May 30, 2023 TANC
Obituary **▷
Ilya Kabakov, initiator of the Moscow Conceptualism movement and artist, passes away
Emilia and Ilya Kabakov
On May 27, 2023, Ilya Kabakov, one of the most important artists since the end of the 20th century, initiator of the Moscow Conceptualism movement, and former Russian artist, passed away at the age of 89. The news was announced by his family on the same day.
Ilya Kabakov was born in Dnipropetrovsk, former Soviet Union, in 1933. He studied art at the Moscow VA Surikov Art Institute in his early years and began his personal career as a children’s book illustrator in the 1950s. At the same time, he worked as a conceptual artist outside the art system controlled by the Soviet government. He began collaborating with Emilia Kabakov in 1988 and they married in 1992. They condensed the history and material characteristics of space into tangible structures of installations, which were displayed in their humorous and poetic large-scale installation works. In 2003, they represented Russia at the 45th Venice Biennale, and their works were exhibited in many places such as the Amsterdam Municipal Art Museum, the Whitney Biennial, and the Winter Palace Museum in St. Petersburg.
Art Institution **▷****
V&A Photography Center officially opens
The Hypermedia Gallery explores cutting-edge issues in contemporary photography
V&A Museum Photography Centre’s Meta Media Gallery
On May 25th, the second and final phase of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A Museum) Photography Centre officially opened in London. The renovated exhibition space of the V&A Museum Photography Centre now spans over 1000 square meters and has seven galleries, making it the largest permanent space for photography collections in the UK. The Meta Media Gallery, supported by the Meta Media Group and the Shao Zhong Art Foundation, was one of the three galleries unveiled in the first phase of the V&A Museum Photography Centre. It aims to explore the development of photography in our increasingly digital world, challenge people’s definition of photography, and examine the significance of contemporary photography. From computer-generated images to projection and animation, the gallery delves into the complex relationship between humans, machines, and images. Currently on display at the Meta Media Gallery is the commissioned project “The Zizi Show” by British artist Jake Elwes.
Paris’ Pompidou Center to undergo sustainable renovation
The Pompidou Center in Paris has announced that it will close for major renovation and expansion from 2025 to 2030. In a discussion titled “Sustainable Museums, Sustainable Art” organized by Art News/Chinese Edition, Paul Frèches, the representative of the Pompidou Center in China, stated that this move is part of the center’s important plan for sustainable development. During the closure, the center will remove harmful materials from the building, improve its facilities, and reduce energy consumption by 40% compared to before the renovation when it reopens in 2030. The winner of the architecture competition for this project will be announced in 2024, and the project is expected to begin in 2026, complete in 2030, and reopen. The French government will pay 262 million euros for this project, and the Pompidou Center is still looking for an additional 160 million euros in funding. During the closure, the Pompidou Center will collaborate with the Grand Palais and the Louvre on various projects and celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2027.
Yuz Museum opens at new location
New building of Yuz Museum, 2023, Photographer: Liang Shan, Image source: ©️Yuz Museum/Shanshui Xiu Architecture Firm
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Yuz Museum in Shanghai, the new museum located in Panlong Tian Di was completed on May 17th and opened its first exhibition “A Journey” to the public. This exhibition selects more than 40 representative works of Chinese and foreign artists from nearly 1,500 contemporary art collections of the Yuz Foundation, using various creative media such as painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video to embark on a journey through time and space. The new building is built along rivers, rice fields, ponds, and bamboo forests, integrating nature and artificial, tradition and modernity. The initial idea of the new exhibition takes “home” as the starting point, tracing the journey of artists’ creation, and also looking back at the history of the Yuz Museum’s founding based on collections. The museum “hopes to continuously deepen the mission of the museum’s collection ‘home’ through this exhibition and the opening of the second chapter of the museum, fulfilling the function of the museum as a ‘home’ for daily life, industry ecology, and social development.”
Opening Exhibition of Sound Art Museum
Sound Art Museum, Image source: Sound Art Museum
After three years of preparation, the Sound Art Museum will officially open to the public on May 19th. Located in Songzhuang, Beijing, the Sound Art Museum is a contemporary non-profit cultural institution that focuses on the exploration, collection, protection, and dissemination of sound works using sound as a medium. It consists of the “Sound Station” (permanent exhibition), “Sound Art Space” (temporary exhibition hall), “Ruo Gu Building” (sound experimental project base), and “Sheng Huo Center” (sound speed childhood, sound therapy experience room, sound library archive, multi-functional listening, artist residency center, and pigeon whistle base). The museum integrates contemporary, traditional, technology, science, music, art, and other disciplines, hoping that in the field of sound scenarios, audiences can immerse themselves in different levels of operation, experience, and interaction to understand the principles of sound, the knowledge of sound itself, and the resonance of sound and emotion. At the opening, the Sound Art Museum will also hold the “30-year Retrospective Exhibition of Sound Creation in Chinese Contemporary Art by ‘Yin Gu'” and the “Qin Siyuan: Sound and Cement” and “Heaven on Earth” exhibitions.
Celebrating the 12th Anniversary of the Glass Museum
Simultaneously presenting the Solo Exhibitions of Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen
Yin Xiuzhen: Ripples of Tension exhibition at the Glass Museum, image source: Glass Museum
On the occasion of its 12th anniversary, the Shanghai Glass Museum launched the SHMOG NXT project for the metaverse and proposed the slogan “The future equals now”. Since its opening in 2011, the Shanghai Glass Museum has continuously introduced new and fascinating experiences to attract audiences of all ages and interests. The “SHMOG NXT” project aims to seamlessly integrate the museum’s physical art collections with the digital realm. Visitors can explore the highly realistic museum environment in real-time from their own perspective. At the same time, the museum’s “Annealing” project brings together the solo exhibitions “Annealing or Not” and “Ripples of Tension” by Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen, as well as the collaborative exhibition “Chopsticks: Taste the Light” by Song Dong, Yin Xiuzhen, and Song Er Rui. As heavyweight artists renowned worldwide, Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen have participated in and witnessed the entire historical process of contemporary art in China over the past thirty years. This exhibition project is the artists’ first attempt to create works using glass as the primary core material, further exploring the philosophy and social significance contained in the material.
The Museum of the Working People’s Culture and Art is closed indefinitely
The Museum of the Working People’s Culture and Art, image source: Pi Village Workers
The Museum of the Working People’s Culture and Art, located in Pi Village, Beijing and initiated by the Working Youth Art Group, announced that it will be closed indefinitely due to facing demolition, and held a farewell ceremony on May 20th. It is the only public welfare museum in China founded by migrant workers themselves. It was officially established and opened to the public for free on May 1st, 2008. The museum’s five exhibition halls focus on the history of migrant workers from the planned economy to the 30 years of reform and opening up, female migrant workers, migrant children, organizations and NGOs providing services to workers across the country, as well as displaying physical objects and themed exhibition halls. In addition to exhibitions, the museum, as a comprehensive platform, has built facilities such as the “New Workers’ Theater”, “Workers’ Cinema”, “Workers’ Library”, and “Public Welfare Store”, published many literary and musical works, and held activities such as the New Workers’ Culture and Art Festival, the New Workers’ Cultural Awards, the New Citizen Children’s Art Festival, and the Working Spring Festival Gala to promote cultural exchanges among workers.
Art Awards **▷****
Brazil Pavilion wins the Golden Lion Award at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture
Brazil Pavilion Exhibition “Terra” at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale
The Brazil Pavilion has been announced as the winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award for best national participation at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. The award-winning exhibition “Terra” (Earth) was curated by architects Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares. “Terra” is divided into two independent parts, “De-colonizing the Canon” focuses on the legacy, design, and landscape of indigenous peoples who were marginalized and displaced during the construction of Brasília in the mid-20th century, while “Places of Origin, Archaeologies of the Future” focuses on buildings built by indigenous peoples throughout Brazil’s history.
DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency), led by architects Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal, won the Best Participant Golden Lion award. The company, based in Beit Sahour, Palestine, showcased a deconstructed building facade aimed at studying “the subversion of fascist colonial architecture and its modernist legacy.” The jury praised Petti and Hilal for their “long-standing commitment to deep political engagement in non-colonial architecture and learning practices in Palestine and Europe.”
Pioneering AI Artist
Stephanie Dinkins wins inaugural LG Guggenheim Fellowship
Samuel Fosso Wins 2023 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
Samuel Fosso has been awarded the 2023 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize for his exhibition “Autoportrait” at the Walther Collection in Neu-Ulm, Germany. Fosso is a Cameroonian photographer who has been based in Nigeria since the 1970s. His work explores themes of identity, gender, and post-colonialism through self-portraiture and performance. The exhibition featured a series of large-scale self-portraits that Fosso created over the course of several decades, showcasing his ability to transform himself into a variety of characters and personas.
The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize is awarded annually to a photographer who has made a significant contribution to the medium of photography in Europe. The prize includes a cash award of €30,000 and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the field of photography. The jury praised Fosso’s work for its “boldness, originality, and technical mastery,” and noted that it “challenges our assumptions about identity and representation in powerful and provocative ways.”
Samuel Fosso, a Nigerian photographer born in Cameroon, won the 2023 Deutsche Börse Foundation Photography Prize for his retrospective exhibition at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. Fosso was born in 1962 in Cameroon, grew up in Nigeria, and fled during the Biafran War in 1972. At the age of 13, he opened his own “National Photography Studio” and began creating a series of performative self-portraits, which he continued to shoot throughout his career in addition to his commercial work.
The award ceremony was held on May 11th at the Photographers Gallery in London, where Fosso received £30,000. The other three shortlisted artists, Bieke Depoorter, Arthur Jafa, and Frida Orupabo, each received £5,000. The works of all four shortlisted photographers will be exhibited at the Photographers Gallery until June 11th, after which the exhibition will tour to the Muzeum Fotografi w Krakowie in Krakow on June 30th.
In other news, Aki Sasamoto won the 2023 Calder Prize. Sasamoto is featured in the Art21 documentary “Aki Sasamoto: An Artist Walks into a Bar.”
Installation artist Aki Sasamoto, currently based in New York, has been awarded the 2023 Calder Prize. The award, named after sculptor Alexander Calder, is presented by the Calder Foundation and aims to encourage “contemporary artists whose work reflects the legacy of Alexander Calder.” The Calder Prize is awarded every two years and comes with a $50,000 cash prize. The winner will also have a three-month residency at Atelier Calder, Alexander Calder’s former studio in Saché, France, and their work will be collected by art institutions.
Born in Yokohama, Japan in 1980, Sasamoto collaborates with visual artists, musicians, choreographers, dancers, and scholars to create works that respond to the surrounding environment. Her 2021 installation work, “Squirrel Ways,” was created during a previous residency at the Calder studio. She assembled a movable set of wooden panels into a living room for performance, and this work, conceived during the pandemic, aimed to explore the permeability of barriers.
Personnel Appointment ** ▷**
New Female Leaders Appointed in Art Institutions
Art institutions such as MoMA PS1 in New York, Gropius Bau Museum in Berlin, and Imperial War Museum in London have recently announced new appointments of female leaders.
Connie Butler
MoMA PS1 has announced Connie Butler as its new director. Butler will take office in September, succeeding Kate Fowle who resigned in June 2022. Butler has been the chief curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles since 2013. Prior to that, she was the chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Robert Lehman Foundation of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York from 2006 and a member of the curatorial team for “Greater New York” at MoMA PS1 in 2010. This appointment marks Butler’s return to MoMA PS1.
Jenny Schlenzka
Jenny Schlenzka has been appointed as the director of Gropius Bau Museum in Berlin. She previously served as the associate curator of performance at MoMA PS1 and the artistic director of Performance Space 122 (formerly P.S. 122) in New York. She took office at Performance Space 122 when it reopened after a major renovation and was the first female director of the institution. Schlenzka successfully guided the organization through the pandemic, and her successor will be announced this fall.
Caro Howell
Caro Howell has been appointed as the director of the Imperial War Museums in London. Previously, she was the director of the Foundling Museum and the director of education and public programs at the Whitechapel Gallery. She also served as the curator for youth and special projects at the Tate Modern.
Emma Ridgway
Emma Ridgway, the chief curator of Modern Art Oxford, will become the new director of the Foundling Museum. She previously curated the British Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale and organized the first solo exhibitions in the UK for several internationally renowned artists. She has also worked as a curator for institutions such as the Barbican Centre, the Serpentine Gallery, and the Royal Society of Arts.
Annual Important Triennial Exhibition
Curator List Continues to be Announced
Vivian Crockett and Isabella Rjeille
Vivian Crockett and Isabella Rjeille have been appointed as the curators for the 6th New Museum Triennial in 2026. Crockett is a curator at the New Museum, while Rjeille is a curator at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand in Brazil. Rjeille is the first international curator to participate in the planning of the triennial exhibition, and she will bring a perspective from the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, which is an exciting contemporary art institution.
Alexia Fabre, photo by Adrien Thibault
Alexia Fabre has been appointed as the curator of the 17th Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale. Fabre is the director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Anton Vidokle, photo by Margarita Ogolceva
Anton Vidokle will serve as the chief curator of the 14th Shanghai Biennale, which will be themed “Cosmos Cinema.” Vidokle stated, “The 14th Shanghai Biennale will revolve around artists’ contemplation of the relationship between humans and the universe, delving into the inspiration and constraints that the cosmos has on human life.” Vidokle lives and works in New York, with an interest in cosmism, and has established the first internet art news media e-flux and the “Cosmic Research Institute” open archive platform there.
Nicolas Bourriaud
The Gwangju Biennale Foundation announced that French scholar, curator, and critic Nicolas Bourriaud will serve as the artistic director of the 15th Gwangju Biennale, which will open in September 2024. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Gwangju Biennale, Bourriaud plans to integrate his artistic philosophy into a discourse-oriented exhibition, focusing on the space of human life and redefining the boundaries between humans and other fields. The 15th Gwangju Biennale hopes that this exhibition will engage in multi-level interactions around interpersonal relationships, diagnose modern symptoms after the COVID-19 pandemic, and explore how art can help humanity recover from the social division caused by the pandemic.
Zhou Anman, Mu Baian, and Reem Shadid
The 13th Taipei Biennial will be held in November 2023. The organizer, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, has officially announced that the exhibition will be co-curated by curator Zhou Anman (Freya Chou), writer, editor, and education promoter Mu Baian (Brian Kuan Wood), and curator Reem Shadid. The theme of this biennial is “Small World,” which will transform the Taipei Fine Arts Museum into a space for listening, gathering, and improvisation, exploring the compressed time captured by music and film, and replaying our intimate lives that have been devoured by recording machines.
New Exhibition **▷****
Continued Collaboration between Chinese and Foreign Institutions
Multiple Exhibitions Open Simultaneously in Shanghai and Beijing
Exterior view of the east side of the Palace of Versailles, image source: © Château de Versailles
The Palace of Versailles announced that, on the occasion of French President Macron’s visit to China and the joint witness of the heads of state of China and France, the institution has signed an exhibition agreement with the Palace Museum in China. The “Versailles and the Forbidden City” exhibition will be officially held in April 2024. 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France and is also designated as the “China-France Cultural Tourism Year.” Based on the “China at Versailles – Art and Diplomacy in the 18th Century” exhibition held at the Palace of Versailles in 2014, “Versailles and the Forbidden City” will start with the friendship between Louis XIV and Emperor Kangxi and will bring together richer collections from both institutions to achieve deeper cooperation and exchange.
The upcoming June exhibition at the Pudong Art Museum includes “Contours of Time: Oceanic Art and Heritage from the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” “Giants of Six Centuries: Masterpieces from the National Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza,” and “Liu Xiangcheng: Lens, Time, People.” The first two exhibitions are in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, respectively. They showcase art treasures from Oceania and Western art masterpieces from the Renaissance to post-war Europe and the United States.
UCCA Edge in Shanghai will also present a new exhibition in collaboration with the Museum Berggruen in Berlin, “A Modernist Walk: The Collection of the National Museum Berggruen in Berlin.” The exhibition features nearly 100 representative works by six modern art masters of the 20th century, including Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Henry Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Cezanne, and George Braque. The exhibition presents the development of modernist art in various genres such as Fauvism, Cubism, and Surrealism in chronological order. UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art will also launch an exhibition in July in collaboration with the Musée Matisse in France, “Matisse’s Matisse.”
The Shanghai Yicang Art Museum is presenting the largest exhibition in the history of Memphis, “Memphis Again: 1981-1985 Stuck Inside the Revolution,” in collaboration with Memphis Milan and GOD (Global Design Distribution) from May 14th. Christoph Radi is directing and planning the exhibition, which showcases Memphis’ free design trend in a new visual image and strong new cultural atmosphere, bringing new stimulation and inspiration to contemporary popular culture.
The second chapter of the “Craftsman’s Home” project, “Ten Crafts with One Wood,” has also opened at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (PSA). Focusing on the “wood” that combines temporality and spatiality, the exhibition uses the form and concept of the classic indoor component “Bogu Shelf” to display ten sets of handmade wooden utensils that span time and space dimensions between the scaffolding structures in the exhibition hall, providing a viewing experience that shuttles between “residence” and “travel.” At the same time, the museum is also exhibiting “Raymond Depardon: Modern Life” and “A Gift to PSA: Cheng Xindong’s Contemporary Art Donation Exhibition.”
The Long Museum West Bund has launched a special exhibition “Slow Walk – Long Museum’s 10th Anniversary Exhibition” since May 20th, featuring over 160 sets of contemporary art pieces selected from around the world since the late 1970s. The exhibition showcases the works of numerous Chinese and foreign artists, including George Condo, Mary Corse, David Douard, Olafur Eliasson, Theaster Gates, Jenny Holzer, Robert Rauschenberg, Avery Singer, Kiki Smith, Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Chiharu Shiota, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Liang Shaoji, Li Yuhan, Park Seo-Bo, Ding Yi, Huang Yong Ping, Wu Shan-zhu, Xu Bing, Xu Lei, Zhao Wuji, Zheng Guogu, and Zhou Chunya. The exhibition aims to present a historical panorama centered on artists, highlighting the dynamic relationship between contemporary art in China and the rest of the world over the past 50 years, and showcasing the interweaving of cultures and their mutual influence.
Image of “Grass, Sand and the Global Environmental Machine” by Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun, 2022, source: artist
The Shanghai New York University Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) has opened a new summer exhibition titled “Walking in China: Untold Stories” in collaboration with the “Out of Eden” project, curated by Paul Salopek and Ke Xianjun. The exhibition showcases the stories of ancient human migration routes in China. Participating artists include Paul’s walking companions, folk artists encountered along the way, and artists who have deeply contemplated walking. By uncovering local narratives that have been obscured by mainstream discourse, “Walking in China” tells local stories that cross disciplines, knowledge systems, and ways of understanding, rethinking the relationship between nature and culture, as well as the fluidity of history and identity. The exhibition also serves as a reference for future exhibition plans that will accompany walking between different countries until the journey’s end at Tierra del Fuego in South America.
“Walking Guide” exhibition at the Long March Space, 2023
The Long March Space in Beijing is also exhibiting a group exhibition titled “Walking Guide,” which responds to and explores the possibilities of contemporary life by presenting the participating artists’ practices of “walking on the streets.” Participating artists include 44 Months, Ge Yulu, He Zhisen, Li Binyuan, Li Nu, Wan Qing & Zhang Hanlu, and others. Curator Li Jia wrote: “In the ‘Walking Guide’ exhibition, we no longer limit walking to the myth of romantic artistic will, nor do we intentionally distance ourselves from various knowledge productions represented by ‘artistic research’ or field investigations that prioritize methodology. Here, walking is more about a critique and reconstruction of daily life, actions deeply embedded in everyday situations, and a poetic political aesthetics.”
The second Jimei-Arles “Curator Award” exhibition, curated by Wang Shuman and titled “New Survivors,” has opened at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre. The Jimei-Arles “Curator Award” was jointly launched by the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre and Chanel in 2021 to encourage and support more outstanding curators to participate in interdisciplinary research on images. In “New Survivors,” Wang Shuman invited eight artists, including Harun Farocki, James T. Hong, Jazmín López, Meiro Koizumi, Ana Mendieta, Nguyễn Trinh Thi, Moe Satt, and Tang Chao, to exhibit nine works that use images as a medium of display and research to explore how contemporary traumatic memories are recorded, manufactured, modified, and constructed into new meanings within the image system.
Meanwhile, the MK Art Center has been presenting solo exhibitions by artists Hu Wei and Chris Zhongtian Yuan since May 21. “Bait” is Hu Wei’s first institutional solo exhibition, which reviews and sorts out his recent works through three films, installations, and sculptures, and presents his latest three-channel video work “Earthquake and Rubble” (2023) supported by the MK Art Center for the first time. “No Door, Only Window and Light” is Chris Zhongtian Yuan’s first domestic institutional solo exhibition, which reviews and sorts out his recent works through four video works, some installations, and drawings, and presents his newly commissioned video work “No Door, Only Window and Light” (2023) for the first time, also supported by the MK Art Center.
Art Market **▷****
Important auction houses at home and abroad are launching successive initiatives in China as the spring auction season approaches.
Christie’s announced the appointment of Mr. Shoukang Cheng as Chairman of Asia, effective May 24th. Mr. Cheng will be based in Hong Kong and will join the regional leadership team led by Francis Belin, CEO of Christie’s Asia Pacific. With his extensive experience and broad network in the art and luxury industry in Asia, he will deepen and expand Christie’s customer relationships in the region. This season’s Hong Kong 20th and 21st Century Art Evening Sale will present classic works by global modern and post-war art masters, as well as outstanding contemporary artists, including the leading works “Black” by Jean-Michel Basquiat and “Sacred Heart (Purple/Gold)” by Jeff Koons, as well as heavyweight works by contemporary Western masters such as Barkley Hendricks, Andy Warhol, Rene Magritte, and Joe Bradley.
Sotheby’s announced on May 18th that its “Shanghai Sotheby’s Space” on the Suzhou River has officially opened. The space covers a total area of approximately 2,000 square meters and is adjacent to several well-known art venues and historical landmarks. It will become a comprehensive collection ecosystem with rich functions and open diversity, providing various forms of offline experiences and cultural services. Sotheby’s Buy Now “Instant Collection” business has officially expanded to mainland China, with collectible handbags, jewelry, watches, and streetwear as the first categories. At the same time, the Sotheby’s Buy Now WeChat mini-program and the Sothebys.cn Chinese official website have been launched simultaneously, both providing complete and convenient instant collection experiences and supporting delivery to mainland China, once again demonstrating Sotheby’s determination to deepen its presence in the mainland Chinese market.
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of China Guardian’s establishment, the China Guardian 2023 Spring Auction will kick off on June 7th, and the 2023 Spring Fine Art Exhibition will be held successively in Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. In this season’s spring auction, China Guardian has gathered more than ten artists born in the 70s and 80s, including Wang Xingwei, Zhang Enli, Huang Yuxing, Ouyang Chun, Qiu Xiaofei, and Chen Ke, showcasing their iconic works from different creative stages. The second “Super Night of New Chinese Painting Since 2000” will be launched, deeply combing the latest trends and phased achievements in the field of contemporary painting after the millennium, demonstrating the unique value and unlimited development prospects of this generation of artists.
Art World Welcomes Reunion Moment
In the spring, New York welcomes the Frieze New York and other exhibitions, including the TEFAF New York and Nada New York, with a hot market for abstract art. Compared with the 66 participating institutions last year, this year’s Frieze New York has attracted more than 20 new exhibitors, reaching a total of 90, but still less than half the size before the pandemic. In addition to the “Main” gallery unit, this year’s event only has the “Focus” section.
The winner of the Best Exhibition Award at the 2023 Beijing Gallery Week was Yu Guo’s solo exhibition “Between Mountains” at CLC Gallery. The award is given to participating galleries in the main unit of the Gallery Week. The jury members for this year’s award included Tang Xin, the director of Taikang Space, Lu Yinghua, curator and director of the Center for Contemporary Art, Philip Tinari, director of UCCA, independent curator/critic Feng Boyi, independent curator Yang Zi, and artist Zhuang Hui. “Between Mountains” is Yu Guo’s first solo exhibition at CLC Gallery, focusing on the artist’s recent reflections on human geography.
The theme of this year’s Beijing Gallery Week was “Visibility,” with 21 galleries and 5 non-profit organizations participating in the main unit exhibition projects. The public unit exhibition “Faceting” was also presented simultaneously from May 26th, with participating artists including Chen Dandi, Chen Zhe, Feng Bingyi, Jing Ao, Li Nu, Li Tao, Liu Yefu, Ma Qiusha, Tao Hui, Tong Wenmin, Wang Guangle, Lawrence Weiner, Xia Qiaoyi, Yuan Keru, and Zhang Yibei.
JINGART Art Beijing also returned to offline exhibitions this year, bringing together 54 participating exhibitors from 11 countries and regions, along with various activities in art institutions within Beijing. In addition to the main gallery unit, the public project unit will present three large-scale installations by Tobias Rehberger, Li Hongwei, and Cao Yawei. The special project unit will present eight special exhibition booths, as well as the 2022-2023 Porsche “China Young Artist Biennial Nomination Exhibition” co-hosted by Porsche China and the Shanghai Cultural and Art Foundation (Cc Foundation) and strongly supported by ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair.
The third largest Gallery Weekend in London is set to take place, featuring a list of artists who will be participating in this year’s performance projects. The list includes artists Li Hekedi, Minh Lan Tran, and Nicole Bachman, who will perform their works “The Willow Tree,” “Heat Generation (prayer),” and “not a centre, but a mesh” respectively at three different locations from June 2nd to 4th. The event is organized .
