Jun 22–Sep 2

The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige have collaborated for more than 20 years, producing films, photography, and installation projects that interrogate the lines between reality and fiction across historical and sociopolitical contexts. Their exhibition at Toronto’s Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery marks the Canadian debut of the artists’ project “On Scams (I must first apologise)” (2014), born from their archive of 4,000 spam emails dating to 1999. Highlights include the multiscreen video installation The Rumour of the World (2014), which shows amateur actors performing texts from scam emails, and The Geometry of Space (2014), comprising abstract sculptures that map hotspots of email fraud. Together, these works consider how scams take advantage of real-life tragedies, precipitating reflections on the nature of trust, belief, and the representation of reality.

Jul 12–Sep 29

Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan

Korean-Canadian artist Zadie Xa’s solo exhibition “Child of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creation” will transform one of the galleries at Yarat Contemporary Art Centre into a surreal marine-inspired environment via lighting design, large-scale video projections of the ocean with surround sound, and sculptures and costumes alluding to aquatic beings. Inspired by Korean folklore, the titular multimedia project explores the transmission of ancestral knowledge along matrilineal social structures and the cultural role of female deities through Xa’s story of the goddess Magohalmi. Co-commissioned by Yarat; London’s Art Night public program; Tramway, Glasgow; and the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, Child of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creation will be first staged in London as a performance before taking the form of an immersive installation in Baku. 

Jul 20–Oct 27

Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan

Curated by Moon Chung-Hee and Wang Pin-Hua, “The Herstory of Abstraction in East Asia” at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) aims to bring a fresh perspective to abstract art in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan by shining a light on the contributions of around a dozen female artists to the movement from the end of World War II to the present. The exhibition will trace the links between the territories’ sociopolitical contexts and art-historical trajectories, as well as dialogues between Asian and Western modernity. On view will be Chen Hsing-Wan’s fabric and ink collage The Sky Is a Sphere, The Earth Is a Square (1994), which adopts a Western abstract methodology to convey a traditional Chinese idiom, and Hung Yi-Chen’s minimalist Untitled (2008) composition of monochromatic fiber-reinforced plastic panels. 

Jul 28–Nov 3

Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile, Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT) will survey the past two decades of NS Harsha’s career in “Gathering Delights.” Featuring over 20 works spanning painting, sculpture, and installation, this exhibition takes the term “gathering” as its jumping-off point, exploring the participatory modes of artistic production in Harsha’s practice. CHAT will restage Harsha’s monumental installation Nations (2007–19), composed of 193 sewing machines with flags representing each member of the United Nations as commentary on the industrial labor that underpins national development. During the exhibition’s run, CHAT will also host a range of public workshops focused on craft, community, and sustainability, central themes in Harsha’s art.

Aug 9–Oct 27

The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The upcoming duo exhibition at The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Ho Chi Minh City will bring together a selection of paintings and drawings by Vietnamese artists Tammy Nguyen and Hà Ninh Pham. While the two artists work in different mediums, they both employ complex methodologies based on layered, multiperspectival compositions, with a particular focus on the relationships between urban and natural environments. Juxtaposing Nguyen’s surrealistic watercolor landscapes and Pham’s large-scale mixed-media works on paper, the exhibition will highlight the artists’ shared interest in creating fantastical environments that nevertheless speak to contemporary ecological and social issues. 

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