Mar 17 2015

The March Goes On: More Highlights from Art Basel Hong Kong

by The Editors

Art Basel Hong Kong opened to the public on Sunday and the hordes that depleted the day’s tickets swarmed the fairgrounds. Traffic remained hectic on Monday as eager art lovers tried to catch a glimpse of the goods on offer before the fair closes today at 5pm. Fair-fatigue aside, we bring to you our favorites—round two.

A corner of Tokyo-based ShugoArts’s booth is dedicated to revered Japanese artist SHIGEO TOYA’s wooden pieces–one recent, the rest from the late 1980s–that simultaneously invoke the living and the decayed.

Deke Slayton (2015) is a quiet portrait of a man by New Zealand-born artist PETER STICHBURY at Michael Lett of Auckland.

AKI SASAMOTO, Talking in Circles in Talking, 2012, stainless steel mixing bowls, ice picks, handmade contact microphones, sound mixer, gaff tape, zip tie, plastic stoppers, shoelaces, small found objects, ice blocks and melting sound file, dimensions variable, at Tokyo’s Take Ninagawa.

At Athr Gallery of Jeddah, four examples from Saudi Arabian artist AHMED MATER’s “Pre-Illumination” series (2015) glow, juxtaposing x-rays of body parts against calligraphic text.

The psychedelic wall work Nature/Nurture (2015) by HIROMI TANGO, who was born in Japan but now lives and works in Australia, steals the show at Sydney-based Sullivan+Strumpf.

Singapore’s Yavuz Gallery brings a solo exhibition of works by Thai artist PINAREE SANPITAK. Featured in the center is her new work, The Hammock (2014–15), made of blown glass and steel and produced as part of the artist’s Guest Artist Pavilion Project artist residency last year at the Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion in Ohio, USA.

Roman Centaur (2014), a mohair tapestry hanging proudly on the exterior of Goodman Gallery’s (Johannesburg/Capetown) booth, is a product of a long-time collaboration between South African artist WILLIAM KENTRIDGE and master weaver MARGUERITE STEPHENS of Stephens Tapestry Studio in Swaziland.

Among the many gems to be found in the fair’s “Discoveries” section is New York-based gallery Eleven Rivington’s solo exhibition of the abstractionist investigations undertaken by Los Angeles-born and Brooklyn-based artist MIKA TAJIMA.

Craftsmanship reigns high in the oeuvre of Emirati conceptual artist HASSAN SHARIF, whose works such as Weaving No. 1 (2014) are featured with those of his protégé MOHAMMED KAZEM at the booth of Dubai-based Isabelle van den Eynde.

At Jensen Gallery (Sydney, Fox/Jensen in Auckland), budding Australian artist COEN YOUNG investigates material properties and visual effects in his works of acrylic, marble dust, enamel and silver nitrate on paper.

The Drawing Room (Manila/Singapore) offers a solo exhibition of Filipino artist GASTON DAMAG. The floor piece What you see is not exactly what you feel, what you feel is not exactly what you see (2015) comprises a multitude of his signature indigenous masks. Emanating faintly from the installation are ritual sounds of the Ifugao tribe.

In the “Insights” section, Tokyo-based Yumiko Chiba Associates shows circular, sculptural wall works–acrylic on cloth stretched over a metal mold–by NORIO IMAI, a Japanese artist who joined the Gutai Art Association as its youngest member in 1965.

HANDIWIRMAN SAPUTRA, “Tumpukan” – Titik de Titik, 2015, thread, cotton, synthetic hair, nylon fabric on acrylic sheet, 160 × 98 cm, at Jakarta’s Nadi Gallery.

Chinese artist LI SHAN’s serene little oil on paper paintings depicting a bygone China hang at the booth of James Cohan Gallery (New York/Shanghai).

A LAWRENCE WEINER complete with a translation in simplified Chinese, IN & OUT OF PLACE CARRIED BY ITS OWN USD WEIGHT (2011) is emblazoned on the booth wall of Zurich-based Mai 36 Galerie.