Conversations | Encounters in Encounters: What Does It Mean to Be Here, Now?
Art Basel Hong Kong 2023, March 23
How can we come together to nurture connection and presence within each moment, through art? Artists showing in Encounters, the sector for large-scale works in Art Basel Hong Kong, explore how their pieces resonate with the sector’s invitation to hold space and presence, individually and collectively.
‣ Trevor Yeung, artist, Blindspot Gallery
‣ Stanislava Pinchuk, artist, Yavuz Gallery
‣ Awol Erizku, artist, Ben Brown Fine Arts
‣ Mella Jaarsma, artist, ROH
‣ Carlos Aires, artist, Sabrina Amrani
‣ Moderator: Alexie Glass-Kantor, Curator, Encounters
‣ Trevor Yeung uses plants, aquarium systems, and installations as metaphors for the human behaviour and social connections. Stemming from his careful study of nature, Yeung forms his own eco-systems that simulate his personal observations and experiences of the world. In his works, he exerts control upon non-human life forms as well as audiences, imposing his own rules and parameters to investigate people’s social and psychological conditions.
‣ Stanislava Pinchuk is an artist working with data-mapping the changing topographies of war & conflict zones. Her work is produced in full independence, and surveys how landscape holds memory and testament to political events – spanning drawing, installation, tattooing, film & sculpture. Born in Kharkiv (Ukraine), she lives and works in Sarajevo (BiH).
‣ Awol Erizku is an Ethiopian-American contemporary artist whose imagery bridges visual cultures, disrupting Eurocentric visions of art and beauty. His works have been exhibited at prominent institutions including the Museum of Modern Art New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto, ON; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; and Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, CA. His photographs of cultural and creative leaders have been featured in The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, and Vanity Fair, and in 2021 the Public Art Fund exhibited his work throughout New York, NY and Chicago, IL.
‣ Mella Jaarsma is known for her complex costume installations and her focus on forms of cultural and racial diversity embedded within clothing, the body and food. In 1988, she co-founded Cemeti Art House, the first space for contemporary art in Indonesia, which remains an important platform for art practitioners in the country and region.
‣ Carlos Aires is a multidisciplinary artist internationally recognized for his cynical vision of today’s society and his research into the representations of power. He obtained a bachelor’s in fine arts at the University of Granada in Spain and completed his postgraduate studies at Fontys Academy (Tilburg, Holland), HISK (Antwerp, Belgium) and Ohio State University (USA).
‣ Alexie Glass-Kantor is Executive Director of Artspace, Sydney, supporting the commissioning of contemporary art, publishing initiatives, and research residencies for artists and curators. Since 1999 she has curated or co-curated over 100 exhibitions across independent spaces, collecting institutions, biennials and festivals. She has collaborated with international artists across generations to develop projects throughout the Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. She has been curator of the Encounters sector for Art Basel Hong Kong since 2015.
This talk was conducted in English, with simultaneous interpretation available in Cantonese and Mandarin.
The Art Basel Hong Kong 2023 Conversations program is curated by Stephanie Bailey.
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