Art Museum director Mami Kataoka, who chose a safer curatorial path by focusing on themes of love, care, an
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11th Busan Biennale
In “We, on the Rising Wave,” the curatorial team led by Haeju Kim and composed of Christine Tohmé, Philippe Pirotte, and philosopher Yuk Hui, explored the history of Busan from its position as the first open port following the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1
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17th Istanbul Biennial
“Let this biennial be compost” were the words of the three co-curators of the 17th Istanbul Biennial, Singapore-based curator Ute Meta Bauer, artist Amar Kanwar, and academic David Teh as they envisaged an event with “no great gathering… no noisy cul
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7th Singapore Biennale
The seventh Singapore Biennale was dubbed “Natasha” by its four co-curators—Ala Younis, Nida Ghouse, June Yap, and Binna Choi—in order to rediscover “the possibility of intimacy and spontaneity” provided by the act of naming, and in turn, reevaluate
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Bangkok Art Biennale 2022
With a curatorial team led by Apinan Poshyananda and comprising Nigel Hurst, Loredanna Pazzini-Paracciani, Jirat Ratthawongjirakul, and Chomwan Weeraworawit, the Bangkok Art Biennale 2022 invited 73 artists whose works reflect “the unpredictable cond
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59th Venice Biennale
Inspired by Surrealist writer and artist Leonora Carrington’s tales, curator Cecilia Alemani conceived of the 59th Venice Biennale as a showcase of contemporary discourse about the “the metamorphoses of bodies and definitions of the human” as well as
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Parallel Realities
Reading rooms are the new white cubes; flow charts are the new abstract paintings; weaving is the new archiving; gardens are the new video installations; cooking is the new performance. Dirt is the new clay. Weeds are the new flowers. Composting is t
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Daniel Boyd Treasure Island
In “Treasure Island,” co-curators Isobel Parker Philip and Erin Vink surveyed Daniel Boyd’s two decade-long practice in deconstructing representations of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander peoples. The exhibition’s title derived from his 2005 can
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Shinro Ohtake
Shinro Ohtake’s first retrospective in 16 years showcased nearly 500 works from the artist’s 50 years of collecting, juxtaposing, and layering found materials into scrapbooks, mixed-media collages, and installations. Creatively inspired by the proces
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Haneyl Choi Manner
As a sculptor, hands are at the center of Haneyl Choi’s practice both as a tool and an impetus for “Manner,” co-presented at Gallery2 and P21. Shown at Gallery 2, H4 (2022) is a smooth, gray 3D-printed hand with six fingers, while C4 (2022) is inspir
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Yayoi Kusama 1945 to Now
In eight decades of creative output, the Matsumoto-born Yayoi Kusama has studied the beauty of plants, depicted the horrors of war, and charmed the world with her giant pumpkins and mirrored infinity rooms. As co-curators Doryun Chong and Mika Yoshit
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Jaffa Lam Chasing an Elusive Nature
Although Jaffa Lam is best known for her works engaging Hong Kong’s migrant communities, “Chasing an Elusive Nature” delivered an introspective inquiry into the artist’s practice. Comprising 11 works, the solo exhibition reflected the artist’s engage
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Jitish Kallat Order of Magnitude
Jitish Kallat’s first major solo presentation in West Asia, with new and older projects, “Order of Magnitude” contemplated the artist’s interests in the spatial and temporal interconnectivity between individuals, the universe, and the extraterrestria
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Aref El Rayess Works 1960–1988
A key figure in the postwar history of Lebanese art, Aref El Rayess traversed the artistic circles of Paris, Senegal, Beirut, Italy, and the United States for two decades before returning to Lebanon to teach in 1967. A follow-up to a 2021 exhibition
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Jumana Manna Break, Take, Erase, Tally
The first United States survey of filmmaker and artist Jumana Manna, “Break, Take, Erase, Tally,” curated by Ruba Katrib, brought together two recent films and nearly 20 sculptures. Manna’s latest feature, Foragers (2022), looks at Palestinian practi
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Danh Vo, Isamu Noguchi, Park Seo-Bo
Curated by artist Danh Vo with Chiara Bertola, the three-artist exhibition connected Vo’s own practice to those of the Korean nonagenarian Dansaekhwa painter Park Seo-Bo and the Japanese American sculptor, architect, and designer Isamu Noguchi (1904–
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Christopher Kulendran Thomas Another World
INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS, LONDON KW INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART, BERLIN The Sri Lankan army defeated the Tamil Eelam de facto state in 2009. For Christopher Kulendran Thomas, the self-governing movement’s use of technology remain an intrigui
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Tala Madani Biscuits
Tala Madani’s first North American survey, “Biscuits,” spanned more than 130 works from the last two decades of her provocative painting practice. Known for her transgressive yet playful portrayals of gender stereotypes and bad behavior, the Iranian-
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Carlos Villa Worlds in Collision
THE NEWARK MUSEUM OF ART ASIAN ART MUSEUM, SAN FRANCISCO A long overdue survey of the late artist, educator, and organizer Carlos Villa, “Worlds in Collision” was the first United States museum retrospective of a Filipino American artist. The multipa
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Hito Steyerl A Sea of Data
Hito Steyerl’s first major survey in Asia, “A Sea of Data,” presented the artist’s reflections on information technology and capitalism through 23 riveting works, from early 1990s videos to a recent commission. Divided into five thematic sections, “A
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The Wild Eighties Dawn of a Transdisciplinary Taiwan
Through its archival approach, “The Wild Eighties: Dawn of a Transdisciplinary Taiwan” at TFAM argued for a history of 1980s transdisciplinary art and literature that is separate, if not counter to, the nostalgic, anti-communist modernist imperative.
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Angela Lyn On the Edge of Time
A captivating retrospective of Anglo-Chinese female artist Angela Lyn, “On the Edge of Time,” was curated by Li Zhenhua with more than 150 works, from paintings to multimedia installations, made over three decades. Throughout the 25 rooms of the 17th
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Dayanita Singh Dancing with My Camera
Dayanita Singh’s survey exhibition “Dancing with my Camera” put movement at the heart of her practice—from the portability of Singh’s display systems, such as books and custom foldable screens, to the people, places, and motifs of her documentary-sty
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Up Next
Singapore JAN 13–NOV 26 Born in 1932, Liu Kuo-sung has been a leading figure in modern Chinese painting for seven decades. As one of the founders of the Fifth Moon group in 1956 in Taipei, Liu has continuously experimented with the classic forms and
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2023 Fairs And Festivals To Keep The Art World Spinning
6–15 Singapore Art Week 6–15 SEA Focus, Singapore 12–15 Art SG, Singapore 3–11 Dhaka Art Summit 7–Jun 11 Sharjah Biennial 15 9-12 India Art Fair, New Delhi 17–20 Frieze Los Angeles 1-5 Aotearoa Art Fair, Auckland 1-5 Art Dubai 10-12 Art Fair Tokyo 11

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