ArtAsiaPacific

We often think of objects as lacking agency. Yet, the power they can have over humans is understood when we reference works of art—our attachments to them, what they represent, and the values we confer on them. With the rise of artificial intelligenc

Born into a Nepali family of traditional artists in Boudha, Kathmandu, a melting pot of diverse traditional Himalayan artists and communities, I was introduced to thangka painting at home. The traditional Tibetan Buddhist scroll-painting practice was

In the busiest month for Taipei of the postpandemic era, previously postponed exhibitions get their due. Despite heightened political tensions across the strait in anticipation of the upcoming presidential election in January, residents appear as rea

On October 7, Hamas militants fired 3,000 rockets into Israeli territory, invaded dozens of border towns, and stormed the Supernova psychedelic trance festival in the Negev desert, killing more than 1,400 people in total and abducting an estimated 20

During the opening of the Honolulu Biennial in February 2019, a woman approached me and my wife Frances as we stood next to our newly commissioned installation. “I have been looking for these for 30 years,” she said, pointing to the plinth showcasing

In late August, Sotheby’s Hong Kong announced it would hold the first of several auctions of modern and contemporary artworks collected by the Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei, who in 2012 founded the private Long Museum in Shangh

In the five-year partnership between KIAF (Sep 6–10), run by the Korean Galleries Association, and London-based, American-owned Frieze Seoul (Sep 6–9), the two fairs occupy different floors at the Coex convention center during the same week. Their da

NOV 9–MAR 31, 2024 The 14th Shanghai Biennale, “Cosmos Cinema,” is led by e-flux cofounder Anton Vidokle with a curatorial team of Zairong Xiang, Hallie Ayres, and Lukas Brasiskis. Located at the Power Station of Art, “Cosmos Cinema” creates a spacet

Born in Canada and based in Hong Kong, multimedia artist Chan Ka Kiu concluded her recent three-month residency at De Sarthe Gallery with a solo exhibition titled “Late to the Party.” Dealing with the anxieties of aging, Chan referenced the infamous

The pink dolphin of the Pearl River Delta is a lost species, long associated with Hong Kong but now more mythical than real as its numbers have dwindled to the point of extinction. The memory of them, or the imagination of them, as cultural signifier

With a newspaper held outstretched, a man with a white chin beard, black ponytail, and gray fedora stood on stage. In a declarative voice, he read an article aloud in Korean, then placed the spread on the table before him and cut out a rectangle. He

As a professional storyteller, there is perhaps no better history for Simone Fattal to divulge than her turbulent, inspiring own. After enduring a riotous and fraught youth in Beirut, the Damascus-born artist studied philosophy at the Ecole des Lettr

Kim Beom was once an artist’s artist, admired by those who knew him for his droll takedowns of modern art’s sacred conventions. Today, pirated copies of his video Yellow Scream (2012) are viral hits on YouTube, and he was the subject of a major retro

“How does one differentiate reality from dreamscape?” As a pertinent question raised by Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi, we may desire a more ambiguous boundary between the real and unreal, as the reality we live in—the climate crisis, war, political tur

Across 25 years of artistic practice, Yeondoo Jung has explored the theatrical space between individuals’ dreams and reality, their imaginations and history. While on an artist residency in Jeju Island, Jung encountered prickly-pear cactus plants and

A man enters frame right and tracks a small ravine as sunlight casts through the foliage, striking the ink-green, algae-covered ground. At times, he crawls, holding tight to the wall, trying to maintain his balance. The man is Ong Yong Lock, a vetera

What is a monument? What values do monuments project into civic spaces? And what does it mean to work in a monumental format? The three-person collective Tromarama, comprised of Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans, and Ruddy Hatumena, conceived of their mov

It is hard to think of a more optimistic artist working today than Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Odd, given that his subject matter is the intergenerational trauma provoked by the long legacies of colonial war in his home country of Vietnam. His latest solo ex

The exhibition of four artists “She could lie on her back and sink,” curated by Lisa Beauchamp, was a conceptual exploration of alternative knowledge as embodied by the historically mythic figure of the witch. Though rather than serve as a metaphor f

“Landscape theory” (fukeiron), as theorized in 1969 by film critic and anarchist Matsuda Masao, states that the landscape of modern Japan is banal in its sameness and that this homogeneity is a product of the state’s authoritarian structure. The cent

“A One and a Two: Edward Yang Retrospective” was the latest attempt by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) to grapple with the weight of Taiwanese history, following on from “The Wild Eighties,” a widely discussed exhibition earlier this year concerni

Like water, grief seeps into everything. It trickles through cracks. It gathers speed and rushes in. Filipina artist Eunice Sanchez found herself amid pools of sorrow in her second solo exhibition, “Sa Ilog, Nagtatagpo (On Rivers, Gathering)” at West

Small and midsize art institutions survive in precarious conditions, buoyed by artistic energy yet at risk of capsizing amid cruelly indifferent waves of support. Twenty-seven years into its existence, the Hong Kong nonprofit Para Site marked a self-

In a dark, black gallery space a strange figure lay face down on top of shattered glass and an ornamental rug, its upper half draped in a multichromatic Jathilan robe used in Javanese folk dances to invoke spiritual possession. Its lower half was dre

Over the years, Matthew Krishanu has divulged enough of his life to have his experiences inform his paintings. Onto Krishanu’s landscapes, for instance, we project the knowledge that he grew up in Bangladesh, where his British father worked as a Chri

Stepping into Cengiz Çekil’s retrospective at Arter, “I Am Still Alive,” visitors were confronted by WHAT TIME IS IT? (2008), a work consisting of 12 clocks mounted in a circle on the wall. Imprinted with the artist’s name, each clock was one hour be

Drawn from an archive spanning nearly six decades, Daido Moriyama’s latest retrospective at C/O Berlin induced slow looking at fast pictures. A carefully conceived presentation of prints, books, and video installations allowed viewers to take in dist

Human beings are apt to seek meaningful patterns in things, with a wealth of research suggesting that the human brain evolved in this way to aid learning and survival. But can the patterns we see be influenced by our education and our history, that i

“Intimacy” and “distance” are oppositional concepts often used to map and define the relationship between oneself and others. For Tokyobased interdisciplinary artist Maiko Jinushi’s first solo exhibition in Canada, she explored relationships with oth

By Kurt Tong Published by Editions Xavier Barral Paris, 2022 Somewhere between journalism, documentary, and historical fantasy, Kurt Tong’s genre-defying Dear Franklin (2022) reimagines the boundaries of a photography book. Its origin story is perhap

There is a certain mystery to Hanoi in early autumn: the air is soft, and despite the pollution it is almost translucent, while the light is heavy with honeysuckle. It was during this time of year that I visited painter Ha Manh Thang’s studio in Dam

Somewhere between entangled botanic installations and environments that elicit voyeuristic tendencies lies Trevor Yeung’s investigations into distant intimacy and interspecies relationships. The Hong Kong-based artist is known for a practice that int