Ocula Conversations

Leung Chi Wo Luc Tuymans Alexie Glass-Kantor DIS Dayanita Singh Guan Xiao Kiran Nadar Ho Tzu Nyen Stephanie Rosenthal Maria Lind & Adeline Ooi Margarida Mendes Dr Uli Sigg Anish Kapoor Tracey Emin John Kaldor Francis Upritchard Danh Voˉ Kapwani Kiwanga Liu Xiaodong Wu Tsang Xiaoyu Weng Yoshitomo Nara Raqs Media Collective Alfredo Jaar Martine Syms

OCULA CONVERSATIONS

INTERVIEWS 2016– 2017 A selection of 25 interviews ﬁrst published on Ocula.com through 2016

O C U L A CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

SELECTORS: Defne Ayas, Doryun Chong, Natalie King, Philip Tinari CO-EDITORS: Susan Acret, Stephanie Bailey MANAGING EDITOR: Anna Dickie EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Elliat Albrecht

CONTRIBUTORS: Susan Acret, Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, Elliat Albrecht, Diana d’Arenberg, Stephanie Bailey, Kate Brettkelly-Chalmers, Anna Dickie, Katie Fallen, Tess Maunder, Mohammad Salemy, Sherman Sam, Catherine Shaw, Rachael Vance, Brienne Walsh

PUBLISHED BY: Ocula DESIGNED BY: DDMMYY

ISSN 2537-7884 Printed in Hong Kong © Copyright Ocula 2017

OCULA

Ocula Co-founder: Simon Fisher Ocula Co-founder: Christopher Taylor

Ocula Magazine Editorial Director: Anna Dickie Ocula Magazine Editor-in-Chief: Stephanie Bailey Ocula Magazine Editorial Assistant: Elliat Albrecht

Ocula Associate Director, UK and Europe: Eva Fuchs Ocula Gallery Relations Manager: Laura Thomson Ocula.com e-Newsletter Designer: Aisha Johan Content Managers: Lucy Backley, Casey Carsel, Margaux Cerruti, Frances Hodgson, Aisha Johan, Euan Lockie, Amelia Romaine, Josephine Scandrett

Intern: Shanyu Zhong

Developer: VOLUMEONE Designers: DDMMYY

London, Hong Kong, Auckland Contact: [email protected] Phone: +852 8191 7021 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Foreword

21 FOREWORD OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Following on from the launch of Ocula Con- in 2014, had acquired a diferent meaning, re- dynasty—and her female friend Wu Zhiying, in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden by Aborigi- versations in 2016, we invited Defne Ayas, lated less to language, and more to the ques- takes the theme of queer history (or rather its nal Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones Doryun Chong, Natalie King and Philip Ti- tion of what it means to be American today. invisibility) as a point of departure. (17 September–3 October 2016). nari to select 25 interviews published in Ocula’s digital magazine over the last year Martine Syms, during our interview about her Ideas surrounding the multiplicity of histo- In addition to three collector and fifteen artist for this second edition of the book. In review- work that explores the relationship between ry are drawn out in conversations with art- interviews, six curator interviews are also fea- ing the selection of interviews, and keeping black creative cultures and contemporary dig- ists such as Leung Chi Wo and Ho Tzu Nyen. tured in this year’s Conversations, including in mind the political and social events that ital media, discusses how Trump’s victory re- Wo’s interrogation of history, and in particu- one with the collective DIS, curators of the 9th shook 2016, it seems that the art world not flects an art world she feels is increasingly lar Hong Kong’s 1967 riots, which began with Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (4 June– only continues to be a place for celebrating conservative, racist, homophobic and mi- a series of labour disputes and escalated to 18 September 2016). In discussing The Present the human and creative spirit, but also pro- sogynistic. These are sentiments that took citywide violent protests against the Brit- in Drag, the title of perhaps the most contro- vides a vital space from which to reflect on physical form in the placards that dominated ish colonial government, seems pertinent versial biennale of last year, DIS comment that the current state of our world: how it came the worldwide Women's Marches on 21 Jan- to understanding the watershed moments the reason people were upset about the Bien- to be, what it is and where it might be going. uary 2017. Syms’ words also resonate when that have come to define the territory as it nale is that it was ‘focused on understanding thinking about an artist like Tracey Emin, increasingly comes under the control of Bei- our complicated relationships with the world During May 2016, a period wedged between whom we interviewed in March 2016, and jing. Hong Kong and its shifting identity is we’re in—our internal conflicts as consumers, the bombings in Brussels and a post-Brexit who many argue continues to receive a dis- also touched on in Ho Tzu Nyen’s discussion as political beings, as “leftists”, as people who reality, we interviewed Luc Tuymans about proportionate amount of criticism on account of his video installation The Nameless (2015), want to do good within the world, as people his New York exhibition Le Mépris at David of her gender. which reflects on the complexity of colonial who feel powerless, as people who are com- Zwirner (5 May–25 June 2016). In the inter- narratives and multiple identities through plicit, as people who are just people, as indi- view, Tuymans discusses his bruised paint- The interviews in this book reflect the vital piecing together found footage from sever- viduals within a system, and as individuals ings of dirty canals and forlorn festival floats, role that contemporary art plays in identify- al Hong Kong films starring actor Tony Leung who generate content for this system.’ likening the show to a ‘premonition of decay’. ing and questioning dominant power struc- Chiu-wai, who has been cast in a number of Asked about the exhibition’s title (French for tures that drive society. Danh Vō, an artist films as a double agent or informant. The in- As we look back on the year that was 2016, ‘contempt’) and exactly what he feels con- who uses the careful placement of objects tention behind the work is to create a frag- the Ocula team, both individually and collec- tempt for, he responded: ‘Everything. Politics to create temporal leaps that explore ideas mentary portrait of Lai Teck, who served as tively, have felt it necessary to take stock. for sure. You could say we’re living in inter- of violence, exile and identity, emphasises the Secretary-General of the Malayan Com- The words of Jitish Kallat from our 2016 esting times . . . But we’re also living in the the necessity of such questioning in his Sep- munist Party from 1939 to 1947, and who is be- Conversations book came to mind when he decline of the West.’ tember interview: ‘You can lay naked on the lieved to have been a triple agent who spied referred to ‘self-reflection as a political act’. beach and it doesn’t get noticed, but if you’re for the Japanese, among others. How do we, as an organisation, recognise Certainly, ideas surrounding the decline of wearing a scarf or covering up, people are out- the conflicts inherent in what we do, and America surfaced in much of the rhetoric put raged that you’re expressing your private life Interviews with three collectors who have yet move forward with the integrity that we forward by Donald Trump, who ambiguously in public. What is this? What is the public and contributed significantly to highlighting al- want to have? How do we reconcile the reality promised to ‘make America great again’ and who defines it? . . . That powerful structure ternative or under-acknowledged histories of art as a commodity, and equally do justice was subsequently elected president of the moves all the time and we’re not even aware are also included in this book: Dr Uli Sigg, to the importance of its role outside of the United States in November 2016. It was a of it. I think that is why we have to challenge whose former collection underpinned the art market? How can we share the ideas of result that Alfredo Jaar deemed not incon- these notions.’ exhibition M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades artists and curators with a wider audience, ceivable when we interviewed him in January of Chinese Contemporary Art (23 Febru- without pandering to a clickbait society? 2016. In that interview, Jaar discusses not only Wu Tsang, who discusses her multimedia ary–5 April 2016); Kiran Nadar, collector and These are some of the challenges we are tak- Trump’s possible ascent, but also his work A installation Duilian (2016), expresses ideas founder of her eponymous private museum ing up in 2017 and, in doing so, we pay heed Logo for America (1987)—an animation first around the use of language to construct that supported the exhibition of artist Nas- again to Kallat’s words: ‘Letting go of your projected in New York’s Times Square in 1987 and reconstruct facts and history. Duilian, reen Mohamedi’s work at The Met Breuer in own knowledge or certitude is a great place that contests the United States’ appropria- which centres on the relationship between New York (18 March–5 June 2016); and John to start on any journey, whether it be creative, tion of the word ‘America’ as signifying an Qiu Jin—a legendary Chinese feminist and Kaldor, whose non-profit organisation Kaldor political or other.’ exclusive ethnocentric identity. Jaar felt the revolutionary poet executed for her involve- Public Art Projects presented barrangal dyara work, on its re-presentation in Times Square ment in a failed uprising against the Qing (skin and bones) (2016), a major installation

22 23 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Selectors

DEFNE AYAS, DORYUN CHONG, NATALIE KING, PHILIP TINARI

25 SELECTORS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

DEFNE AYAS is a DORYUN CHONG NATALIE KING PHILIP TINARI curator and publisher was appointed the in- curates programmes has served as direc- in the field of contem- augural chief curator at that include exhibi- tor of Ullens Center porary visual art and M+ in September 2013, tion-making, publica- for Contemporary Art its institutions. She is a museum of visual cul- tions, lectures, work- (UCCA), the museum currently the direc- ture that will open in shops, colloquia and at the heart of Bei- Courtesy Witte de With Center for Courtesy M+, Hong Kong. Courtesy TarraWarra Photo: Wang Jun. Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. tor of Witte de With 2019 in the West Kow- Museum of Art. cultural partnerships jing’s 798 Art District, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, loon Cultural District of Hong Kong. In Janu- across contemporary art and indigenous cul- since late 2011. In his five-year tenure, he has where she oversees an exhibition programme ary 2016, he was promoted to deputy director ture. She is currently curator of the Australian mounted more than 60 exhibitions and organ- devoted to established and emerging art- and chief curator, M+. He oversees all curatori- Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale 2017, pre- ised a wide range of public programmes and ists, writers and curators from across the al activities and programmes including acqui- senting artist Tracey Mofatt; chief curator development activities. His programme has globe. Since 2012, she has commissioned and sitions, exhibitions, learning and public proof Public Art Melbourne Biennial Lab, City of introduced to China major international art- (co-) curated long-term projects and exhibi- grammes, and digital initiatives encompassing Melbourne and Melbourne Festival; and Se- ists including Robert Rauschenberg, William tions including the three-part Art In The Age the three main disciplinary areas of design and nior Research Fellow, Victorian College of the Kentridge, Taryn Simon, and Tino Sehgal, and of. . . series (2015); Bit Rot (2015) by Douglas architecture, moving image and visual art. Arts, University of Melbourne. Previously, she has tracked the evolving Chinese art scene Coupland; Character is Fate (2015) by Wil- Recently, he co-curated Mobile M+: Live Art was senior curator of MPavilion and inaugural through retrospectives and surveys of art- lem de Rooij; The Music of Ramón Raquello (2015), Tsang Kin-Wah: The Infinite Nothing director of Utopia@Asialink at the University ists including Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Wei, Xu Zhen, and his Orchestra (2017) by Eric Baudelaire; (2015), Hong Kong’s 2015 Venice Biennale par- of Melbourne. In 2016, she co-curated Conver- Wang Xingwei, Kan Xuan, and Gu Dexin, as Relational Stalinism—The Musical (2016) by ticipation, and Tsang Kin-Wah: Nothing (2016). sation: Endless Acts in Human History with En- well as initiatives focused on emerging art- Michael Portnoy; The Humans (2012) by Al- Previously, Chong was associate curator of tang Wiharso and Sally Smart at the Nation- ists such as the 2013 survey ON | OFF: China’s exandre Singh; Tulkus 1880 to 2018 (2013) painting and sculpture at MoMA, where he or- al Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta, and Monyet Young Artists in Concept and Practice and the by Paola Pivi; Blueprints (2012) by Qiu Zhi- ganised projects including Tokyo 1955–1970: A Gila: Episode One with Shaun Gladwell and ongoing exhibition series New Directions. Pri- jie; as well as the award-winning exhibition New Avant-Garde (2012) and Bruce Nauman: Adri Valery Wens at 4A Centre for Contempo- or to joining UCCA, he was founding editor The Temptation of AA Bronson (2013). Ayas Days (2010), and acquired a diverse range of rary Asian Art, Sydney. In 2014, she co-curated of LEAP, the internationally distributed, bilin- has worked on a number of biennial projects: works for the museum’s collection. He also TarraWarra Biennial: Whisper in My Mask and gual art magazine published by Modern Me- as curator of the Pavilion of Turkey at the 56th co-edited From Postwar to Postmodern, Art in the 13th Dong Gang International Photo Festi- dia Group. He is a contributing editor of Art- Venice Biennale; co-curator of the 6th Mos- Japan, 1945–1989: Primary Documents (2013), val, Korea. She has curated exhibitions for nu- forum, having previously served as founding cow Biennale; co-curator of the 11th Baltic and held various positions as a curator in the merous museums including the Singapore Art editor of the magazine’s online Chinese edi- Triennale; city curator for the 9th Shanghai Visual Arts department at the Walker Art Cen- Museum; The National Museum of Art, Osa- tion, artforum.com.cn. Tinari was named a Biennale; and curator-at-large at PERFOR- ter in Minneapolis from 2003 to 2009. Exhibi- ka; Palazzo delle Prigioni, Venice; the Austra- Young Global Leader by the World Econom- MA in New York. In 2013, Ayas conceived tions he organised include: Haegue Yang: In- lian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; ic Forum in 2015 and as a fellow of the Public and launched WDWReview.org as Witte de tegrity of the Insider (2009); Tetsumi Kudo: Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Adam Intellectuals Program of the National Com- With’s online arts and culture journal, togeth- Garden of Metamorphosis (2008); Brave New Art Gallery, Wellington; Tokyo Metropolitan mittee on U.S.–China Relations in 2016. He is er with Adam Kleinman as its chief editor. Worlds (2007); and House of Oracles: A Huang Museum of Photography, Tokyo; Jean-Marie currently a DPhil candidate in art history at Yong Ping Retrospective (2005). He has been Tjibaou Cultural Centre, New Caledonia; and The University of Oxford and co-curator, with part of numerous juries and panels, such as the Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne. King Alexandra Munroe, of the exhibition Art and Walters Prize at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi co-edited (with Professor Larissa Hjorth and China after 1989: Theater of the World, which o Tāmaki (2016); the Wolfgang Hanh Prize at Mami Kataoka) the 2014 anthology Art in the opens at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Muse- Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2016); and the 2014 Asia Pacific: Intimate Publics and was editor/ um, New York, in October 2017. Hugo Boss Prize at the Solomon R. Guggenheim curator of Up Close: Carol Jerrems with Lar- Museum, New York. His writing has appeared ry Clark, Nan Goldin and William Yang, Heide in journals such as Artforum, Afterall, The Museum of Modern Art, Australia. Widely Exhibitionist and Parkett, and museum and bi- published in arts media, including Flash Art, ennale publications for the Auckland Triennial, LEAP, Artlink, Art Monthly and Photofile, King the Gwangju Biennale and Kunsthaus Bregenz, is a member of the International Association among others. of Art Critics, Paris.

26 27 CONTENTS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Leung Chi Wo 30 Luc Tuymans 164

38 184 Alexie Glass-Kantor DIS Dayanita Singh 46 Guan Xiao 194 Kiran Nadar 52 Ho Tzu Nyen 206 Stephanie Rosenthal 60 Maria Lind & Adeline Ooi 72 Margarida Mendes 216 Dr Uli Sigg 92 Anish Kapoor 238 Tracey Emin 100 John Kaldor 246 Francis Upritchard 108 Danh Vō 254 Kapwani Kiwanga 116 Liu Xiaodong 264 Wu Tsang 126 Xiaoyu Weng 286 Yoshitomo Nara 148 Raqs Media Collective 296 Alfredo Jaar 156 Martine Syms 306

28 29 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Leung Chi Wo

IN CONVERSATION WITH KATIE FALLEN HONG KONG, 4 JANUARY 2016

Courtesy MILL6 Foundation, Hong Kong. LEUNG CHI WO OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Leung Chi Wo’s work often explores KF Your practice reflects a considerable in- hood home, so that it punches holes at urban space, colonial history and collective memories. He is a key figure terest in Hong Kong’s urban spaces, lan- one-minute intervals into photograph- in Hong Kong’s art world, having co-founded the important non-profit guage, memory and colonial history. How ic films, which have images of artificial contemporary art space Para Site in 1996. In 2015, Leung was the subject do you define the relationship between flowers on them. Could you explain what of a mid-career survey exhibition, Press the Button. . . Leung Chi Wo: A your artistic practice and Hong Kong? inspired Frater and how you approached Survey Exhibition at OCAT Shenzhen (25 April–30 June 2015). Most re- the production of the work? cently, The Mills Gallery in Hong Kong, a new non-profit art and cultural LCW Hong Kong is a place where I live and work; institution, inaugurated their opening programme of pop-up exhibitions it’s therefore very natural for me to explore LCW The notion of violence and confict is some- with a solo show dedicated to the artist at The Annex, Nan Fung Place, subject matters here. I just try to make ob- thing that I have been interested to explore titled Tracing some places (5 December 2015–9 January 2016). servations on my surroundings, and I tend in my art. When considering the industrial Soon to be based in the redeveloped space of the old Nan Fung Textile to work on things that I feel are accessible. background of The Mills Gallery, I recalled Mill (which is set to open in 2018), The Mills Gallery aims to take as its My relationship with Hong Kong is com- my parents’ industrial sewing machine, focal point textile arts, in order to interact with its location’s heritage as a plicated, but I have never ceased to fnd in- which stood out prominently in the tiny fat central component in Hong Kong’s long history of textile manufacturing. teresting and inspirational elements in the we lived in when I was a child. I noticed Given the connection to history, it is appropriate that Leung’s exhibition city. Maybe it’s also a matter of time, as I that beyond the productive nature of the inaugurated the organisation’s programme. Tracing some places brings spend a lot of it here. sewing machine, the tool hides a certain vi- together two new installations alongside a selection of earlier pieces, olence when operated at full speed. Then KF Your latest exhibition, Tracing some all of which exemplify the artist’s photographic and archival practice. it came to my mind to turn this speed into places, is organised by The Mills Gallery, Conceptually rigorous, the exhibition creates interwoven narratives that slow motion, and the concept of time was a new institution whose location is em- propel the viewer into the past, calling on them to ‘push the button’ and therefore further developed. At the same bedded into the history of Hong Kong’s become complicit in the re-telling of history. time, I was looking into the history of the textile industry. This inherent connection 1967 riots [in Hong Kong], so I moved on to In this interview, Leung discusses his relationship with Hong Kong, his between the gallery and the past ties in search for connections between this histori- latest exhibition and his thoughts on the art-world ecology of the city. with your work. Could you talk about why cal event and the artefact, and then elements history and research have come to form like photographic flm, artifcial fowers and the backbone of your artistic practice? Hong Kong coins from 1967 were brought in to complete Frater. LCW Perhaps I am just not so imaginative, and dreams or the subconscious can never be KF Could you elaborate on the history sur- foundational elements that I rely on. I also rounding the 1967 riots in Hong Kong, and consider myself a rather rational person. what you specifically wanted to explore So research suits my character and gives about this period with respect to Frater? me knowledge and information to create. History has been my favourite subject since LCW The 1967 riots began with a series of labour I was young. I also feel that historical sense disputes and escalated to citywide violent has been somewhat lacking in general in our protests against the colonial government. society, and maybe my rebellious instinct It is widely regarded as Hong Kong’s wa- urged me to do something more uncom- tershed moment in terms of social and civil mon. And not least, I believe we can never development. It took place before my birth. live in a place or exist without history. I am curious how much the riots remain in individual memories; it was regarded as KF For your exhibition you created two newly important, even from various political per- commissioned works, Frater (2015) and spectives. Frater was my attempt to juxta- Untitled (Roses) (2015). For Frater, you pose both individual and collective frag- reconfigured an old sewing machine, ments from the time to contemplate the similar to the one you had in your child- notion of violence and so forth.

32 33 LEUNG CHI WO OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Above: Leung Chi Wo, Frater (2015). Sewing machine, black & white negative film, 1967 Hong Kong fifty-cent coins, low-speed motor and steel frame. 146.5 × 55 × 65 cm. Dimensions variable. Installation view: Tracing some places, The Mills Gallery, Hong Kong (5 December 2015–9 January 2016). Courtesy MILL6 Foundation, Hong Kong, and the artist.

Left: Leung Chi Wo, Untitled (Roses) (2015). Inkjet prints, set of 3. 50 × 122 cm. Courtesy MILL6 Foundation, Hong Kong, and the artist.

35 LEUNG CHI WO OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

KF Why the artificial flowers? new show marks the beginning of The Mills Gallery’s pre-opening programme, LCW Flowers are the stereotypical subject of pho- another non-profit institution. Consider- tography. Artifcial fowers were chosen ing your central role in the Hong Kong art because they relate to my question of reality world’s development, what in your opin- existing in an image, and for their subver- ion is the most important aspect that sive aesthetic. Of course, there is always needs to be developed further to nurture the contextual link to the 1967 riots, which a vibrant art environment here? partly began in an artifcial fower factory located on the same street where my father LCW Diversity. Diversity of institutions, funding, went to work. market, education and so on. For a very long time, the arts community was too small to KF In previous exhibitions you have partici- achieve this. Now, we are beginning to see pated in overseas, such as the Asia Trien- the opportunity that comes with all sorts of nial in Manchester in 2014, you typically expansion. Within this network we will also research the city and create a work that navigate to maintain our creative freedom, reflects the context of the exhibition. something that we cannot take for granted The work you created for the Triennial, as we learned recently. Untitled (Love For Sale) (2014), is now on show in Hong Kong at The Mills Gal- KF You have previously mentioned that when lery. How do you feel the work’s meaning you graduated from university in Hong translates into a diferent context? Do Kong, there was no concept of an ‘artist’. Is you think it serves to add another layer it more acceptable in Hong Kong today to of meaning or poses a challenge to the be an artist? Where do you feel artists are viewer’s understanding? positioned within the Hong Kong art world?

LCW I like to connect the subjects of my work to LCW Being an artist should be a life attitude, and my surroundings. When I created Untitled not a job or career defned by economic value (Love For Sale) for Manchester, I was aware in our society. Today in Hong Kong, we see of my base in Hong Kong where I did the re- more exposure of artists thanks to the market, search. Concurrently, I wanted to contem- or more commercial recognition of contemplate the meaning of destruction and con- porary artworks. Yet, when and how can we struction in relation to the terrorist attacks recognise the importance of art without its in Manchester, as well as in other places, like price tag? I don’t know. Para Site and The Hong Kong, that face serious or even brutal Mills Gallery are important as independent urban redevelopment. Also, there are ma- and private non-proft art spaces, but they terial narratives in art that cannot be over- form only part of the ecosystem, which as shadowed by the context. Diferent mean- a whole needs to continue developing. It’s ings can be taken on if the context changes. a long journey, to create a true and genuine That is normal. But for me, the function of creative city. Only a very small percentage art is not to inform but to inspire. Hopefully of art graduates can make art an economical- Tracing some places can communicate with ly viable career; it is the same in New York the Hong Kong audience in diferent ways. and Hong Kong. So do we regard those who don’t make it an economically viable career Leung Chi Wo, Untitled (Love for Sale) (2014). 1996 gold-proof half-sovereign as switch-button, light box, aluminium engraving, newspaper pile, KF You played a founding role in the estab- as not being artists? The answer will refect audio and motor system. Dimensions variable. Installation view: Tracing some places, The Mills Gallery, Hong Kong (5 December 2015–9 January lishment of Para Site in 1996, and now your how we position artists in the art world. 2016). Courtesy MILL6 Foundation, Hong Kong, and the artist.

36 37 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Alexie Glass-Kantor

IN CONVERSATION WITH RACHAEL VANCE HONG KONG, 19 FEBRUARY 2016

Photo: Zan Wimberley. ALEXIE GLASS-KANTOR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Alexie Glass-Kantor is a curator, author and executive director of RV What have you been most proud of imple- Artspace is how we are working internally Artspace, Sydney, one of Australia’s leading interdisciplinary contem- menting at Artspace during your time? as a team with a generosity to support an ex- porary art spaces. In addition to holding numerous programming and panded curatorial programme, and engag- curatorial roles at other organisations, Glass-Kantor is also currently AGK Leading an independent institution like ing both existing and new audiences with a the curator of the Encounters sector at Art Basel in Hong Kong, dedicat- Artspace—where I believe the focus is spirit of inclusiveness. ed to presenting large-scale sculpture and installation works by leading not on achieving endpoints or outcomes, artists from around the world. but about how you demonstrate a commit- An example of working more responsive- In this interview, which took place before Art Basel in Hong Kong opened ment to facilitating ideas and ambition to ly is a space we introduced in March 2015 to the public on 24 March 2016, Glass-Kantor speaks about the role of be consistently evolving through time—I called the Ideas Platform. It’s a newly re- the curator in the contemporary art landscape and her vision for the am most proud of my team’s ability to work vealed space that was formerly an over- fair’s Encounters sector in 2016. outside their comfort zone. I think cura- looked storeroom at the entrance of our tors often have sets of interests in areas or building. In the main galleries, because research that will occupy them for years exhibitions require lengthy lead time and or even decades. Something I feel strongly are resource heavy, I felt we were operat- about in a leadership position, where you ing in a way that was risk averse, and we are curating an overall programme, is that lacked the capacity to present projects as I don’t singularly programme for myself they might arise, as opportunities or prop- and do not curate solely to my own set ositions or speculations, rather than fully of interests. Rather, I prefer to work col- fedged major shows. Where were the laboratively with my colleagues to enable spaces to test risk in our exhibition pro- an agile, inclusive and discursive programme? The Ideas Platform is as simple gramme where we invite the opportunity as it sounds: if you have an idea, we have a for the unexpected to shape the coordinates platform. We don’t programme this space of what we do. in advance of each year. We have projects that run for one-, two- and four-week du- There has been an emphasis at Artspace rations, and work with artists, writers and over the past two years on decentralising curators as opportunities emerge. In 2015, the primacy of major exhibition-making as we had nine standalone projects in this the pre-eminent mode of curatorship, and space, which allowed us to do a range of a move away from always situating the things that we were not able to do within the curator as author. The term curator is so construct of our exhibition platforms in the contested and value-loaded culturally that main galleries. In this way, it is very true to we want to foreground responsive cura- what I think of in relation to the role of the torial approaches that equally acknowl- curator: it is about being committed to both edge public programmes, performance longer-lead, research-based programming lectures, alternative publishing structures, and having the capacity to simply say ‘yes’ studios, the archive and advocacy within more quickly to ideas so you can support the mantle of 21st century curatorial prac- more artists to achieve new works. Crucial- tice. In a non-collecting organisation like ly, it is all about artists. Artspace, the curator has to have the discipline to have a depth of knowledge about RV Do you think your curatorial style has the practices and the methodologies of ex- changed since taking on the role of exhibition-making, and also be able to work ecutive director at Artspace? in a more agile and lateral sphere, collab- oratively recognising the contribution of AGK Something I have thought about often since others. Something I am really enjoying at arriving at Artspace is the responsibility of

40 41 ALEXIE GLASS-KANTOR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

curatorship and how that aligns with the porary Art, Rotterdam; and Artists Space objectives of institutional leadership. Con- or White Columns, New York—have had tingent with being a curator of contempo- to constantly rethink their position in terms rary art and working with living artists, it of how they work as non-collecting insti- is important to maintain a curatorial prac- tutions, and also how to support the pro- tice that is commensurate with the ethics duction and presentation of contemporary and accountabilities that are made explic- art through a myriad of platforms. Occu- it through the practice and production of pying the dual role of director and curator, contemporary art. It is important to engage and working in an independent or kuns- meaningfully in arenas that have to do with thalle context, you need to be broadly ac- issues of broader social concern and to con- countable and open to working diferently sider the political space that art may or may in changing environments. In these institu- not occupy. tions, the approach is an expanded one, and it is critical to consider what responsibility Part of my role as a director of a not-for- the curator maintains in relation to investing proft space is to consider organisational in advocacy, alternate spheres of publishing sustainability, diversifcation of revenue that sit more broadly outside the lineage of and income sourced through benefaction monographs and publications, and public or philanthropy, communications, human programming or online platforms that exist resources and other operational priorities— within a shape-shifting feld. all of which have little to do with my grad- uate studies as an art historian. I think the In Australia, in certain spheres, there is Lawrence Weiner, THE MIDDLE OF, THE MIDDLE OF, THE MIDDLE OF (2012). Installation view: Marian Goodman Gallery, Encounters, Art Basel time has passed where organisations could an ongoing attachment to the curator as in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). © Art Basel. have toxic internal cultures and leadership author, and a kind of notional status that hierarchies that demeaned personnel or is attached to thematic curating. As a stan- deaccessioned responsibility from others. dard methodology, thematic curating has its Over decades, contemporary art and artists place but I think it’s only one approach, and have posed questions and created artworks the curator has to be more broadly engaged that challenge anachronistic power struc- than the person who chooses a theme and tures and explore alternatives. As a curator, assembles a list of names or artworks into I am always looking and reading and lis- group or solo exhibitions. This is an out- tening and then I look again, and, if I am dated mode and arguably a late-20th-centu- to be true to the circumstances in which ry model of curatorship. Working contem- artists are working, then I have to be con- poraneously in independent and museum sciously aware of the culture of my institu- spaces, the curator has a responsibility to tion and make a persistent efort to review be more agile and less determined by the and support ethical standards. Simply, what edifce of the gallery, to think in a way that happens at the back-of-house must match is less about attribution and more generous- what is communicated externally, and that’s ly speculative and open-ended. always a work in progress. RV How did you come into the role of curator International peer spaces that came of of the Encounters sector for Art Basel’s age over the past 20 to 40 years—such Hong Kong show in 2015? as Artspace; Para Site, Hong Kong; Art AGK Sonje Center, Seoul; Whitechapel Gallery, Across the three Art Basel fairs—Hong Ham Kyungah, Chandeliers for Five Cities (2014–2015). Installation view: Kukje Gallery and Tina Kim Gallery, Encounters, Art Basel in Hong Kong London; Witte de With Center for Contem- Kong, Miami Beach and Basel—eight in- (24–26 March 2016). © Art Basel.

42 43 ALEXIE GLASS-KANTOR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

ternational curators are selected to develop AGK Art Basel’s Hong Kong show is in many installations are premieres. There are artists that Art Basel was established over 40 years special presentations of installations, public ways a city within the city: it is a constructed represented across generations, with senior ago; and by inviting external curators to art and flm. In each location there is a spe- world that channels the energy and zeitgeist artists alongside emerging voices. There is guide substantial presentations of artworks cifc approach adopted that is determined of the international marketplace and creates strong representation from the region—the that sit outside the conventions of the tradi- by Art Basel and then guided by the cura- a meeting place for the region and further Philippines, Indonesia, China and Japan— tional marketplace, the art fair itself actively tors who specialise in relevant media. afeld. But it is more than that. Uniquely, as well as artists from the US, Scotland, acknowledges that each one of these groups Encounters occupies signifcant exhibition Germany, Sweden and France. is distinct but also in dialogue. The arts are Art Basel invites curators who are attached space within the art fair itself. In 2015, En- a rich ecology and I think that transparency to independent not-for-profts or museums. counters brought together 20 artists from The feel of Encounters for 2016 will be around this intermingling can be dynamic; We all come from institutional or indepen- 13 diferent countries with more than half very material, textural and locative. The indeed, the entanglements of these groups dent backgrounds, and by coincidence two from Asia and the Asia-Pacifc region. The audience’s interaction with the sector will are particularly important for supporting of the four installation sectors are current- selection represented artists working in re- be very visceral and situated. Visitors will the experimentation that drives artistic prac- ly curated by Australians: myself in Hong markably varied ways, and 11 of the instal- walk the meridians with a selection of ex- tice. I want artists to be enabled to lead with Kong and Nicholas Baume, who curates lations were premieres. Although it is not quisite and often beautiful artistic interven- risk and creativity and to be encouraged Public for Art Basel’s Miami Beach show. a thematic presentation, there are distinct tions. There are some seriously ambitious to evolve their practice. For this to occur, Over decades Art Basel has been commit- connections that weave Encounters togeth- works that have a high level of immersion, there must be conversations and collabo- ted to these curated sectors that foreground er through visual association. In the process which will situate the viewer explicitly and rations between all those who are working space, in which the fair can encourage a crit- of curation, I aim to identify artworks that directly within the work, particularly acti- to support spaces for art in both the public ical point of engagement and where work is exemplify how art can resituate experience vating unexpected senses, such as smell, as and private sector. tested at an amplifed scale. This dialogue and enliven the viewer. in the work of Pae White. I am very excited between art gallery booths and curated that one of the premiere works this year sectors is key. RV Can you discuss your curatorial plans for is by Brook Andrew, an indigenous Aus- Encounters in 2016? tralian artist who has never shown at Art I curate the Encounters sector, which is ded- Basel before. I am also pleased that there icated to presenting large-scale sculptural AGK Selection of the artists for Encounters 2016 are works anchored to translation and there installations by leading artists from around took place in Hong Kong during October is an extraordinary new work by Lawrence the world and transcends the traditional art 2015. We decided to reduce the number of Weiner, which will populate multiple po- fair booth. Unlike other sectors, the En- projects from 20 to 16 to allow more room sitions in Encounters, existing in English, counters sector is located across four ‘me- for ambition in projects. Last year I was Mandarin and Cantonese. Some installa- ridians’ within the fair itself, which requires thinking about landscape urbanism; this tions, like that of Zhang Ding, will invite extensive collaboration with the Art Basel year we were able to go much further, ex- audiences to directly grafti and alter the architects to maximise the full volume of the ploring the idea of shifting or altering the surfaces of the artwork. space and the extraordinary sightlines avail- perception of order in space. For Art Basel’s able. Throughout the year, all the sector 2016 show in Hong Kong, I wanted to think RV How have you seen the art market curators work in contexts independent of about what an encounter is—the encounter change in the past ﬁve to ten years? Do Art Basel, bringing to their sectors partic- in terms of both its ability to create a land- you agree there is more intermingling ular expertise. I was selected because of my mark, but also its register around vulnera- between public and private sectors? commitment to developing new work by bility, uncertainty, temporality and the rela- living artists and interest in working col- tionship of the encounter to time. In Hong AGK Art occurs within, around and in direct laboratively with the architects and the Art Kong, we have 72 hours to install the entire contact with a broad range of groups includ- Basel Hong Kong team to realise ambitious fair. Time is of the premium, with [an esti- ing the art market, collections, museums, site-specifc projects. mated] 60,000 people visiting over fve days. foundations, independent spaces, festivals, biennials and all sorts of other collabora- RV What impact does a curated sector In a frst for Encounters, fve of the artists tions—and has done so for decades. In the such as Encounters add to a commer- have created site-specifc works, which are contemporary parlance we could say: ‘It’s cial art fair? ephemeral in their materiality. A further six complicated’. However, it’s worth noting

44 45 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Dayanita Singh

IN CONVERSATION WITH TESS MAUNDER SYDNEY, 9 MARCH 2016

Courtesy the artist. DAYANITA SINGH OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Dayanita Singh is recognised as one of today’s leading voices in contem- TM Could you tell us more about the work ically experienced by visitors to the Bien- porary photography. She is most well known for her practice of archiving you will show for the 20th Biennale nale; every other day, one of the assistant and categorising the images she has taken over her 30-year career on of Sydney? curators will turn one book around and thus various themes, from the intimate and the personal, to still life and doc- change the narrative that the viewer may umentary style. The mediated collections she forms are presented in DS I am diferent from many artists in that I have built around it, and so each time you traditional photography books, but also in larger, expanded archives, do not produce new work upon invitation visit it will have changed. which she calls ‘mobile museums’: portable displays of her work that are to an exhibition. Instead, I keep working transported in suitcases and re-presented around the world. Through on something, often for many years, In my own way, I think this points to a possi- her approach, in Singh’s words, her works are ‘endlessly edited, rear- and at a certain time I feel as though it is ble direction for the concept of museums of ranged and displayed, casting new light on narrative and poetic possi- ready to show. Then I look for the appro- the future, where ambassadors might travel bilities in the process.’ priate place to show it, which often comes with suitcase museums of their larger col- Singh’s work Suitcase Museum (2015) will shortly form a part of the 20th from a conversation. On this occasion, lection. I could imagine a museum like The Biennale of Sydney, The Future Is Already Here—It’s Just Not Evenly Dis- myself and Stephanie Rosenthal, the artistic Met having a feet of ambassadors going out th tributed (18 March–5 June 2016). The work will be presented at the Em- director of the 20 Biennale of Sydney, felt on fights with these suitcases of artwork to bassy of Translation, one of the Biennale’s seven 'Embassies of Thought', Suitcase Museum would be a strong ft be shown and brought back. They could at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney. Suitcase Museum within the Embassy of Translation. carry facsimiles and the display structures draws its content from Singh’s ever-morphing archive of work Museum could be built into the suitcases … One of Chance (2014). In this interview, Singh discusses her practice and the Suitcase Museum is a travelling body of cannot always wait for the public to come to work she will present for the Sydney Biennale, referring in more detail work—two suitcases and you have the full the museum, and while I love virtual spaces to Museum of Chance. edition on a fight to Sydney! It contains I also like the physical experience of an exhi- a large number of images, catalogued as bition, and the associated conversation that an interconnected body of work and ar- happens within this context. ranged according to themes such as chance, embraces and furniture. Through these TM In the last decade, we have seen a rise processes of translation and re-transla- in the popularity of the idea of the tion, my works can be endlessly edited, re- archive, both in popular culture and also arranged and displayed, casting new light in contemporary art discourse. What on narrative and poetic possibilities in do you make of this interest in archival the process. tendencies?

TM I understand that Suitcase Museum will DS In terms of my own practice, it is very much change over time. Can you explain the a personal story for me. I was born to a signiﬁcance of this transition? mother who was an obsessive photogra- pher and album maker, and a father who DS For this iteration, Suitcase Museum is in- was involved in various legalities, so that formed and made up by the images from was my earliest experience: fles and more Museum of Chance. The images that com- fles, albums of photographs, and photo- prise Museum of Chance were originally graphs on every surface available. translated into a book; then for the Bien- nale of Sydney, selected images have been As for other artists, I think we all see we are removed from this prior content and trans- witness to a time of change, when we are formed into a diferent sequence. Through seeing the last of the paper archives, the last this work, a mass-produced object becomes of the libraries; and while we record them, a new conceptual work. As you can see, the we also are aware of the stories they contain, work has various layers of meditation. In and I suppose artists then start working with addition, this translation will also be phys- these resources.

48 49 DAYANITA SINGH OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

TM You began your career as a photojournal- ferent contexts, was held together by their ist, and now describe yourself as a ‘book- tonal quality. I have fnally learned to listen maker working in photography’. Could you to the tone of the images, rather than edit speak more about your beginnings in this by content. ﬁeld and how it has shaped your practice? I am particularly happy that I have beaten DS From the very beginning I have been making Amazon. You can order this mass-produced photographs to make books. In 2007, I made book on Amazon or online platforms, but Sent a Letter, a box with seven accordi- if you want the whole concept—the idea, on-fold books that became my frst book structure and individualising of the book— and exhibition. I realised that it was possi- then you have to come to one of the events ble to have a book that was also an exhibi- where I am ofering the special editions. tion, but I wanted to fnd a form that could (I am the only one who has the full sets.) be on par with my exhibitions of prints. I will individualise it for you, turning a mass-produced artist’s book into a unique Now I make books that are also the exhi- conceptual work. bition: Museum of Chance is an example of this way of working. During the decades in between, I made exhibitions of framed prints on the wall that seemed to me like catalogues of my books. It was like composing music, where each note was separated by the display, and ended up in diferent sym- phonies or collections. The exhibition did not satisfy me in the way that the book did. Yet, everyone said that a book is a book and an exhibition is an exhibition.

With Museum of Chance, I fnally found the way to make a work that is a book as well as the exhibition of the book. The single image or note would now never be divorced from the full symphony or sequence. Each publication cover led to the full symphony that was inside. Even if you can only see the front image, I know that the full symphony is waiting inside. The book is bound to its sequence, its order; but the object can be endlessly rewritten as I move it in and out of its narratives, sometimes just by turning the cover around to reveal the back story— an endless publication.

The key to this work was the editing: to

Dayanita Singh, Suitcase Museum (2015). Mixed media, suitcases, 88 book objects. Installation view: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, make a set of images that, even if they 20th Biennale of Sydney (18 March–5 June 2016). Courtesy the artist and Frith Street Gallery, London. Photo: Ben Symons. spanned 30 years and came from very dif-

50 51 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Kiran Nadar

IN CONVERSATION WITH ANNA DICKIE NEW DELHI, 11 MARCH 2016

Courtesy Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. KIRAN NADAR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

In 2010, art collector Kiran Nadar founded India’s first private museum AD You started collecting art as a hobby, but was to collect what I like, and learn what dedicated exclusively to exhibiting modern and contemporary works. Lo- it clearly was a passionate pastime that kind of art I am interested in and would cated in the heart of New Delhi, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) morphed into something more serious. like to be surrounded by. But then, with the most recently collaborated with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New This ultimately led you to open India’s idea of a museum that will be open to the York, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, to open first private museum dedicated to mod- public, I began to think of the whole in a Nasreen Mohamedi (18 March–5 June 2016), an exhibition dedicated to ern and contemporary art. Can you dis- coherent way. This led me to start flling modernist artist Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–1990). The exhibition is the cuss this transition? the gaps in the collection, and to think from smaller and more intimate of two exhibitions to inaugurate the opening the perspective of the history of modern of The Met Breuer in New York. It presents a survey of Mohamedi’s ex- KN Well, I did start collecting art for myself at art in India. I wanted to ensure that we ceptional drawings, photographs, paintings and collages, with a focus frst, and also to understand and learn about were collecting seminal modern artworks on the artist’s work throughout the 1970s. Known for her singular and diferent movements and styles of art. I’m by masters as well as cutting-edge and new sustained engagement with abstraction and her independent vision of not trained in art history, but regularly visit- media works by contemporary artists. This Minimalism, the exhibition is being heralded as an important step to- ing exhibitions, galleries and museums, and was also the moment when many private wards fulfilling The Met’s promised goal to broaden its contemporary having conversations with connoisseurs, museums were emerging in diferent parts and modern art programme. art historians and docents, et cetera, gave of the world, producing interesting debates In this conversation, Kiran Nadar shares how she moved from collect- me the necessary ground I needed to con- and doubts around the concept of ‘private ing art to building a private art museum. She also discusses her passion tinue to collect art. At some point we ran museums’, and about the risk that the ‘taste’ for Nasreen Mohamedi’s work, and KNMA’s current exhibition of works out of space; we had enough works to fll of private individuals will come to defne by Himmat Shah. our house and my husband’s ofce. I had the art of our time. also started collecting large-scale and edgy works that could not be displayed inside do- AD How do you view this risk? mestic or ofce-like spaces. This led me to put many works into storage, and to think KN Kiran Nadar Museum of Art is a consis- about ways of making the collection more tently growing museum in terms of its col- accessible to myself and to open it to the lection, and the directions of this growth public. So, I thought of creating a modern emerge from a process. I believe in process. and contemporary art museum in India. It We have a team of curators who suggest, re- was a very simple thought, but I had very search and help me with the building of the little idea about what it entailed and what collection and a model that cannot be rep- this journey would be like. I didn’t realise licated. I do still rely a lot on my own eye. the commitment and knowledge base that Over the years of seeing art, travelling and would be required. It took me four to fve interactions, my art historical knowledge years to put the idea of a private museum has also grown with my passion for col- into reality. During this period, my com- lecting. To this end, I do feel I have a good mitment to collecting increased immensely idea of the importance of various artists, and became focused. As I began to acquire including those who perhaps have not yet for the museum, I wanted to create, and to received the critical attention they deserve fll the gaps in, the collection. within the art world, and within specifc art historical trajectories. I feel I have sufcient AD Can you expand on what you mean by knowledge of the breadth of South Asian ‘filling gaps’? art practices, which helps me in identifying the lacunae that need to be addressed, and KN Earlier there was a randomness in my the role the museum can play in South Asia method of collecting, because the purpose and internationally.

54 55 KIRAN NADAR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

AD The Met Breuer is about to host a major to our discussions and meetings with Sheena exhibition dedicated to the art of Nas- Wagstaf [Leonard A. Lauder Chairman for reen Mohamedi. How did you ﬁrst come Modern and Contemporary Art, The Met- across Mohamedi’s work? ropolitan Museum of Art], who was very excited about the idea of bringing the ex- KN Well, very little research had been conduct- hibition to New York and making it one of ed on Nasreen Mohamedi. After her death the inaugural shows. In September 2015 we in 1990, her friends mounted a kind of small opened the show at the Reina Sofía, and retrospective of her works, which remains soon it will open at The Met Breuer. one of the important exhibitions that showcased a large body of her works before the AD Mohamedi’s practice can be broken up KNMA exhibition. So, I was aware of her into three speciﬁc categories: from her oeuvre but didn’t have in-depth knowl- early sketches to her linear drawings and edge. When KNMA acquired a group of her later photographs. Is there a partic- her works, I was completely taken by the ular part of her practice that you most power of her minimalist drawings and pho- connect with? tographs. That was around fve or six years ago, and I decided that she was an artist I KN Her photographs, I think, are quite extraor- wanted to pursue in depth. I thought the dinary. I am interested in all of her work, museum should defnitely organise a ret- and we have collected all her phases in depth rospective dedicated to her work and life, at KNMA. But it is her linear work and pho- because until that point nobody had given tographs that I particularly enjoy. her such recognition and an exhibition. So, in 2013 we brought together around 140 AD Outside of her artistic contribution, Mo- works, of which 35 were part of our collec- hamedi had a fascinating personal his- tion, and the rest were loaned from various tory. She travelled extensively, and per- collectors across the world. It was a spectac- haps at a time when it wasn’t common ular exhibition, the resonance of which can for women to travel. still be seen in India in the practices of many contemporary abstractionists. It was criti- KN Yes, she was a great traveller. She also de- cally acclaimed by a lot of people, includ- veloped a particular illness quite early in ing the curators from the Reina Sofía and her career. It was an illness akin to Parkin- The Met. So, in our museum’s little history, son’s disease that impacted the motion of it was a very monumental show. her hands, but she still managed to work continuously until she died. Bearing her AD From organising the retrospective at illness in mind, the detailing and precision your museum, how did this develop into in her work is quite amazing. She worked The Met Breuer show? tirelessly and continued her craft—it must have been very difcult to work through KN It developed from the discussions with that physical trauma. Manuel Borja-Villel, the director of the Reina Sofía museum, who came to India AD How do you view The Met’s decision to to see the exhibition and spoke to us about open The Met Breuer with a show ded- the collaboration and taking the exhibition icated to Mohamedi in the context of to the Reina Sofía. He told us that he also ‘shaking up’ art historical narratives? Nasreen Mohamedi. Courtesy Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. wanted to discuss it with The Met. This led

56 57 KIRAN NADAR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

KN I think it’s fascinating to see an institution exhibition also explores his lesser-known like The Met focusing on art originating mediums, including high-relief murals, from Asia. To open such a major building burnt paper collages and silver paintings. as The Met Breuer with an exhibition dedicated to an Indian artist is a huge step and AD Tell me about the silver paintings? recognition. I think we will now see a lot more artists from diferent countries being KN Himmat Shah’s silver paintings are low-re- promoted and shown. I think that’s a major lief murals made of silver foil and found ma- step for The Met and for Indian art, too. terial, and created between 1968 and 1973. They are brilliantly textured and look like AD Is there another particular artist you feel cartographies. It is very difcult to describe has yet to receive their due, and whose these works in words because they are so work is deserving of the type of institu- sensitively and beautifully conceived. The tional attention that Mohamedi’s work exciting thing is that KNMA has unearthed is currently receiving at The Met? and acquired four silver paintings, which are being exhibited after more than four KN There are a lot of artists in the Indian decades and are the only surviving pieces. context who deserve a retrospective at The Himmat says he lost all silver paintings in Met, but it’s too early to say. We have to a food in Delhi in the 1970s. see how The Met progresses their journey with Indian art and arts around the world; AD The museum has been running for over it’s their frst season with modern art. I can six years now—over this time have you tell you what has really excited me recent- noticed its audience change? ly though: the retrospective we have on at KNMA dedicated to the work of Himmat KN Yes, defnitely. We have worked hard to Shah [Hammer on the Square (28 January–20 grow our audience locally. We have strong July 2016)]. outreach and educational programmes with schools, colleges and professional groups. AD Why do you think he is important? Art education is a major focus area for the museum and our talks are led by curators KN Shah made an extraordinary contribution to and art educators to enable interactivity, dis- Himmat Shah, Hammer on the Square (2007–2008). Bronze. Collection of the artist. Courtesy Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. the discourse of modern Indian art. Working cussion and learning. We are also collab- on this retrospective was a real eye-open- orating extensively with local educational er for me. The exhibition presents around and private and public art institutions on a 300 works, with 215 coming from the mu- variety of aspects to encourage footfalls and seum’s collection. Other works were loaned awareness of modern and contemporary art. from various public and private institutions The museum has also gained more visibil- and collections. He really was one of the ity internationally. We get a lot of interest pioneer sculptors to work with terracotta, from the arts community, but our audience and the exhibition includes a number of his is increasingly expanding beyond this. terracotta sculptures and high-relief works which are completely out of public memory. In addition, along with his famous terracotta sculptures, bronzes, and drawings, the

58 59 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Stephanie Rosenthal

IN CONVERSATION WITH SHERMAN SAM LONDON, 17 MARCH 2016

Photo: Daniel Boud. STEPHANIE ROS ENTHAL OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

th Stephanie Rosenthal is the artistic director of the 20 Biennale of Syd- SS Before we talk about the Sydney Biennale, Here—It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed. The ney, which will open on 18 March and run until 5 June 2016. Rosenthal I’d like to ask you about your PhD. What title references a quote by science fction is also the chief curator of the Hayward Gallery in London’s Southbank was it on? author William Gibson. It’s an umbrella for Centre, a role she has held since 2007. Prior to this and from 2000, she a lot of sub-themes because I didn’t feel I was the curator for modern and contemporary art at Munich’s Haus der SR It was about the black paintings of Ad would be able to make this one statement Kunst, where she organised shows featuring Aernout Mik, Paul McCa- Reinhardt and Robert Rauschenberg from about the ‘now’. I wanted a broad idea and rthy and Allan Kaprow, and curated exhibitions such as Black Paintings the 1950s and 60s. It was about black being sub-themes that are relevant. (15 September 2006–14 January 2007), which presented monochromatic a space for transformation, the idea of rites black paintings by Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Frank of passage. It started with Malevich and I developed the sub-themes by going to Stella and Robert Rauschenberg. At the Hayward, Rosenthal has curat- Whistler, and then used these painters as visit artists all over the world and sudden- ed shows dedicated to artists such as Robin Rhode (2008), Pipilotti Rist a kind of comparison to explain how black ly realising that I met a lot of people who (2011) and Ana Mendieta (2013), as well as MIRRORCITY (14 October can be a rite de marge in regard to the ideas are talking about things that are disappear- 2014–4 January 2015), an exploration of the digital revolution and its of the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep. ing, or transforming through disappear- impact on London through the work of artists living in the city. Along ance. Also, there are many who are talking with Mami Kataoka, Rosenthal also co-curated the experiential exhibi- SS Rite de marge? about science fction again. You could say tion Walking in My Mind (23 June–6 September 2009), which engaged that I felt these clusters. There is a wave of with the notion of the artist’s imagination through large-scale immer- SR A rite of passage has three steps: rite de sépa- artists who are getting involved in things sive installation art. ration, rite de marge, and rite d’agrégation: that also match with my own interests. So Here, Rosenthal discusses the ideas behind her edition of the Sydney you distance yourself from something, then I have these seven sub-themes, and I call Biennale, The Future is Already Here—It’s Just Not Evenly Distributed. there is an in-between phase, and then you them ‘Embassies of Thought’. This interview was conducted in two parts: the ﬁrst in London prior come close to something else. So I’m saying SS Tell me about the Embassies of Thought? to Rosenthal’s departure for Sydney in 2014, and the second shortly these black paintings are like these in-be- before the Biennale’s installation commenced in February 2016. For tween phases where you are fnding your SR the purpose of this publication, only the ﬁrst part of the interview has own language. Each Embassy has its own name. For been reproduced. example, there is an Embassy of Trans- SS Has your PhD informed any of your work lation; it’s a term I use instead of re- since? enactment or reiteration, and it is related to the idea of redoing. Artists look at histor- SR Yes, I think very much. It’s interesting, I ical subjects of other artists and translate think this Biennale [the Biennale of Sydney] them into the 21st century. There is also an is a lot about the in-between space … the Embassy of Spirit, where artists deal with, crack between the physical and the digital. for example, fundamentalism or religious So we experience the physicality of our rights, but at the same time it is about things body but at the same time we are present such as rituals that could be rooted in per- in the digital realm. I talk a lot about the sonal experience rather than a global un- ‘in-between’. The concept of rite de marge derstanding of religion. and that of the in-between is actually exactly the same. I’m very much interested in that Each Embassy has its own venue, which place where you don’t know where you refects the idea of that Embassy. The are going; that kind of space where things Embassy of the Real, for example, questions overlap or fold over onto each other. how we perceive reality. Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour, which is a 20-minute boat SS Could you talk about your proposal for ride from the centre of Sydney, is the venue the Biennale of Sydney? for this Embassy. The island has a historical value because convicts were held there, and SR The Biennale is called The Future is Already it also has an industrial history as a place

62 63 Lee Bul, Willing To Be Vulnerable (2015–2016). Heavy-duty fabric, metalised film, transparent film, polyurethane ink, fog machine, LED lighting, electronic wiring. Dimensions variable. Installation view: Cockatoo Island, 20th Biennale of Sydney (18 March–5 June 2016). Created for the 20th Biennale of Sydney. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ben Symons. STEPHANIE ROS ENTHAL OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

where submarines were built and later, I Also, it is related to the idea that nowadays think, steamers or quite grand boats; so we are united not by nation but by where our there are these massive turbine halls—like passion, desires or our beliefs lie. I wanted those in Tate Modern, but not refurbished. to bring in the question of who owns— and how we own—space, and how we are The interesting thing for me in relation to united. Because I think every country, for the Embassy of the Real is that, on the one example Australia, has had all these prob- hand, Cockatoo Island has historical value lems with immigration and how it’s dealt and it’s a kind of museum, so there are these with. I wanted to address that issue without museum panels that explain things, for myself saying what’s right or wrong, but example, ‘turbine hall’ or ‘electrical shop’. more saying that art can create these safe On the other hand, it’s rented out as a televi- places, like islands, where you can act within sion or movie set. The interesting bit is that your own laws. it’s not treated as you think—it’s more like things are added to it each time it is used. SS For the Biennale you appointed what you For example, if Angelina Jolie shot some call ‘attachés’ to help you shape the exhi- of her last flm there and, say, built part of bition: 13 curators, writers and theorists. a 19th-century building, then someone else Can you tell me more about their roles? might think that would be quite handy to keep, and just adds to it, because it’s quite SR The attachés are all people I like and appre-

attractive … Then another director might ciate, so I feel that we can think together. Taro Shinoda, Abstraction of Confusion (2016). Clay, pigment, ochre, tatami mats. Dimensions variable. Installation view: Art Gallery of New think, ‘This building is really great so let’s The idea was that undertaking a biennale South Wales, 20th Biennale of Sydney (18 March–5 June 2016). Created for the 20th Biennale of Sydney. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Ben Symons. paint it green for our movie’, and it then doesn’t really allow you to go as deep as gets painted back. So you get to the island one wants. I thought, ‘How do you work and something looks wrong: there is a build- with 80 artists?’ I’ve never worked with 80 ing that looks like it should be from the 19th artists at one time before. I really wanted century, but it isn’t; there’s a brick wall, but to have a support structure so I could make it’s not real, it’s just wallpaper. Then you sure a conversation with an artist can have see the museum panels. So this question of a certain kind of intensity, instead of, ‘Let’s what’s real becomes questionable, and it’s talk once on the phone and I’ll see you again exactly what I want to have for the kind of in six months.’ art shown on the island. You begin to question when things that are fake can actually The role of the attaché is to work with some seem more real. There is this slippage … of the artists and decide on a commission For each venue we tried hard to fnd some- with them. For example, Mami Kataoka thing right for the artist’s thinking. [chief curator of the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo] worked with artist Taro Shinoda. I SS Why did you use the word ‘embassy’? can say to Mami, ‘Taro is doing this, would you mind if …’ So curating makes sense SR I like this idea that an embassy is a safe place because that conversation is happening; if a for someone who doesn’t belong, who comes conversation is not happening, then what’s from a diferent country. For example, with the reason for having a curator? Because, the Embassy of Thought I like the idea that why does an artist need a curator? My hope it is a safe place for thinking. is that the attachés will add a certain depth

through their own expertise. Agatha Gothe-Snape with Brooke Stamp, Physical Doorway (Three Ways) (2016). Digital print on mesh PVC banner. Installation view: Cockatoo Island, 20th Biennale of Sydney (18 March–5 June 2016). Courtesy the artist and The Commercial Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Ben Symons.

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María Isabel Rueda, The Real. Retrato de Norman Mejía (2004–2013). Slide projection. 6 min., 14 sec. Courtesy the artist. Kazimir Malevich, Facsimiles of set and costume designs for the opera Victory Over the Sun (1913). Installed dimensions variable. Installation view: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 20th Biennale of Sydney (18 March–5 June 2016). Courtesy St Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music. Photo: Leïla Joy.

68 69 STEPHANIE ROS ENTHAL OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

For the Embassy of the Real, I am interest- There will also be things happening across ed in developing the theme out of contrary the city. Hopefully we will be able to realise things. There is the physical experience of a work by Agatha Gothe-Snape, which the body, the performative or dance, that will outlive the Biennale’s life of three I’ve always been interested in. I am also months, and it’ll be a trace left in the city. interested in artists who work digitally or Gothe-Snape will work with diferent per- on the internet, just to make that point that formers and choreographers and explore we live in this overlap, where you constant- diferent parts of Sydney to create a lan- ly meet each other on a physical but at the guage, and this will then be implemented same time on a digital level. I feel that we’re either on the buildings or on the street, cre- in a time when we accept that both are relating a kind of memory. I imagine a kind of evant. I think fve years ago there was still spontaneous popping up of an event, instead this anxiety that we were losing our bodies of leaving large sculptural works that clutter and that no one was aware of this. Now the city … [smiles]. I think artists realise that we live on the phone, but that being embodied—having sex, for example—is still important. The question of this Embassy is: 'What does this do to our perception?'

The key piece in this Embassy is Malevich’s set design for the opera Victory over the Sun Neha Choksi in collaboration with Alice Cummins, In Memory of the Last Sunset (2016). Dance performance by Alice Cummins at Carriageworks, Sydney (15–19 March, 9–10 April and 28–29 May 2016). Created for the 20th Biennale of Sydney (18 March–5 June 2016). Courtesy the artist and [by M. Matyushin and A. Kruchenykh]. I Project 88, Mumbai. Photo: Leïla Joy. invited artist Justene Williams to recreate that 1913 opera. I want to explore how Ma- levich’s ‘black square’ is already address- SS Could you tell us about how some of the relates to the idea of memory and disappear- ing what the internet or cyberspace is— artists ﬁt into particular Embassies, or ance. Neha Choksi, an Indian artist, is lay- that fourth dimension, this kind of extension otherwise relate to them? ering diferent images of sunsets over each into an unlimited space like cyberspace. other [In Memory of the Last Sunset (2016)]. SR Let’s start with the Embassy of Disappear- A performer, Alice Cummins, will rip each Heman Chong has decided to do an ‘Embassy ance, which has 23 artists or artist groups. poster of during the course of the Bien- of Stanisław Lem’ and on quite a literal level nale, so at the end there will be these sunsets it has a direct connection to the Embassy of For example, Robert Zhao Renhui’s work blurring into each other. In her work, The Translation. It is a very simple work [LEM2 Christmas Island Naturally (2016) focuses Real. Retrato de Norman Mejía (2004–13), (2016)]; he is creating a bookshop that will on an animal that doesn’t exist any longer María Isabel Rueda documents the house of sell only Stanisław Lem books in Polish and there; Christmas Island was once owned by another famous Colombian artist, Norman English. He wrote a little story that goes with Singapore but now belongs to Australia. His Mejía, who did all these sexual, surreal each book. This is partly to suggest that the work examines how land can change own- paintings and lived in a house by the beach English translations are not great … though ership and what gets lost in that change. that was like a castle. People thought he I don’t know how he knows that. But what I Another artist, Yuta Nakamura, works with was using witchcraft, and eventually he had like is that it is also something that is trans- diferent bits of ceramics he fnds all over to leave the house because he was threat- formed from one thing to something else. Japan. In his work Atlas of Japanese Ostracon ened all the time, but he painted the house So this Embassy of Stanisław Lem is literally (2016) he creates this postcard where he tells on the inside. Rueda’s work takes us back about how in the act of translating something the story of that ceramic and the history of and shows how Mejía has disappeared from gets lost, and in the Embassy of Translation how it came to be broken. This kind of work people’s memory. we deal with this in an abstract way.

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Adeline Ooi

IN CONVERSATION WITH DIANA D’ARENBERG HONG KONG, 17 MARCH 2016

Photo: © Art Basel. ADELINE OOI OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Art Basel in Hong Kong, which runs from 24 to 26 March 2016, has started DD How did you embark on a career in the secondary market, and there’s still so much early this year. Inboxes are already flooded with invitations for previews art world? more that we haven’t discovered, or that the and dinners well ahead of the VIP preview. There are more events, more market hasn’t caught on to yet. exhibitions, and certainly more collectors descending upon Hong Kong AO I didn’t grow up with a lot of art … I got this time around. That’s Adeline Ooi’s job: to make sure Art Basel in Hong the art bug sometime in my early teenage DD Are there specific challenges in the Kong gets bigger and better. How Ooi manages to keep her composure years at school in Singapore; I was a bit Asian market, compared to the Amer- and sense of humour in light of the impending madness, is confounding. more exposed to it there. I studied fne art ican or European ones? Grace under fire would be an apt way to describe this art powerhouse. [at Central Saint Martins, London] because AO As Director Asia of Art Basel, Ooi is in charge of the youngest and fastest I didn’t know what else to do, but I knew I The thing about Asia is that it’s paradox- growing of the Basel-brand fairs, Art Basel in Hong Kong, as well as bring- wanted to be in the art world. Then when ical. I always use this metaphor: that it’s ing an Asian presence to the other two fairs: Art Basel and Art Basel in I returned to Southeast Asia, a friend like a child who is pumped up on steroids Miami Beach. With extensive experience and contacts in Southeast Asia, opened a gallery and suggested I become but whose vertebrae hasn’t really formed. Malaysian-born Ooi is well positioned for the challenging role. In 2013 the curator, and eventually I founded There’s so much activity and it’s so robust and 2014 she was Art Basel’s VIP relations manager for Southeast Asia RogueArt in 2009 with a couple of friends. despite the economic downturn and all that, as well as director of RogueArt, a Malaysia-based cultural agency that Later I was asked to join Art Basel for VIP but it’s generally in a state of growth. At she co-founded in 2009. Prior to that, from 2006 to 2008, Ooi worked as relations, and now I’m Director Asia of Art the same time, it’s growing so quickly and curator and programme director of Valentine Willie Fine Art gallery in Basel. The experience in Southeast Asia has it’s still so young. Take, for example, the Kuala Lumpur. She’s no stranger to Hong Kong either, and has watched defnitely helped; being part of the market gallery system: a lot of people have started the Hong Kong art scene grow from a cluster of local galleries on Holly- and seeing how it developed. galleries without really understanding what wood Road to an international art market in less than a decade. it means to be a gallery, but they make do DD This is your second year as Director Asia and feel their way along the process … the Much has been made of the significant dip in the art market in recent of Art Basel. What mark are you hoping structures here are so diferent. months. Auction houses have reported serious downturn in sales prof- to leave on the fair long term? its, and a chorus of nervous grumbles can be heard from dealers, usually I think what we’re dealing with is growth happy to overstate sales. ‘It’s not an easy time, economically speaking’, AO It’s a good question. I think this show is in a that’s happening concurrently. There’s a Ooi said at a recent UBS press gathering. ‘Miami was a litmus test, but good spot. Personally, I would love to focus lot to do, generally speaking, but anything at the end of the day the galleries did well.’ more on the Asian content because the and everything is possible. It’s exciting but While its success remains to be seen, the 2016 edition of Art Basel in whole Asian art scene—I mean, there are also messy. But at the same time that’s also Hong Kong is delivering on its promise to be Asian in flavour. Out of diferent art scenes in Asia—has grown and the challenge. 239 galleries participating, more than half will be from Asia—with nine developed so diferently from the Western DD A child on steroids, particularly for Hong new Asian dealers, including Singapore’s Yeo Workshop, Taipei’s Gallery model. A lot of it has to do with the history Kong, seems an apt description of the 100, Shanghai’s Longmen Art Projects, and Beijing’s Ink Studio—and the of independence and the rapid economic commercial and market growth within fair will also host an Insights sector dedicated to Asia. Over 50 museum development. The thing about the Asian art the arts. But institutions and infrastruc- groups will also be visiting this year, with a strong Asian contingent and scene is that there have been such diferent ture seem to have lagged behind. a focus on Japan. A new expanded Film sector will also be featured in the rates of development and some artists are Art Basel programme, kicking of with a feature-length film about the more well known than others, while other AO M+ Sigg Collection, which is currently the subject of a major exhibition practices and movements are completely Yes, exactly. You look at the market growth at ArtisTree in Hong Kong. unknown because they existed at the time and it’s incredible. Galleries have expand- before there was a market. I think Art Basel ed—even younger galleries, like Magician in Hong Kong is a great platform to rein- Space in Beijing. The time is so intense in troduce and rediscover some of the great Asia. What a gallery can achieve in fve content and practices that have been over- years here is incredible. It probably took looked. The Asian market only boomed 20 years for a gallery to achieve the same about 10 to 15 years ago, so what we’re back in the day, but now everything and looking at is artists who are practicing right anything is so accelerated. It’s exciting and now or circulating around the primary or scary. And you’re right, a lot of it is hap-

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pening on the market side, the fnancial side, the Unlimited sector, an exhibition with whereas institutional and cultural spaces for very large-scale works or performances art are still few and far between. I mean if that transcend the art fair booth format, you look at public spaces and outreach and and Parcours, which engages the public general awareness of art in the public, it’s with site-specific works and installa- growing, but you need to be able to mould tions around Basel. Tell me about the and shape it. It’s a lot like a plant that has Hong Kong format? grown wild. You’re really trying to prune and bring it all together so that it’ll grow AO In Hong Kong we have the Insights sector, beautifully. which highlights Asian curatorial themes and practices. I would love to have an Un- DD How does the character of Hong Kong limited sector in Hong Kong but that just shape the development and character of doesn’t seem possible right now. It’s a this edition of Art Basel? The city has a one-of for Basel. But who knows? I believe specific rhythm to it, its own set of cul- that it’s about growing with the times, not tural and political idiosyncrasies, as does just putting something out there for the sake every city. of making it happen. Let’s see what else comes up in Hong Kong and what we can AO I think you’re right. The fairs correlate to do. I would still love a public programme for the environment they exist in. The Hong the whole show. If you can leave something Kong show is the youngest version; it’s also behind for the public … One very small the one generating the most curiosity in the efort of course is the ICC [International Isa Genzken, Schauspieler (Actors) (2013–2015). Installation view: David Zwirner, Encounters, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). © Art Basel. international art world. For example, this Commerce Centre] tower installation, this year we’re getting so many more Amer- year by Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima, icans and museum groups visiting. How which will light up on 21 March to kick of does Hong Kong difer from Basel and the Basel week and will continue to stay on Miami Beach? Well, I think defnitely the until the end of April. If we can have more Asian presence. It’s the one fair that out of of that kind of art, where it involves the city 239 galleries, half are galleries from Asia or and its inhabitants, and does not just come with exhibition spaces in Asia. So, that is one in and out and disappear in fve days. thing. And I think the face of the city and energy of it also contributes to a very dif- DD You also have an expanded new film pro- ferent show, and I think what’s exciting is to gramme. Can you tell me a little about this? see how the show will grow. I’m personally hoping that it will result in greater Asian AO We have two sections: one is a short flm material being presented by Asian galleries, programme that will screen at the Hong and I hope the galleries in the West will Kong Arts Centre; and the other is fea- continue to take this market seriously and ture-length flms that will screen at a theatre bring the best that they’ve got. It’s dif- at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibi- cult to forecast how the show will grow and tion Centre. Those are open to the public evolve; it really depends on what’s going on and they’re free. I think the flm progamme in the art environment as well. is probably one of the best ways to reach out to members of the public. Sometimes DD It’s interesting to see how the pro- you don’t know what to do with art and grammes for the various Art Basels have you think, ‘How am I supposed to react to developed and difer. In Basel you have it?’ It can be daunting and you walk away. Installation view: Jess Johnson, Darren Knight Gallery, Discoveries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). © Art Basel.

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Whereas with flm, there’s a narrative and it tells a particular story, whether about an artist or a collector. It’s a gentler and more accessible way into the art world. I’m hoping this is a good way of provid- ing access to the public and that it will be informative.

We’re bringing Takashi Murakami’s Jellyfsh Eyes (2013), which we screened last year in Basel, to Hong Kong. It will be screened on Good Friday so I’m hoping it will be a good outing for family and kids.

DD While Basel is a commercial selling platform, set up originally by gallerists, there seems to be an expectation in Hong Kong that the fair will also shape or in- ﬂuence the city’s cultural landscape. Do you feel a pressure or responsibility in a way to contribute to this?

General impression: Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). © Art Basel. AO Defnitely. We would love to have more of a presence within the city outside of the fair week. I think this is still a young initiative and we’re looking at how else to support cultural endeavours. Last year we supported the Hong Kong Art Gallery Association’s Art Week, and we’re still looking at different ways of having activities outside of March, like in the second part of the year. We’re interested in things to ft, in terms of education or education outreach, but we realise we can’t do it alone. At the end of the day, Art Basel is a fair and it’s very much a market platform. But it’s also about banding together with other organisations. These are defnitely areas that we’re exploring for the Hong Kong show. Something like Event Horizon [the large-scale public sculpture installation by artist Antony Gormley, which was shown in Hong Kong from November 2015 to May 2016], for example, is a public art project that is wonderful for Hong Kong, but it also has to be meaningful and inspire General impression: Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). © Art Basel. people as well.

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Art Basel in Hong Kong

24–26 MARCH 2016

Installation view: Jaume Plensa, Galerie Lelong, Galleries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. 81 Installation view: Campbell Patterson, Michael Lett, Discoveries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. Mike Bouchet, Bounty (Will) (2016). Installation view: Peres Projects, Galleries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. Installation view: Urs Fischer, Sadie Coles HQ, Galleries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. Installation view: Dale Frank and Michael Parekowhai, Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Galleries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. Los Carpinteros, Derrame. Grupo dos (2015). Installation view: Sean Kelly Gallery, Galleries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. Installation view: Eko Nugroho and Ronald Ventura, ARNDT, Galleries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. Julio Le Parc, Cloison à lames réfléchissantes (1966/2005). Installation view: Galeria Nara Roesler, Galleries, Art Basel in Hong Kong (24–26 March 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Mark Blower. OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Dr Uli Sigg

IN CONVERSATION WITH DIANA D’ARENBERG HONG KONG, 18 MARCH 2016

Courtesy Dr Uli Sigg. DR ULI SIGG OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

When Sydney art dealer Ray Hughes visited Swiss collector Dr Uli Sigg Dong, Ai Weiwei and Zhang Peili) presented in chronological order across at his Mauensee residence near Lucerne some years ago, a mutual friend four decades of Chinese history. Grouped into three periods, 1974–1989, asked the dealer how the visit went. ‘Did you feel comfortable and find 1990–1999 and 2000–present, the show reflects on the development of a place to kick your feet up and read?’ ‘No, to both’, answered Hughes; China’s art scene and the relationship between art, society and politics. ‘there was only art everywhere.’ Each period addresses major milestones in modern Chinese history: the end of the Cultural Revolution, with small works by Zhang Wei that were Sigg has enjoyed a distinguished career: first as a businessman in China painted in secret; the Tiananmen crackdown, with photographs by Liu with the Schindler Group creating what would become the first Western Heung Shing depicting the bloody aftermath; and China’s sprint towards industrial joint venture with the Chinese government; then as Swiss am- globalisation and economic power in the 1990s and 2000s, for which a bassador to China from 1995 to 1998. But it is art that has defined Sigg’s new generation of artists, such as Cao Fei and Yangjiang Group, attempt life more than anything else. The antithesis of the loud, brash, show-me- to address the environmental and social impact. the-money insta-flipper collector that has sadly come to influence the art market these days, for Sigg, the art is everything. The collector, as he would insist, is nothing.

But it is not for nothing that Sigg has earned the moniker ‘ambassador of Chinese art’. Over a period of four decades, Sigg has managed to put together one of the world’s most impressive and encyclopedic collections of contemporary Chinese art, comprising over 2,200 works by over 325 artists. His consuming passion and drive has made him one of the most renowned ﬁgures in the contemporary art world, to say nothing of the Chinese contemporary art world.

‘My China stories are in the artworks’, Sigg once stated. And indeed they are. In fact, one may argue that within the collection is the history of modern China. Since his arrival there in 1979, he has witnessed ﬁrst-hand the development of Chinese contemporary art—from repressed underground experimentalism to heady global art market domination—in tandem with the country’s social and political changes. He also played a crucial role in establishing the Chinese Contemporary Art Award, which contributed to the wider recognition of several artists and brought international curatorial exposure to the Chinese contemporary art scene.

In 2012, Sigg donated the bulk of his collection to M+, Hong Kong’s museum for visual culture, where he serves on the acquisition committee. His 1,510-piece donation, valued at the time at HKD 1.3 billion, is one of the most signiﬁcant made to a museum in recent years. It certainly marked a turning point for M+ and for Hong Kong’s bid to become a cultural cap- ital. M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art (23 February–5 April 2016) gives the Hong Kong public its ﬁrst glimpse of the art that will form the backbone of the museum’s permanent collection.

Surprisingly, as former M+ executive director Lars Nittve stated in the foreword to the catalogue for the exhibition, the exhibition is ‘the ﬁrst to narrate one of the most remarkable events in the last 100 years of art history in a concentrated, chronological, and hopefully crystallised way.’ Comprised of selected highlights from the Sigg Collection, the exhibition features more than 80 pieces (paintings, installations, photography and video works) by 50 artists, (including Zeng Fanzhi, Wang Keping, Song

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DD How did you start collecting Chinese DD You came from a very Western-centric contemporary art? When you first start- discourse and understanding of art. How ed looking at Chinese art there weren’t did you initially view Chinese art? Did any galleries in China, and certainly no you have specific criteria in mind when Chinese art market. you started collecting or did this evolve with time? US I started in 1979, when I was frst there with Schindler, but I wasn’t really excited US Well, in the earlier years—and you also see by what I saw at the time. I looked at a lot it in the collection—I found a lot of Chinese of work, but I didn’t collect it. But by the art derivative of Western art, because it was late 1980s, I had started to look at it a little the frst time artists were able to make au- deeper. I felt that the art had found its own tonomous art. They could decide what to do language, but it wasn’t until the nineties that and leave the language of socialist realism, I really started collecting. By then I was so they experimented with the little infor- moving freely around China. I went ev- mation they had about Western art. So for erywhere, even though a lot of art was still us it looked very boring. It took quite some semi-underground. The constraints were time until a language appeared that was not not like those of the eighties, when I was derivative. And at frst I was looking with a always being observed and followed. In the Western eye: I was looking for art that could nineties I could just get in my car and travel contribute to the global artistic discourse. where I wanted, to diferent artists’ studios. But of course I couldn’t fnd that. Every- thing was 50 years too late, 70 years too late. DD The earliest works in the exhibition— Only when I decided to take more of a docu- paintings by Zhang Wei who was part of mentation approach—to build a collection the underground No Name Group—date that allows you to read the story of Chinese back to 1974 and 1975, almost post-Cul- contemporary art, because nobody was tural Revolution. There was a great deal doing this—did I start looking for works of artistic repression at the time, and that were important to Chinese art history. art was being made covertly. Were you They didn’t have to contribute to the global aware of the political and social signifi- art discourse, which is at the forefront in cance of the works you were picking up? Western art. So with a very diferent focus, I began to collect very diferent things. I was US Yes. I’m a researcher by nature, and I was collecting backwards, collecting artists like fortunate enough to buy the results of my the No Name Group. It made more sense. If research. Of course, maybe that’s the dif- you were looking for work that was at the ference between people like me and those forefront of contemporary art, then all this who move exclusively in the art world. I was was not of much relevance. So that’s really in China as a businessman and diplomat so the diference. I had to change the focus I saw very diferent realities, and contem- to whatever was important for Chinese art porary art was just another access point for history. Of course, ideally, it would also me; but I always thought about how to in- contribute to the history of global art dis- tegrate it into the full Chinese picture. So I course, and there are many works that do, was always able to contextualise the work, but there are also many works that don’t. not just within the art world but also within

Chinese society, something that was very Fang Lijun, Untitled (1995). Oil on canvas. 250 × 180 cm. M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong (by donation). Courtesy the artist and West Kowloon important for me. Cultural District Authority, Hong Kong.

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meaningful art or less meaningful art. This to deal with the collection, rather than just was the frst contemporary art award in me, myself. And there’s also a question of China, and I created it to promote a more means. I decided I’d rather put my resourc- domestic discourse and to bring in import- es into collecting than building this great ant foreign curators [such as Swiss curator monument to myself. I’m not so import- Harald Szeemann, who went on to include ant in this. The collection is much bigger 20 Chinese artists in the 1999 Venice Bien- than me. nale] so they would see Chinese contemporary art, because at that time nobody had a Of course I built it and there are traces of clue about it. It’s hard to imagine today, but me in that collection, but it is much bigger that was the debate then. I had to explain than I am. I think it’s an important docu- myself; why I did this and why I should have ment to Chinese culture, whereas I, per- a say in this—not the only say, but a say. sonally, am not.

I had seen more of China than most Chinese back then ever could. As I mentioned, in the eighties and nineties, people couldn’t travel

Liu Wei, It Looks Like a Landscape (2004). Black & white print. 306 × 612 cm. M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong (by donation). Courtesy the artist freely around. I travelled everywhere for and West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, Hong Kong. work, but they couldn’t. And I had seen and met with thousands of Chinese artists, while many Chinese hadn’t. So I created DD What points of diference do you see US There are a million moments, but there’s the award to collect material at a time when between the pre-1989 artists and today’s this work in the exhibition by Ai Weiwei— there were no books, no catalogues, no generation of artists? an installation with 4,000 stone axes [Still internet. I had to explain all this so every- Life (1995–2000)]. I wanted to ofer Weiwei one would understand. So yes, there was a US Well now, of course, artists have fully caught more money than he actually wanted. He moment where it was a problem, whereas up. Where once there was a time lag, they wanted a really ridiculously low price. I felt today nobody disputes this. have now mastered all media, have no issues it should have been much higher, and he with techniques and have access to informa- said to me, ‘It doesn’t really matter if you DD Private museums are sprouting up all tion, and this is all refected in the art. Some or I own it. That’s irrelevant and just a blip. across China. Given your world-class of it, as we discussed earlier, comes across These axes have been here for 10,000 years, art collection, why did you forego the as being part of the global mainstream. so what’s the human life span? What does private museum route? it matter who owns it? You take it.’ So I did Tradition, or dealing with tradition, has and now I have passed it on to M+. I also US A number of reasons. But mainly, I’m very gained a lot of weight. In the eighties don’t matter. It was an interesting way of much a fan of the public institution. I think nobody would ever want to hear about tra- thinking about art and its long-term rele- only the public institution can provide the dition—it was all about Western concep- vance, if it ever has one. long-term guarantee that it will continue tualism—whereas now a lot of artists are to exist and it will be ‘the’ public memory. disillusioned with Western conceptualism. DD Did you ever encounter resistance or ﬁnd I have seen a number of private museums That’s a trend that has emerged in the last it problematic being a foreigner champi- come and go in China. Maybe the owner goes few years. oning contemporary Chinese art? bankrupt, maybe the owner decides to hang around with flm people, not the art people, DD Is there a particularly memorable anec- US It was an issue early on when I created the so then the money goes there. And you are dote or encounter with an artist that Contemporary Chinese Art Award in 1997. hostage to the taste of that one person. springs to mind regarding any of the There was a debate that I, as a foreigner in Maybe that’s the main issue. I’d much works in the exhibition? China, shouldn’t be able to decide what’s rather have a whole institution decide how

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Tracey Emin

IN CONVERSATION WITH STEPHANIE BAILEY LONDON, 18 MARCH 2016

Photo: Richard Young. TRACEY EMIN OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

On the eve of the opening of Tracey Emin’s exhibition I Cried Because I SB I’d like to start with your 2012 exhibi- SB Another major influence on your work Love You at Lehmann Maupin and White Cube in Hong Kong (21 March–21 tion She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea, has been Egon Schiele. I understand you May 2016), Ocula interviewed the artist about her practice. The conver- which was staged at the Turner Contem- have been obsessed with him since you sation took Emin’s 2012 survey exhibition She Lay Down Deep Beneath porary in your hometown, Margate. were 15. What led you to Schiele, and the Sea at Turner Contemporary—located in Margate, the seaside town what was it about his work that spoke where the artist grew up—as a starting point. The show presented a new With the view of the coast visible from to you at such a young age? body of work—formal studies of the female form, including expressive inside the gallery space, it seemed such line paintings of the body rendered in blue watercolour on paper—that a perfect articulation of how Margate TE David Bowie’s cover for ‘Heroes’ was in- marked a radical departure from Emin’s vernacular up to that moment. must have so deeply influenced your fuenced by Egon Schiele, and that’s how By then, Emin had become known for angst-ridden expressions infused work—the coastline feels at once like a I became aware of him. I went to the local with the artist’s personal biography, which she has consistently used as potential release and a trap. Could you bookshop and found a book on Expres- material for her work. Exemplary pieces include her 1999 Turner Prize talk about what this exhibition meant to sionism and there was a tiny image of Egon shortlisted work My Bed, which featured Emin’s own bed, and Everyone you as an artist coming home to where Schiele; a self-portrait that I could totally I Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1995), a tent appliquéd with all the names it all began? The exhibition opened less relate to. I think this was a defning moment of people Emin shared a bed with. The 2012 show, by contrast, ofered than a year after your mid-career survey for me in terms of my understanding of art. a totally new turn. at the Hayward closed, after all, and presented a new series of works that sug- SB The Last Great Adventure is You at She Lay Down Deep Beneath the Sea was followed by The Last Great gested a real break from the past. White Cube in 2014 took place at the Adventure is You at White Cube in London (8 October–16 November same time as an Egon Schiele exhibi- 2014), and Tracey Emin | Egon Schiele: Where I Want to Go at Leopold TE tion at The Courtauld Gallery in London. Museum in Vienna (24 April 2014–14 September 2015). The White Cube With my show in Margate, I really wanted Somehow, the two exhibitions put into show presented an evolved body of work that built on the developments to do something that was more optimistic, perspective your prolific career, which Emin showcased in 2012—paintings, drawings, bronze sculptures and that had light. Everybody in Margate was recalls the same sense of urgency Alfred neon lights, all reflecting a more tempered relationship to the female aware of my past and history and that was Werner observed in Schiele, as an artist form—while the exhibition in Vienna created a synergy between Emin’s the idea I had from the start; to exhibit some- who not only relieved himself of his anxi- formalism and the expressive lines of Egon Schiele’s figurative studies. thing that showed that my life had moved on but was still related to my past. The most eties, but also somehow made the public In Hong Kong, Emin will present a continuous exhibition of painting, em- wonderful thing about my show in Margate participate in them. I wonder what this broidery and neon across White Cube’s and Lehmann Maupin’s galleries, was that 170,000 people went to view it; that exhibition at White Cube meant to you, reflecting the diversity of her practice. A central aspect to this narrative really was a feeling of being home. given that it preceded your exhibition is a large stone located in an olive grove outside Emin’s studio in the South at the Leopold Museum, Where I Want of France, on which the artist has based a series of drawings that com- SB The exhibition also included these re- to Go, which presented more than 80 of memorate a marriage ceremony that took place in the summer of 2015. markable erotic drawings by J.M.W. your works alongside Schiele’s? The stone, for Emin, represents a metaphor for stability and enduring Turner and Rodin. Turner being an art- love, be it platonic, erotic, or focused on the self; a concept that has de- ist whose work constantly evokes the TE My show at White Cube was a big move fined the scope of Emin’s practice from the very beginning. light, the British coastline, and the bil- forward for me. I showed bronzes and lowing clouds that rush over the island. paintings; it was very important to me that I wonder if you could talk about the in- the work showed the creative process with fluence Turner had on you? my hands. It is only now I’m in my ffties that I really feel that my mind and heart TE When I was a student I actually did a series and soul and hands are actually coming to- of oil paintings of Margate in the style gether. I just wish it had happened earlier. of Turner. I fnd his work very sensual I think it showed in my White Cube show. and extremely passionate. It was fascinating as a child knowing that a great artist was associated with Margate.

102 103 Tracey Emin, I Cried Because I Love You (2016). Neon. 80 × 200 cm. © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2016. Courtesy Lehmann Maupin and White Cube. Photo © George Darrell. TRACEY EMIN OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

SB In the White Cube exhibition, I partic- British press, which reflected anoth- ularly enjoyed a collection of deformed er aspect that has defined your career: bronze female figures that recalled an your relationship to the public and to the interview you gave in 2002, in which you media. On the critical battering you re- stated: ‘I couldn’t see myself making a ceived from UK critics for your exhibi- bronze sculpture—it’s not me.’ And yet, tion in the 2007 Venice Biennale British after all this sustained reworking and re- Pavilion, you noted in an interview with thinking, it became you. How do you feel Vanity Fair: ‘The press was cruel, be- about this development? And further to cause they didn’t just dislike my work; this, which artists have been the great- they disliked me, personally—my voice, est formal influences on you? You have the way I dress, the way I look, my atti- mentioned Bacon, Rodin and Picasso; are tude. I’m sure they wouldn’t have carried there others? on that way if I were a man. I’m absolutely convinced of that.’ Looking back, how TE Yes, Louise Bourgeois: I actually had the do you feel your changing relationship fortune to collaborate with Louise Bour- with the media reflects the way people geois on a series of images called ‘Do Not have learned to understand your work? Abandon Me’. I became friends with Jerry Gorovoy from Louise Bourgeois’ founda- TE I don’t think it’s so much people learning tion [The Easton Foundation], and he in- to understand me as it is also the fact that troduced me to the foundry that she used. I have a much quieter, diligent attitude. I This gave me a lot of confdence in terms haven’t been brow-beaten but I don’t really of learning the lost wax process, and over have time or energy to fght back anymore. the last four or fve years I have become I just have to get on with my work. I think very excited about bronze sculpture. It’s that after 20 years of being in the public Tracey Emin, Another Love Story (2011–2015). Acrylic on canvas. 60.5 × 80 cm. © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2016. Courtesy Lehmann something I never thought I would be able eye, thankfully people are more judgmen- Maupin and White Cube. Photo © George Darrell. to do—like learning a language at an old tal about my work rather than the size of age. It’s something that I am pursuing and my breasts. learning more and more as the days go by. SB You have said you are an Expressionist. SB What is interesting, too, is that your for- This is manifested in the works that deal TE All those feelings are still there, except I a brooding philosophy which searches mal study of the female form subverts directly with your past, including themes have just learnt to deal with them better. out the remotest corners of the soul.’ the history of female representation in of rape, assault and the side efects of All I seem to do is work and think about my I wonder how your current exhibition art, by the fact that it is your own gaze, such experiences, including alcoholism ideas, and by doing that I tend to resolve in Hong Kong at Lehmann Maupin and and not a man’s, that is studying and rep- and non-existent self-esteem, coupled more of my problems in life—or I just don’t White Cube might reflect on the corners resenting it. with a deep and unbearable need to be have time for problems anymore. I am so of the soul you have reached at this point loved while being acutely incapable of lucky that I have art: it looks after me, it in your practice? TE It is my body. I know my body better than letting love in. Your later work appears holds me, it feeds me, and even though anyone else. I am my best model; it makes it to present a calmer Emin: one who un- sometimes I may have a creative block, art TE After May, when the Hong Kong exhibi- really diferent that I am the woman because derstands, as expressed in one of the has never left me. It is always there. tion fnishes, I am taking a year of, which I am not viewing my body with a sexual neons included in the 2014 White Cube will give me some time to do some soul gaze but with an understanding one. show, that ‘The soul will always do what SB Your work recalls another description searching. I desperately crave more time it needs to do’. I wonder if you could talk of Schiele put forward by Alfred Wer- to think. Art should never feel like a tread- SB What was interesting about The Last about your relationship with art in this ner: ‘Too many have yet to see that be- mill; it should be an expression of the soul. I Great Adventure is You was the posi- regard—as a conduit for the soul to neath the agitation in Schiele’s draw- would be happy if I can just go away some- tive reception you received from the express itself? ings and paintings there is the calm of where and scream, even if no one hears me.

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Francis Upritchard

IN CONVERSATION WITH RACHAEL VANCE MELBOURNE, 30 MARCH 2016

Photo: Nicole Bachman. FRANCIS UPRITCHARD OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Francis Upritchard is perhaps best known for her curious, and at times RV Your retrospective at MUMA in Mel- RV How does it feel to review and reflect upon disconcerting, small-scale figurative sculptures which embody a con- bourne spans 20 years of your career. your practice in such an extensive way? stellation of historical and contemporary references. These figures in- Could you discuss the selection process habit a universe where imagination collides with the ancient and con- of works included in the exhibition? FU It’s very strange. Sometimes I get the ‘old temporary. Often juxtaposed and staged upon the geometric, clean lines friend’ feeling, and often the ‘Who on earth of modernist furniture, her imaginative enquiries traverse the limits of FU The selection was made by working very are you?’ feeling. I can see quite clearly human behaviour, imbuing gravitas with each assemblage and scenario. closely with Charlotte Day. We drew up a now that my concerns are walking around In 2009, Upritchard represented New Zealand at the 53rd Venice Biennale wish list of works we wanted and then tried in circles, even when the look of things are (alongside Judy Millar), and her distinct visual language has continued to to come up with a realistic selection that developing. I’m really into materials, and attract critical attention with solo exhibitions such as Hammer Projects: wasn’t going to create too much of a ship- it’s nice to see how many materials I’m now Francis Upritchard at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (25 October ping nightmare. My works are strewn across comfortable using. 2014–1 March 2015); Potato Poem at the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma many continents and are often quite fragile, RV You often deploy staged gatherings of Museum of Contemporary Art, Kagawa (13 April–30 June 2013); A Long so moving them about was always going to performative figures in your exhibitions. Wait at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (11 May–3 September be a major challenge with this show. Can you discuss the final exhibition de- 2012); and In die Höhle at the Secession in Vienna (30 April–20 June 2010). We included some of my very early land sign at MUMA and how the individual Most recently, Upritchard’s dynamic output is presented in her first ma- works, which I actually made at art school, rooms engage with each other? jor survey exhibition, Francis Upritchard: Jealous Saboteurs, at Monash because I thought it was very important for University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne (13 February–16 April local audiences to see what exactly moving FU I’ve been making fgures in many difer- 2016). The exhibition is presented in partnership with City Gallery Te away from New Zealand did to my work. ent ways these last years. The frst emer- Whare Toi, Wellington, and is curated by their chief curator Robert Leon- Lots of my frst works in the UK are about gence I guess would be the mummy, fol- ard and MUMA’s director Charlotte Day. remembering New Zealand and simultane- lowed closely by the severed heads. Later In this interview, Upritchard discusses the exhibition at MUMA and the ously being exposed to new cultures. Upon the rubber ‘balata’ works, which I developed opportunity it presents to revisit the diferent stages of her practice, leaving New Zealand, I quickly travelled a in Brazil, and lastly the new polymer plastic and the search for otherness within her work. lot—to Japan, Thailand, Germany, France, fgures. We decided to see [the exhibition Italy, Greece, Morocco—and I also visited at MUMA] as a series of rooms that were many, many museums and poured over roughly but not strictly chronological. In amazing collections of African and Egyp- fact, the frst room you enter at MUMA has tian works. A special trip to the Wellcome the earliest and the latest works and also the Trust’s archive warehouse in London was smaller, more intimate pieces, so the work especially inspiring. I found the ‘tikis’ made kind of shrinks and grows along the way. by white sailors on their return from New Zealand in the 1800s. This was very interest- I have had new walls built over the normal ing for me and solidifed some of my ideas entry and main circulation space to the around mis-remembering. gallery, so you pass through the rooms in a very diferent way than you normally We were really lucky to be loaned Travel- would. I’m not sure a new visitor would lers Collection (2003), a key work; and also notice, but a regular visitor will encounter during a chance studio visit I found my walls where they are expecting doors. I did old table and was able to reunite the base this so that the space felt quieter and slower; with the planets in Planets in the Detrimen- the spine of the building is modern-looking tal Signs (2003). We tried to represent each with raw wood, and usually has a faster path phase of my work in the show, and keep a for linking the rooms. Visually, my work balance across the 20-year span. has changed quite a lot over the years, and there are certainly works I wouldn’t display in the same room.

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Above: Francis Upritchard, Archer Plate (2012) (detail). Modelling material, foil, paint. 52 × 35 cm. Collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 2015. Courtesy the artist and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki.

Left: Francis Upritchard, Blue and Green Scarf (2012) (detail). Modelling material, foil, wire, paint, cloth. 49 × 33 × 38 cm. Collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the Patrons of the Auckland Art Gallery, 2013. Courtesy the artist and Kate MacGarry, London.

113 FRANCIS UPRITCHARD OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

RV By virtue of the materials and techniques titles explain a little. Nincompoop (2011), I RV You have referred to a sense of cynicism you use, your pieces evade specific tem- think, is an idiotic character; Bangle (2015), located within your work in its reflec- poral reference. For example, the blend- which I just made for my show at Anton tion and commentary about the world ing of medieval imagery such as harle- Kern [Gallery], is confdent, serene and and societal engagement. Is this some- quin design with Egyptian-esque urns adorned by bangles. thing you still feel, and if so, how does that clash with the drapery of a North this specifically resonate in this exhibi- African caftan or Middle Eastern kef- RV You remove the possibility for viewers to tion at MUMA? fiyeh [a traditional scarf usually made enter into a total engagement or reach from cotton]. Can you discuss your in- a level of empathy with your figurative FU The title Jealous Saboteurs refers specif- terest in this illusory time shift and why sculptures through the omission of the cally to this. This title came from a leafet this has remained such a constant? pupils in their eyes, for example, or in slipped under my boyfriend’s door, who their scale. They are not large enough to lived in New Cross, a London neighbour- FU Nice question. I’m not sure what it means be exactly human, nor are they animal, hood with a large African community. The exactly, but I think it’s perhaps an attempt and therefore they can’t be fully scru- leafet ofered services to combat a whole to say that humans are all the same, ancient tinised. Do you consider the audience’s list of interesting ills and I poached many of or modern, black or white. I love going to interaction with these pieces when pro- the particulars for titles, which relates to my museums and seeing marble busts of obvi- ducing them? interest in talismans. I like that some people ously powerful, but dull men; you can just believe they need protection from spirits; see the vain, rich, managerial expressions. FU Certainly. I want to remind the viewer that that an object can protect them from a car Representations of Jesus have always been my works are frstly sculptures; despite crash, or that a wax representation of their interesting to me too, because there is this the face and the clothes, they are a form. leg can cure their actual leg. Perhaps it in- expression of sufering, and the time, scale, They have no actual personality. They are sinuates that my sculptures could be pow- material and technical ability of artists is so all imagined. I fnd watching violent or erful objects, too. very varied. However, you always know awkward moments in movies very hard. who it is supposed to be. Perhaps it’s because I’m not very good at RV Beyond MUMA, can you discuss your separating reality from fction. next project or body of work? RV I agree that your figurative sculptures provide a backdrop for a dialogue about RV I want to discuss the way you conflate FU I made a sculpture called Long Arms and human behaviour. There is a certain multiple disciplinary approaches and ele- Long Legs go Fishing (2015), inspired by a gravitas about them. Each character ap- ments such as design and craft into your netsuke [a small Japanese sculptural object] pears to represent a human urge in their art practice. Your installations are there- of Japanese characters called Ashinaga and expressions and body language, and a fore critical yet informed by more dec- Tenaga that I saw at the Los Angeles County desire for connection. Is this something orative traditions. What interests you Museum of Art. They represent symbiot- you consciously channel when creating about this mixing of creative processes? ic relationships and I want to explore them your figures and staged narratives? as sculptures because they make a great FU It’s pretty complicated for me. I love but complicated piggyback form. There FU The narratives are usually pretty simple; craft, especially ceramics, glass work and is a sort of bromance aspect to their rela- [the sculptures are] either male or female, weaving. I also love high art. I know these tionship which is so tender; one can’t fsh and frequently ambiguous. Sometimes I’m things are made diferently with diferent without the other, and they have to work trying to capture a face I glimpsed, some- intentions, but I’m also sure many artists together physically and intimately. times a friend I have photographed, and could, or perhaps should, be craftspeople, sometimes a pose. Of course it’s more and many craftspeople should be artists. complicated than that, as it often includes Perhaps it’s a query into why people might race and decoration, but I fnd it very hard choose one path or another: Class? Educa- to articulate exactly what I’m trying to do tion? Confdence? with each work, although sometimes the

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Kapwani Kiwanga

IN CONVERSATION WITH BRIENNE WALSH PARIS, 30 MARCH 2016

Photo: Vincente Munoz. KAPWANI KIWANGA OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Canadian-born Kapwani Kiwanga was arguably the artist with the most BW How were you first approached to par- I try to go to the place or to the country or presence at The Armory Show in 2016, which ran from 3 to 6 March 2016 ticipate in The Armory Show? Many whatever the appropriate space I’m interest- in New York. As the fair’s Commissioned Artist, she showed the video in- prestigious artists have been chosen in ed in. So I did the very basic tour of the UN, stallation The Secretary’s Suite (2016), a work based on a 1961 photograph the past, it must have been an honour. and then I was lucky enough to have some- of then-Secretary-General of the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld’s body who worked within the UN give me a ofce, the décor of which is sparse and includes modernist furniture, KK Yeah, defnitely, it was a great honour. It bit of a privileged tour, as well as showing an animal-skin rug, and the bust of a South Asian deity. The installation was the curators, Julia Grosse and Yvette me diferent parts of the UN. And then of included a translucent print of the photograph hung in front of a televi- Mutumba from Contemporary And, who course my focus shifted completely, and I sion screen, which showed a video of Kiwanga sorting through photo- contacted me. In fact, it was quite funny became attracted to these gifts that were copies of images of diplomatic gifts while she narrated stories—some because Julia had written to me and said, given, particularly at the moment countries real, some entirely fabricated—as if she were an anthropologist going ‘Oh, you know we’ve been elected as cu- were admitted into the UN. I thought they over a recent dig. Kiwanga also produced a limited-edition screen print rators for the next Focus section at The would tell interesting stories about the dif- to benefit The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Photographs from Armory.’ I didn’t quite understand the invi- ferent political and diplomatic confgura- her series ‘Flowers for Africa’, which recreates bouquets used in African tation at frst; I thought that they wanted me tions throughout the history of the UN, but independence ceremonies and negotiations, also adorned the front cover to put in a proposition and then from there also diplomatic relations generally. of The Armory Show 2016 catalogue. Finally, Galerie Tanja Wagner from they would decide if they wanted to select Berlin and Galerie Jérôme Poggi from Paris hosted an independent booth me as their commissioned artist. I wrote As I thought about it, the question of the gift of Kiwanga’s recent sisal fibre works in the Focus section of the fair, this back to that efect: ‘Ok, great, I’d love to came up more and more, and it really shifted year subtitled ‘African Perspectives’. put in a proposition.’ And she wrote back, when I came across that image taken in 1961 Kiwanga took the time to speak with Ocula from her studio in Paris, ‘No, no, no, no, in fact you’ve already been of the Secretary’s suite. Then the narrative where she currently lives and works. chosen, we want to know if you accept.’ For really focused in on that, and the circum- me it was unexpected. stances of Dag Hammarskjöld’s death— the fact that he was travelling to negotiate a What Yvette and Julia hoped to achieve was ceasefre at the time his plane crashed. The quite interesting in terms of really challeng- image I came across was taken only two ing the idea of African art—pushing people weeks before he died. I didn’t know that to a kind of acceptance of Africa within a when I chose the image. I was drawn to global exchange—and I found that was an in- it partially because there were diplomatic telligent way to approach the Focus section. gifts present in the image, and I found it quite aesthetically interesting. It seemed to BW For your dedicated installation, you lend itself to a kind of stage scene. I could chose to feature The Secretary’s Suite, imagine stories being played out in this which I understand is based on a 1961 scene. It was really that image that ended photograph you saw on a tour of the up becoming the starting point of every- United Nations. How did you first be- thing. Had I not been able to visit the UN, come interested in the United Nations? I might have done a completely diferent And why did you specifically choose that project in the end. project for your presentation? BW Do you see any connection between KK Basically this happens a lot in my work. I the gift economy and the UN itself as come across anecdotes or subject matter, an institution of cultural and social ex- something that interests me, and I’ll kind change, and The Armory, which is about of fle it away in this to-do list of projects. commercial sales, but also about bring- There was something that related to the UN ing people from diferent countries to- specifcally that interested me, not about the gether in one space? gift economy per se, but more about a visit of a diplomat to the UN and his experience.

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KK I think there’s more contrast, but maybe I’m BW It’s interesting considering what kinds wrong. I think the fact that The Armory is of objects people choose to display, and an art market and things are bought and sold who they assume will pass through the is an exchange that is very much monetary. UN to see them. On the other hand, these gift economies or these gift exchanges [at the UN] are more KK Not everything is displayed. They have so about mutual bonds and creating things that many objects. When I was doing my re- are much more abstract, although our mon- search, I was in contact with the arts com- etary economy is also quite abstract … So mittee, which kind of shepherds it all and yes, I guess you could say there’s a paral- oversees the inventories of the objects. I lel; because what value do you place on an think they’re trying to make [the collec- object because it’s made by one artist and tion] more accessible. So many things are not another? The act of assigning value not shown to the public. They must have may be similar, but I think they’re really so many gifts because every time someone expressed in diferent ways. I think the UN comes, they give something. Some other is one example, but of course there are many things I found striking are the ‘portrait’ rugs examples throughout history, and also geo- ofered by Iran, which feature portraits of graphically, that look at exchange in a way the past Secretary-Generals, done with in- that is more encompassing than just, ‘I give tricate craftsmanship. you something or you give me something back.’ Gifts can make you obliged or indebt- BW In some ways, the collection is like a mu- ed to somebody, and then you create these seum. A museum also has so many ob- relationships that can even go beyond the jects that the curators can’t show be- person and go into generations or commu- cause they don’t have the room. You nities or families of relationships because of really only see the tip of the iceberg when the exchange. you go as a visitor to a museum. Were the ﬂowers you used for The Armory cata- BW What were some of the most surprising logue design also from the UN? gifts you saw when you were touring the UN? KK No, that was actually a diferent project called ‘Flowers for Africa’. I started it in KK It ranged so much, from, of course, beau- 2011 when I was on a residency in Dakar, tiful artworks, things made of precious Senegal. I was looking at archives related to metals. But there was also something that African independence, and I’d gone through I found reoccurred a lot in my research, not the national archives there and pulled out just at the UN but generally, in looking at images that showed ceremonies or negoti- diplomatic gifts. There was this tendency ations between diferent parties that led to to ofer gifts that are artefacts or replicas of independence. In the series, I focus on the artefacts from one’s own cultural past. It’s foral arrangements that are present in the a way of proudly asserting one’s cultur- images I found. To recreate them, I brought al history and sharing that with whomever the images to a forist, and we reconstruct- you’re going to meet—to show your cul- ed them to the best of our ability—taking

tural heritage and cultural legacy. I found into account that, of course, most of the Above: Kapwani Kiwanga, Rumors Maji was a lie… (2014). Mixed media installation. Installation view: Maji Maji, Jeu de Paume, Paris (3 June–21 a couple of elements like that in the general images are black and white. The fowers September 2014). Courtesy the artist and Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris.

display of UN gifts. For example, a replica were not the centrepiece or the focus point Next page: Kapwani Kiwanga, Flowers for Africa (2012–ongoing). Protocol written and signed by the artist, iconographic documents. Unique th of a 6 -century-BC urn from Slovenia. of the image, per se, so they’re sometimes artworks, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris.

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partially out of frame, or not completely in BW You grew up in Canada, and you work in focus. It’s a bit of a meticulous project to Paris now. How did you begin to explore try and fnd images that are discernible so Africa as a theme in your work? that we can see the bouquets. KK My father is from Tanzania, and a part of Up until now, I’ve been able to do works my family still lives in Tanzania. Africa and that feature foral arrangements from eight the African diaspora are present in my work diferent countries. The Armory catalogue quite a bit, but I wouldn’t say it’s the only image is of a section of a foral arrangement thing that I work on. Of course, it often gets that covered the whole podium in the centre kind of repeated that this is my main theme. of a stadium during the Ugandan indepen- I’d say it’s more my starting point. I look dence ceremony, when the British handed at historical, social and political events or over independence to Uganda. The image phenomena that come out of the diaspora, is a photograph of a foral arrangement that or from Africa itself, and then from there it was reconstructed with the help of a Pari- always becomes an entangled web of rela- sian forist. Then, on the back cover you tionships. But I’ve also worked in diferent see the bouquet fve weeks later, when it places. It really just depends on where my has begun to decompose. The idea is that I interests take me. Even though the Tanza- allow the fowers to fade, wilt and dry up. nian part of my background infuences the things I’ve been exposed to in my life, my If one of these works is acquired by an in- upbringing generally—being brought up stitution or a collector, it should be reacti- in Canada in quite a multicultural environ- vated every year. The idea is not to make ment—is what has really informed my life it a kind of mausoleum, or to preserve the more, I think, than my African background. vestiges of these foral arrangements, but I grew up with people from South Asian more to underscore this action of reactivat- or Chinese backgrounds, very good family ing to re-examine this moment in history. friends … Ugandans. It informed my idea Of course history is feeting, and you cannot of multiple perspectives and challenged a go back to a time past. You can only observe hegemonic, Eurocentric kind of discourse. it from your present. I think it’s this experience and contact with people throughout life that has informed my BW Did the curators choose that project or work more than my father’s birthplace. did you? BW Africa is rife with unwritten or forgotten KK Well, the process was more of a sort of brain- histories because the dominant narra- storming. I just laid out all of the images that tive was, for so long, Eurocentric. As an I found interesting and The Armory team artist, being able to go back and look at selected ones that they found the most in- a continent with fresh eyes must be re- teresting, and then we came to the decision ally interesting. about which image would be the best. It’s also a project that I’m still working on, and KK As an artist or as an individual, I think feel quite excited and passionate about, so what’s always important is that you own I thought it made sense to also share that your subjective take on things. Of course with the public. I’m working in diferent countries with which I don’t have any particular genealog- ical ties. I also don’t believe that I have any

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to the National Library to try to fnd our to show it, per se, but these things end up family or clan on the map. I’d spoken to my coming back. It might turn into a lecture grandmother about more or less where she performance, for example, or something thought we’re from, and there were two more ambitious with multiple chapters. It possibilities. I’d already spent some time in depends on how lucky I am with invitations, the Isle of Skye—one of the possibilities. I guess. There was never a question of belonging, because of my physical appearance. People would never say, ‘Oh, you have some heritage here.’ But I felt that heritage from my upbringing, and just being there in Scot- land, I began to notice little things that I didn’t know where they came from before, but being in Scotland, I was like, ‘Ah ok, now I get where these habits come from.’

BW Will you display The Secretary’s Suite somewhere else? And if not, what is coming next for you?

KK Not so far. The Secretary’s Suite is a project that I’d like to continue somehow, maybe Kapwani Kiwanga, Vumbi (2012). Colour photograph. Edition 5 + 1AP. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin. around the idea of gifting more generally. But I am opening a number of group shows this spring. There’s a biennale more authority or authenticity than some- UK last week and I realised how much [EVA International] in Limerick, curated body else to speak about Tanzanian history of my history, being born and raised by Koyo Kouoh. I’ll be showing A Memory because I might’ve had some stake which is in America, is really American—how Palace (2015). I’ll also be doing a col- historic, familial or whatever else. I think quickly you become the place where you lective four-person show at Temporary someone’s personal or subjective contribu- live as opposed to the place where you Gallery, Cologne, where I’ll be showing a tion can give a history a particular hue; you think you’re from. When do you let go of work that is based on a longer-term project contribute to looking at a particular subject this idea of yourself having a certain kind around the Afro-tunnel that hypothetically in your particular way, although this might of history when it really has no connec- would link the African and European con- be faulty, and you try your best to avoid re- tion to the way you’ve lived or the things tinents from Morocco to Spain. It’s an en- producing those power dynamics that you that you know? gineering project which, of course, up until may have found problematic in the past. now has not materialised. I’m also opening Everyone is a visitor somehow. Even if it’s KK It’s a question I think also of the diaspora, a solo show, Ujamaa, at the end of April your own town, the way you talk about it is because you’re talking about the Irish dias- at La Ferme du Buisson, an art centre in always going to be your point of view. As pora. Diaspora augments questions of iden- France, that will look more at the question long as you’re honest or clear about that, tity. You feel the identity strongly, but when of a particular socialism which was devel- or transparent, then I think it allows you to you go back, there are these funny shifts. I oped in Tanzania by then-president Julius say this is one among many ways that we also have an Irish background, and Scottish, Nyerere. It really looks at collective living can look at the same thing. and a lot of other things. I lived in Scotland and collective farming because the country for three years. When my mother came over was, and still is, primarily rural and agricul- BW My family is Irish, and we talk so much to visit we went—which everybody does tural. Those are the next things coming up. about being Irish, but I was just in the when they come from North America— As for The Secretary’s Suite itself, no dates

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Wu Tsang

IN CONVERSATION WITH DIANA D’ARENBERG HONG KONG, 21 APRIL 2016

Photo: Mia Haggi. WU TSANG OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

One of the wonderful things about meeting artists and writing their sto- DD You first came to China in 2005 to recon- At the time that Qiu Jin was persecuted ries is that you lose yourself in their world and the world of images that nect with your ethnic roots—your father and executed in 1907, she was basically a they create. This happened to me on the grey, sleepy Friday afternoon was born in Chongqing. It was there that convicted felon and relatively minor fgure that I met visual artist and filmmaker Wu Tsang at Spring Workshop in you came across the historical figures of in the resistance movement. Wu Zhiying Hong Kong, where she was previewing her new multimedia installation Qiu Jin and Wu Zhiying. Could you tell played the important role of not only Duilian (2016) (12 March–22 May 2016). me about this? burying her, but of becoming her chief bi- Duilian was the result of two three-month residencies at Spring Work- ographer and mourner at the risk of her own WT shop, where Tsang researched the life and writing of Chinese revolu- On my frst trip to China 12 years ago, I life and reputation. I wanted to explore the tionary feminist writer Qiu Jin (ᐾቹ 1875–1907) and her intimate female went kind of on a whim to Shaoxing, where idea that histories have subjective origins, friend, the calligrapher Wu Zhiying (㸇ᜡቱ1868–1934). The artist pro- Qiu Jin is from. I went with some Chinese which are equally as embedded with desire duced a 30-minute film and several installation works centring on the lesbian friends who were equally curious to as they are with context. story of their relationship. Athough Qiu Jin is well known in China, little fnd out more about Qiu Jin. In the museum, DD What do you want the audience to ask is known about her in the West, and even less is known about Wu Zhi- we were excited to discover an amazing themselves through this film? ying (played by Tsang in the film). A revered historic figure, Qiu Jin was story about Qiu Jin and her relationship executed for her involvement in a failed uprising against the Qing dynas- with Wu Zhiying. The true nature of their WT ty, one of several revolts and uprisings that eventually led to the end of relationship can never be known, but for I do have a question about the nature of imperial rule and the founding of the Republic of China. Today, Qiu Jin me the point is not to claim or label it, but love. We have love for other people, but is a symbol of women’s independence in China and a national heroine. instead to take inspiration from their story. then there’s also this love for community, or Her portrait hangs in the Museum of the First National Congress of the I’ve done a lot of research and what is most a movement or cause. What motivates that? Chinese Communist Party: a lonely heroine in a hall dominated by men. inspiring to me—which I didn’t expect ten What draws people to each other, what kind years ago—is their writing. It makes me of energy? This comes from my experience Sitting in the darkened room in Spring Workshop, I was carried away by think a lot about how language can escape as an organiser in the queer community. I the world of poetry and rich visuals Tsang created on screen. Transport- from its time and from the constraints of always think that desire plays a huge role ed across water and time, scenes slipped between Qing dynasty China society. It can allow us to express desire or in making things happen—in making revo- and present-day Hong Kong. Immersed in Qiu Jin and Wu Zhiying’s world ways of being. I am trying to create a lan- lution happen. You have to be inspired and of love, loss and sacrifice, the film takes the theme of queer history—or guage here to communicate with others. turned on to commit to something bigger rather its invisibility—as a point of departure. It is a fictitious explora- than yourself. tion of a queer relationship: something omitted altogether from the of- DD I really felt that you had a kinship with ficial annals of history. But more than this, perhaps the most important the two women, portrayed as they DD You travelled to China to research the theme in the film is language, and the power it has in shaping our rela- are with such sensitivity. But which of work, where you also came across the tionship to one another; how it can construct or reconstruct truths and the two did you most relate to, Qiu Jin female wushu group that you featured how it shapes history. Through deliberate mistranslations—into Tagalog, or Wu Zhiying? in Duilian. Why did you not just film in Cantonese, English and Malay—of Qiu Jin’s and Wu Zhiying’s poems and China, instead of Hong Kong? How does historical accounts, an alternative narrative is proposed. It is a stunning WT I gravitated more towards Wu Zhiying Hong Kong inform the film for you? interrogation of how language is constructed and used to immortalise, because I can relate to her subtle toughness. mythologise or relegate to oblivion. Qiu Jin is more of a romantic fgure; she’s WT When I set out to do this project ten years Based in Los Angeles, Tsang was an organiser of the Wildness parties an ofcial communist hero and a Chinese ago, I did not specifcally have Hong Kong hosted at the Silver Platter, an LGBT immigrant bar that became the martyr, so she is more overtly charismatic. in mind as a site for this story. But living subject of Tsang’s first feature-length documentary, Wildness (2012). I particularly became interested in the pop and working there allowed me to see China Her works have been shown at the Tate Modern, London; the Whitney cultural imagination of Qiu Jin, for example, from a diferent perspective. People in Hong Museum of American Art and the New Museum, New York; the Ham- in the many ways that people have repre- Kong have a very complex and sometimes mer Museum and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the sented her in theatre, flm and comic books. contentious relationship to Chinese identi- Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju. Wu Zhiying, on the other hand, is a more ty. There is a hybridity that felt somehow obscure fgure that you only really encoun- familiar to my own experience of growing ter in scholarship, through her writings. up with a Cantonese-speaking Chinese dad

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in America; we were neither Chinese nor served (2016); the world of contempo- American. It’s not the same at all as being rary Hong Kong; and Qing dynasty China. Hong Kongese, but I guess there is a fu- This creates identity slippages: the idea idity and openness to negotiating ethnicity of being able to float between one world and history that I can appreciate. and another, and of exploring diferent sides of one’s identity. What is the im- We flmed most of Duilian on a boat in a portance of identity to your films and to Hong Kong harbour. My thinking on that your work as an artist in general? was that I really wanted to create a world that was foating between diferent time WT Actually, when I started this project, I had periods—between the past and present a very specifc narrative in mind that was but also between Hong Kong and China— tied to identity. It was supposed to be a story because I think being in Hong Kong has about two women who wanted to be togeth- been a signifcant way for me to refect on er at a time when it was forbidden. But then Chinese identity and nationalism, and come through a lot of research, I discovered that at it from a critical perspective. My father’s queer relationships in China at that time family left China in 1949 during the Com- were not exactly a big deal. At the turn of munist Revolution, and their frst stop was the century there were all kinds of female Hong Kong, along with a food of other po- relationships and they weren’t even private; litical refugees. Considering this idea of a they were just defned in diferent terms of counter-narrative or counter-identity or intimacy and desire. In that sense, the iden- stories, Hong Kong feels really appropri- tity categories that we have now just don’t ate to this project. Also, there is a diversity of apply, and I found that to be inspiring. Qiu voices in the flm—diferent people I’ve en- Jin is, for me, a sort of ‘trans’ hero. Not only countered during the making of the project did she dress in men’s clothing and carry who I invited to do translations with me. Ev- a sword, presenting a very public mascu- eryone is coming from the queer community line persona of a ‘knight errant’—but in perspective, and all are Hong Kong-based. a deeper sense, she created a way of being that didn’t exist at the time. And not only I read the South China Morning Post one day, her—the community of strong women that and they were talking about how the Com- surrounded her were breaking all kinds of munist Party [of China] is making it illegal conventions, travelling independently and to distort history, and I thought, that’s inter- advocating for women’s education and esting because I believe history is by nature equal roles in society. Love was just one a distortion. I was thinking about how in layer of their struggle to defne themselves Hong Kong there is palpable anxiety about and exist in a time when it wasn’t easy to what’s going to happen to the city in rela- be a woman. tion to mainland China: anxiety about censorship and freedom of speech and a way of DD You’re saying the relationship wasn’t life. There’s a sense of antagonism, a sense a big deal at the time, yet that part of of urgency and questioning about what’s her history has been wilfully neglect- going to happen. ed. By making this film, you are trying to address this and fill in the gaps in this DD In your work, there’s a theme of diferent history. I feel that there are moments worlds: the afterworld alluded to in the when you pick up the thread of your installation at Spring, One life, not pre- trans-activism in Duilian. There is a quote Wu Tsang, One life, not preserved (2016). Courtesy the artist and Spring Workshop, Hong Kong. Photo: MC.

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in the ﬁlm: ‘Since the revolution has failed WT I don’t consider Qiu Jin to be marginal, but in our community, it’s time to brandish I am interested in how that word ‘marginal’ our swords.’ Is this a reference to address operates in relation to identity; it presumes the history of the queer community? that there is a centre. Qiu Jin is a vessel, like the flm genre itself. Her story as a martyr WT [Laughs] Yeah, I agree. I’m laughing though or hero, or even her tragic love story, pro- because that particular line of poetry came vides a structure, a kind of formula, to say out of a mistranslation. The full line in the a lot of deeper things. flm is: ‘Since the revolution has failed our community, all we can do is brandish our A lot of my work uses performance as a way swords, and sing karaoke with snot and to get at something real. The play-acting tears!’ By ‘mistranslation’ I am referring to a becomes a way in which we unconsciously process of playful collective translation that reveal ourselves. That’s why the aspect of grew out of social activities at Spring Work- community involvement, and the collective shop. Through a series of gatherings with creation of content that led to the script, is diferent people, we collectively ‘mis’-trans- not so much about telling a historically ac- lated Qiu Jin’s and Wu Zhiying’s poetry. curate story as it is about creating a portrait The point of the social gathering was not to of the world around us. accurately translate the poetry, because the group was very mixed: for example, people I feel very sensitive and aware of the fact had varying degrees of familiarity to tradi- that with anything to do with queer identity, Wu Tsang, Duilian (2016). Production still. Courtesy the artist, Spring Workshop, Hong Kong, and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin. Photo: Ringo Tang. tional Chinese poetry, from not being able people tend to gravitate and focus on that. to speak or read Chinese, to being tradi- But if there’s one thing I hope people take tional Chinese poetry experts. What was away, it would be how language defnes what important to me was not that we be accu- is and what’s not possible; how we are bound rate, but that we use the poetry as a starting by it, but also how we can escape through it point to talk about our own experiences. or from it. I do not want to claim Qiu Jin as a queer person or queer hero, but instead to So with this line, ‘the revolution has failed tell our story in parallel to her story. Hope- our community’, I also wanted to talk about fully that is the real conversation. the current situation. For example, in the US—and I would argue globally, including Hong Kong—many people are coming to critique and question the mainstream LGBT movement as being a kind of failure. The movement has become consolidated under a very normative framework of visibility and inclusion.

DD This research has been a ten-year commitment and it’s quite a part of your life. What is it that inspired you to pursue this project? Is it a desire to do justice to Qiu Jin’s story, and to bring the margin- alised and neglected parts of her history Wu Tsang, Duilian (2016). Installation view: Duilian, Spring Workshop, Hong Kong (12 March–22 May 2016). Courtesy the artist and Spring Work- shop. Photo: MC. into the spotlight?

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Frieze New York

5–8 MAY 2016

Installation view: Angela Bulloch, AA Bronson and Keith Boadwee, Esther Schipper and Johnen Galerie, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. 135 Alex Da Corte, Free Money (2016). Installation view: Frieze Projects, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Thea Djordjadze, Tickle the sketch (2013). Installation view: Sprüth Magers, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Isa Genzken, Hallelujah (New Museum) (2012). Installation view: David Zwirner, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Michael Sailstorfer, Kopf und Körper, New York (2015). Installation view: Galerie Perrotin, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Erwin Wurm, Lehmann Maupin, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Simon Fujiwara and Hayden Dunham, Andrea Rosen Gallery, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Tony Cragg and Robert Rauschenberg, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Mai-Thu Perret, David Kordansky Gallery, Galleries, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Heather Phillipson, 100% Other Fibres (2016). Installation view: Frieze Projects, Frieze New York (5–8 May 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Yoshitomo Nara

IN CONVERSATION WITH CATHERINE SHAW HONG KONG, 9 MAY 2016

Courtesy the artist. Photo: Minami Tsukamoto. YOSHITOMO NARA OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

During his visit to Hong Kong in March 2016 to receive one of three pres- CS What does it mean to you to be rec- very aware of the audience. In my case, it tigious Asia Arts Game Changers awards from the Asia Society, Yoshito- ognised by the Asia Society in this way? is not about the country or the people or mo Nara spoke to Ocula about his work, and how he finds the solitude categories. I am just trying to express in- he needs to create by escaping to the small and distant city of Aomori, YN It feels like it is happening to someone else. dividual things, so for people keen to un- in northern Japan. It doesn’t feel real. When it comes to myself, derstand things on that level, my work will Born in 1959, Nara studied at the Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts I know the general public likes me, but I probably resonate. and Music before moving to Germany, where he continued his studies at was always unsure if professionals in the art the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Returning to Japan in 2000, he has sub- world appreciate what I do. I felt inferior, Basically my approach is that it doesn’t matter sequently exhibited widely both in his home country and on the interna- so it feels like this award recognises me. if there is an audience out there. Even if I tional stage. He is best known for his simple paintings and sculptures of knew there was no one out there to look at my CS Do you think of yourself as an Asian artist? young children and animals that appear innocent yet sinister and com- work, I would still make the exact same thing. bine elements of Japan’s manga culture with Western cartoons. While YN CS Is it true that you can’t create when you his earlier works touch on issues relating to the painful pressures of Jap- Some things remind me that I am an Asian are happy? anese adolescence, witnessing the devastation of Japan's 2011 Tōhoku artist. The frst time I had an exhibition in earthquake and tsunami significantly changed the way he thinks about the United States was in 1995 [Pacifc Babies YN his own work. The experience initially left him ‘unable to draw’, he ex- at Blum & Poe, Santa Monica (12 July–19 It is true. You probably know that I live plains. His response was to retreat from collaborative projects and refo- August)]. At the opening, many of the au- in the middle of nowhere and the reason I cus on his earlier interest in working with ceramics as a way of ‘restart- dience were Asian American and I real- place myself there is because when you are ing the [creative] conversation’ with himself. ised they saw me as the same as them—as having a lot of fun, you don’t face yourself. Asian—and that we share the same ances- When you are living in a place like Tokyo, tors. I hadn’t realised that before, so it made for example, there are a series of good times me feel part of this Asian thing. and fun activities; you tend to pursue those short-term things and then the joy of paint- After that, I had an opportunity to do ex- ing becomes less and less important. You also hibitions in Korea and Bangkok with local don’t look into yourself when you are having audiences and they also really saw me as a good time. When I am sad and angry, I take Asian, like one of them. One thing that was it as an opportunity to create something. very surprising was when I was in Korea in 2005, and my work was chosen for an CS Is it difcult deciding between being award. There is a strong anti-Japanese sen- happy and being creative? timent in Korea and people told me that it is very rare for a Japanese artist to be chosen YN It sounds like a paradox, but rather than ex- for an award, so I realised they were looking pressing something fun and enjoyable and at me as an artist. translating it into work, taking something negative gives me more enjoyment. I guess CS Do you think that has something to do it is similar to those people who compose with how your work appeals on an emo- or write when they are angry or sad. tional level, without an overt cultural or political message, as with some other CS Do you think the audience understands Japanese artists? that there is more to your paintings than the first impression of kawaii? YN I think it is also about the manner of presentation. For example, for Aida-san [Aida YN Most people just have a superfcial interpre- Makoto], his work has some sort of an tation: maybe that is why I am so popular! agenda that he needs to address. He always [Laughs] Actually, maybe it is inevitable is aware of who is viewing his work and is because of my style.

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Installation view: Yoshitomo Nara, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (1 March–12 April 2014). © Yoshitomo Nara. Photo: Joshua White.

CS Many artists in Japan were deeply af- ent places, but it is their isolation and refected by the 2011 earthquake and tsu- moteness that makes me see things a lot nami in Tōhoku. How did it inﬂuence better than when I am having fun. It mag- your own work? nifes things so much more. In Berlin I was a foreigner and I had no language skills so I YN I think what is diferent between those art- felt very isolated. It was like growing up in ists who were afected by the earthquake and Aomori, which is very much disconnected myself, is that I grew up in Aomori, which is from the rest of Japan. It reminded me of close to Fukushima. The whole area between who I am and helped me rediscover myself. us and Fukushima was devastated; the scen- ery I was familiar with was destroyed. For CS Does working make you happy? some people with no relation to the area, they may be afected as an artist, but in my case YN I don’t have set goals or purposes. My gut I was a lot more afected on a personal level feeling or instinct tells me what to do, and because I knew people who were lost. I was then sometimes in hindsight I realise that quite depressed and unstable for quite some was something that I wanted to do. I trust time, but then I saw people from that devas- my instincts. For example, if I had picked tated area returning and they started again. London instead of Germany, I would have had too much fun and I wouldn’t have CS You lived for some time in Berlin. How picked up who I am today. Germany wasn’t has that period inﬂuenced your work? as entertaining, so I was looking into myself

and had a better understanding of myself, Yoshitomo Nara, Fountain of Life, (2001/2013). Fibre-reinforced plastic, lacquer, urethane, motor, water. 174.9 × 177.8 cm (diameter). Edition of 3, YN I guess that Berlin and Aomori are difer- so in that way it was a good thing. 2AP. © Yoshitomo Nara. Photo: Joshua White.

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I am not Christian or Buddhist and don’t of this or that and try to associate my work practice religion but I think that a god is with some social factor, but I don’t think out there leading me to certain places and that is right. To be honest, what I’d like to to do certain things. tell my audience is that they don’t need to have knowledge about me or my work— CS Do you have a clear idea of what a work as long as they can look at it face to face as will look like before you begin painting an individual then the interpretation is up or drawing? to them.

YN I don’t have a set goal, otherwise I cannot maximise my hidden capability. If you rely on technique or methodology, you won’t bring out your hidden capabilities. Some- times I just stop if I know I am not doing this. Trying to maximise my capabilities is what I started to do after the earthquake— this is the change.

CS The ﬁgures in your paintings are mainly girls—why?

YN I don’t think of her as a girl because it is a neutral image. It is just something that popped into my mind that I have not thought about. For me, there is no distinct sex because people become men or women when they grow up. Children are more neutral. That is the way I see them.

CS Do you have a preference between sketching and painting?

YN Sketching is what I am best at. That is when I am doing the best I can. I am good at drawing but painting is a bit of a stretch [laughs].

CS You are quite shy—do you ﬁnd talking about your work difcult?

YN I don’t like being in front of the public but Yoshitomo Nara, Cosmic Eyes (2013). Acrylic on canvas. 130.8 × 97.1 cm. © Yoshitomo Nara. Photo: Joshua White. my work can do that for me. All my works are very personal and about me, but still many people fnd they resonate with them; so they are basically taking my pieces into them. Some say my work is a representation

154 155 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Alfredo Jaar

IN CONVERSATION WITH KATE BRETTKELLY-CHALMERS AUCKLAND, 31 MAY 2016

Alfredo Jaar, Lament of the Images (2002). Courtesy the artist. ALFREDO JAAR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Chilean-born artist, architect and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar is celebrated KBC Your artist lecture was unusually afect- people would fnally see it. In actually seeing for his poetic yet unflinching attention to global injustices, political prej- ing and emotive, especially with respect it, you start thinking about the meaning of udice and tragedy. The recipient of numerous awards and accolades, Jaar to the photographs of Alan Kurdi. Can the image: what does it mean for us? What was in Auckland, New Zealand, for the major group exhibition Space to you talk about your approach to this im- is the relationship of that boy to me? Dream: Recent Art from South America, at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi age in the context of a public lecture? o Tāmaki (7 May–18 September 2016). The exhibition includes images of KBC Many of your works are memorials to Jaar’s well-known work A Logo For America (1987)—an animation first AJ I lecture quite often—maybe some 30 times a specific historical event, such as the projected in New York’s Times Square that contests the United States’ a year, all around the world—and I have recent Fukushima disaster. But you appropriation of the word ‘America’ as signifying an exclusive ethnocen- learned with experience to read the audi- also develop works that draw attention tric identity that discounts the southern continent to which it also refers. ence. Every one of my works and every to urgent political situations or conditions—the plight of Syrian migrants is a Jaar gave the keynote lecture during the exhibition, in which he discussed single project of mine implores them to good example. Is this process of ‘memo- works from his extensive career that have responded to global political ‘Stay with me’, ‘Give me a minute of your rialisation’ something that has always events and issues, including the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in time’, ‘Let me tell you something’—and interested you? 2011, Finland’s historically restrictive immigration policies, homelessness this is the same with my lectures. Over in Montreal, and the Chilean victims of Augusto Pinochet’s regime. Over time, I realised that I had to create a system AJ the course of the lecture, Jaar repeatedly showed the same sequence of where the audience is taken with me: where It is not that I am just a memorial special- images: the well-known photographs of the lifeless body of Alan Kur- they are truly listening and looking. This ist—you know, I can be funny too! But all di, the three-year-old Syrian refugee who was found dead on a Turkish is something that can be difcult to do in of my work is about context. I have never beach in September 2015. Throughout his artistic career, Jaar has been contemporary society. We live in difcult created a single work that is simply a pure interested in the power of images to provoke political change—sometimes and difcult worlds where everyone product of my imagination. When I am in- thing that those photographs of Kurdi had the potential to achieve when is centred on their own little problems. terested in a certain issue, I travel to that they were published in newspapers around the world. Jaar met with Kate place and I investigate—I react. I started Brettkelly-Chalmers to talk about these photographs, immigration, me- I work with the politics of images. Society travelling around the world and reacting morialisation and US politics. does not teach us to look at images. They to diferent tragedies because this was the teach children to read—words, sentences context I was in … I could not ignore these and vocabularies—but not to read images. things. For instance, I went to Hong Kong I am interested in this issue. I want to make to look at the refugee camps of Vietnam- people ‘see’. ese people that were escaping after the war. They were called ‘boat people’ and I did KBC Is this why you repeated the sequence a series of work about them. Then I went of images where Kurdi is lifted from the to Rwanda and I did a project about the beach about five or six times through- Rwandan genocide. I was also invited by out the course of the lecture? Were you the government of Chile to create a memo- gauging how the audience responded rial for the victims of the Pinochet regime. each time they were shown the same Then I was invited to Fukushima to do the very difcult image? memorial you are referring to. So many of my works, one way or another, are memori- AJ For me, repetition is not just repetition. With alising certain people and certain tragedies. every single reiteration of that image, the audience sees something else—they see another KBC I am interested in how some of these detail. The vision becomes fuller as they see projects are temporary and how some it again and again. On the one hand, I was are permanent, such as the Santiago me- mimicking what the media has already done morial to Pinochet’s victims, The Geome- with this image. But on the other hand, I was try of Conscience, which opened in 2010. hoping that by showing the further details How do you approach the material per- and the wider context of the photograph, that manence or ephemerality of a work?

158 159 Alfredo Jaar, A Logo For America (1987). Installation view: Times Square, New York City (2014). Courtesy Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland. ALFREDO JAAR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

AJ As an architect who makes art, to do a me- ical space, but also as a cultural space and KBC Even in the two years since A Logo For AJ But there are still very low [voter] regis- morial is a beautiful challenge. To make a a social space and a political space. So, ar- America was restaged, discussions con- tration levels [for the Latino population]. permanent work that will speak to this gen- chitecture really did change my life and I cerning ‘Who really is an American?’ have Because of Trump, they are now registering eration and then future generations about an am very thankful for that. taken on a diferent edge. I am thinking in masses, because he has labeled Mexicans event. To have the capacity to trigger mem- of Donald Trump’s rather egregious at- as ‘rapists’ and so on. It is supposed to be ories and emotions about an event that might KBC I want to ask you about the work A Logo tempt to take over the Republican Par- a problem for the Trump campaign. They be far removed from its original context. To For America that is included in the exhi- ty with what many have perceived as a don’t have the Latinos, the African Ameri- be able to trigger diferent emotions is very bition at the Auckland Art Gallery as a far-right, anti-immigrant agenda. cans, the women. They only have the white difcult to do, but it is a beautiful challenge. video of the original animation and a se- men. Right now, Trump is losing by ten per- In saying this, it can be very painful because ries of documentary photographs. This AJ Yes, with this election we are going to see centage points in the polls. But it is mean- the situation itself is difcult; but as a pro- animation was ﬁrst projected in New something quite extraordinary. This guy! ingless. Once the Democratic nominee is fessional challenge it is extraordinary. York’s Times Square in 1987, but you re- It is Trump’s only chance and he’s going decided, then we will see the real Trump. staged it recently in 2014. Two decades to do everything he can to get it. I would It is going to be a disaster. KBC You are careful to remind people that you later, the US political environment is very not be surprised if he turns around the polls are, in your own words, ‘an architect who diferent—did this change how the work and he wins. I would not be surprised. makes art’ and not a formally trained art- was read? ist. How did you become an architect and The sad part is that the election in the what role does this background play in AJ Language is not innocent. This use of the United States will not be decided for ideo- your current art practice? word ‘America’ is perfectly refective of a logical reasons, it will not be decided for specifc geopolitical reality. This reality is racist reasons or feminist reasons, no. It will AJ I always wanted to be an artist, but my that the United States dominates the polit- be decided by who picks the best advisor, father thought it was a very bad idea. It was ical sphere. Until that reality changes, the the best marketing campaign and the best Chile, it was the seventies, and it was wholly language will not change. brand. The one who picks the best brand unthinkable that I could make a living as an will win. artist. So when I announced to my father What made the reading diferent is that that I wanted to be an artist, he convinced during the Obama administration, in the KBC But the polls do not look promising for me that perhaps I should study architecture. last four years, this administration has ex- him right now. It does seem quite im- And when I discovered architecture I was pelled two million immigrants. In fact, in probable that he will actually win. the happiest man on earth. four years Obama has expelled more immigrants than during the eight-year Bush AJ I was living in the United States when Bush KBC You were happy? I thought you wanted administration. was seeking his second term. We thought: to be an artist! ‘How is he possibly going to win?’ He was This has been a point of discussion in the last so totally senseless, even dumb. And yet AJ No, I was always very good with my hands, few years. And the word ‘America’ became he won a second term. Berlusconi was and I did very much want to be an artist. But part of the discussion. So when the work elected four times and Italians are meant when I discovered architecture I thought: was projected this time in 2014, I felt it was to be ‘smarter’, politically, than Americans. this is extraordinary! And so when I moved read diferently. It was not a simple matter They elected Berlusconi. Four times. to New York I worked as an architect for of language—of a linguistic problem that a few years to support my art. Instead of I was addressing in the 1980s. It was more KBC Returning to the issue of being ‘Ameri- being a waiter or a carpenter like most artists about the essence of, ‘What does it mean can’ in the context of A Logo For Amer- at the time, I was an architect and I had a to be American today?’ and ‘Who really is ica. The Republican Party is said to have good living. I thought this was a perfect ar- an American?’ Many Latin Americans have a growing demographic problem. The in- rangement—that I would live this double lived in the United States for a long time and crease in the Latino population means life of being an architect during the day and they are still being exposed [as ‘un-Amer- that their traditional voting base, edu- an artist at night. And I do think like an ar- ican’]. So the work acquired a diferent cated white people, will no longer hold chitect: I look at space not only as a phys- meaning because of this new political reality. a majority in the US in years to come.

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Luc Tuymans

IN CONVERSATION WITH BRIENNE WALSH NEW YORK, 18 JUNE 2016

Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London. © Photo: Philippe De Gobert. LUC TUYMANS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

With over 120 solo shows and 600 group shows on his curriculum vitae, BW Where does the title of the show, Le These wagons were quite close to the Luc Tuymans is credited by critics such as Peter Schjeldahl with having Mépris, come from? ground, so it meant that the kids had to run contributed to the revival of painting, which some critics have been eu- underneath and push. It was a little bit like logising since 1839, when the French painter Paul Delaroche declared it LT The title of the show, Le Mépris, is loosely slavery. For these works I picked out the dead. After studying art history at Vrije Universiteit in Brussels and work- and literally translated as ‘contempt’, which wagons and left out all the people. I selected ing as a bouncer in the same city, Tuymans became a full-time painter in is how I feel. One painting that really goes the ones that are very singular in form, sort the early 1990s. In 1994, he was one of the first artists picked up by the with the title is the very last painting in of famboyant. They also have a very aggres- burgeoning David Zwirner gallery—both the gallery and the artist have the show [Le Mépris (2015)], and it is sive tension to them, emphasised by the fact since become international art world phenomena. also the last that I painted for the show. It that the wagons move so slowly. That one Tuymans’ paintings are marked by quiet, restrained tones that seem to depicts the interior of a very famous villa for example, Corso III (2015), is nearly pro- suggest they come from a place beyond reality. Tackling weighty themes on Capri, which was built for the Italian paganda; it could make you think of Russia. such as the Holocaust, 9/11, the colonial history of his native Belgium, writer [Curzio] Malaparte. On that rooftop, and market capitalism, Tuymans paints from photographs culled from Jean-Luc Godard shot a fabulous flm called So the exhibition developed from these newspapers, magazines and his personal archive. As a result, they ex- Le Mépris with Michel Piccoli and Brigitte paintings, in combination with Polaroids ist somewhere between the real and the copy: they are memories from Bardot, where you can really see that Bri- I took years ago for a diferent project. I secondary sources, bearing witness to retelling. gitte understands zilch of the dialogue. It’s a decided to make fairly large paintings of flm that escapes Jean-Luc Godard in a very the Polaroid images, which are about the For his exhibition Le Mépris at David Zwirner in New York (5 May–25 odd way. It’s also the very last flm image element of decay. So this [points to Murky June 2016), Tuymans approached the general theme of ‘contempt’ with of Fritz Lang, so it’s an epic thing where Water I] was the very frst one in that group. two series of paintings. The first depicts the Zundert Flower Parade, a everything comes together. The flm is one Actually, the frst idea for the show was to yearly event in the Dutch town of Zundert, his mother’s hometown. It in a million, actually. do all the paintings about murky water. But consists of works such as Corso II (2015), which is based on a photo- in the process, I came back to this idea of graph Tuymans’ father took of a float in the parade in the early 1960s The idea for the show came about with the combining the two series, and so I made and which is rendered in subdued hues of red, blue-grey and white. The very frst paintings, which show wagons them in conjunction. second series features the polluted waters of the canals of Ridderkerk, stitched with fowers. [Tuymans is ref- a town in the western Netherlands. The colours are more subdued here, erencing works from the ‘Corso’ series, See the little can foating on this murky, very with jaundiced greens and yellows in works like Murky Water I (2015) which depict images of the Zundert Flower flthy water [points to a detail of Murky Water used to depict garbage floating on the surface of the canals. Parade.] The ones in colour are based on I]? The idea of this mépris, but also of decay In this Ocula Conversation, Tuymans discusses his latest show, his pro- images that my father photographed, and … it is also in the fowers in a festive way, cess, politics, sense of ennui and feelings on the current state of the the ones in black and white and sepia are but they will decay, too. art world. based on archival images from my birth year in 1958. My monochromes are of Zundert, In each painting, there is no real physical where they stage the parade on the frst or tangible presence of a person. There are Sunday of every September. It’s the same no people. This gives a feeling of immi- village in which Van Gogh was born. nent premonition of a public event and its aftermath. As a kid, I used to go there on holidays, and I worked on these foats. They were pro- BW Did you paint them all around the same duced secretly, six months ahead of time, time? and only on that particular Sunday were they paraded out to the public. One foat LT What happens mostly when I work is that was given a prize and the other ones were for months I prepare with drawings, pic- all stacked in an industrial square near the tures, even maquettes. And then when milk factory for a week, after which they all the pictures are together, one after the were demolished. other, I will paint them. Every painting takes one day, always. That doesn’t mean

166 167 LUC TUYMANS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

that I paint every day—it’s like one day third image that you can sort of perceive a week. That means conceiving a show is what you’re actually looking at, because you really the hardest work, but it keeps the see a part of the border that indicates that intentionality very highly strung, because these are shadows and that there’s a fore- it’s planned and mentally prepared out to ground and something sticking out. So that the point where I don’t have to think. My is important. And they’re all about passivi- intelligence goes through my hands only. ty, in a way, about foating. Then it goes through a very speedy process which is very attentive and very concentrat- So there is a bit of a perceptive challenge ed. That’s how the imagery comes out. involved for the spectators, and that’s funny. It was really strange when I got to BW What do you feel contempt for? the gallery, because I had planned the layout in a way that was totally diferent. When LT Everything. Politics for sure. You could we got here, we had to change it around. say we’re living in interesting times. A bit In my studio, these paintings look half the worse than that. But we’re also living in size that they do here. And my studio’s not the decline of the West. So this show talks as big as this space. That’s a really weird about the premonition of decay. sensation for me.

Luc Tuymans, Corso III (2015). Oil on canvas. 127.6 × 216.5 cm. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London. In the painting Le Mépris, there is a window BW In this recent series, you are mining your of the Capri villa that looks out to the sea. personal history; going back and looking You don’t see the villa’s exterior, because I at photographs you’ve taken. didn’t want to show the splendour of this building, which is a beautiful landmark, of LT I started to do that six or seven years ago, course—iconic as a symbol of European ar- during the fnancial crisis, when it was chitecture. But the painting shows just the time—instead of being shell-shocked— inside, and the light sort of meekly beams out. to just organise yourself. So from then on, I took everything in my hands in terms BW Do you think these paintings will speak of publications, in terms of the archive. I differently to an American audience have probably the best digital archive on than they will to a European one? the globe. Over the past six or seven years, we have been preparing a catalogue raison- LT I think this [exhibition] will show the work né of my paintings—there are going to be very nicely. I think most of it will come three or four volumes in total. It will also across as very abstract. Knowing how hys- include the source materials for the works; terical Americans can get, I think they will we keep all the elements in the archive. love it. BW I want to go back to the idea of ﬂoating. I have a great fascination with artists like Ad Reinhardt and Rothko, especially with LT You see an idea of foating time. In paintings, Rothko’s ‘Seagram’ series of paintings—not painted time is something diferent than real that the paintings in the show resonate as time. You could say there is an element of such, but there is an element of similarity in melancholy, of nostalgia, but it’s kind of their size and the fact that they are square. twisted in a way. There’s an element of ag-

Luc Tuymans, Corso I (2015). Oil on canvas. 250.8 × 184.5 cm. gression. So, it’s torture. For me, torture is Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London. [Points to Murky Water I.] It’s only in the only efective when it’s really tender.

168 169 LUC TUYMANS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Installation view: Luc Tuymans, Le Mépris, David Zwirner, New York (5 May–25 June 2016). Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London.

170 171 LUC TUYMANS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

BW When it has an element of love to it? actually also a war zone. That’s how I treat it. I treat it [the market] as a war zone, basically. LT Yes, because then it’s even more horrible. That is actually how the idea of water came But I mean, I never had the strategy of the up; the stupidity, the banality of the water in young artists coming out of art schools those paintings. But then there’s an element today. Not only that, there are many more of beauty, and at the same time it creates an magazines and there is also an entire dis- element of angst. course around the art world, and with all the networking it actually protects itself. It BW And patriotism? doesn’t necessarily criticise the art market or the mechanism in a constructive way. LT One of the journalists that came to look And when it comes to writing about art, at my studio recently is probably going to the critical mass has diminished. The inter- relate the paintings to the elections or some- esting people writing about art are getting thing, which would be really insane. As I old; they’re 60 or 70 years old. These are said, the void in this show is imminent. things one should be aware of. I think most young artists are aware of them. BW To go back to the theme of the show, do Luc Tuymans, Murky Water II (2015). Oil on canvas. you have contempt for the art world or I was very happy to attend a dinner about 237.2 × 232.7 × 4.4 cm. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London. the system that these paintings exist two weeks ago organised by Tobias Reh- within? berger, who curated a gigantic group show in Galerie neugerriemschneider in Berlin. so many foreign nations. Therefore, I’ve BW Do you mostly work in your studio? LT In a sense, you can’t feel contempt for the He asked all the artists he knew over a learned to be very individual, very oppor- hand that feeds you. But there is an element period of years to participate in the exhi- tunistic and fast. Belgium has only been a LT I make drawings on the plane, or any- of danger. When I frst started working with bition. But the evening was not about the nation for a very short period of time, but where; but painting I only do in the studio. David [Zwirner], he had four or fve artists. show; it was about the dinner. I sat next to the country has great prominence when it I don’t see any point in getting a stipend or Now he has a whole street. If I were a new Jean-Marc Bustamante, whom I had frst comes to Europe. It created the best painter moving to Berlin to paint. It’s not necessary. artist, I’d be really afraid. That means that the and last seen in 1993. The second time was of the Western hemisphere, who is not It’s a more interesting process for people gallery is going to brand you. And of course, at that dinner. This illustrates how difcult Leonardo da Vinci, but Jan van Eyck. We all who work in another way. As for painting, I’m lucky to be a bit older. I’m well aware that it already is for the same generation just to know that. But it’s all about the real. Even no. Just alone in the studio. It’s very, very it’s very difcult to be a young artist now. A come together—except in an airport, when van Eyck, as a concept, is about realism. It’s lonely. But it’s good. No music, also. I’ve lot of things are monopolised. But still, the this person is fying here or there. This, I about what is there. And it’s unforgettable. never bought a record in my life. market remains the market. I’m not going to think, has to change. He had a motto, something like: ‘Be hefty shit on it, because it’s what I live of. Even on the humility, but behind that, have the BW Where did you work as a bouncer? so, I think it’s necessary for the market also BW How do you create the space and time most gigantic ambitions, of course.’ And to diversify itself a little bit. If I see that my to be able to think about your work? that’s how it functions. We’re very good LT I worked in clubs, each with the capac- work is much more expensive than buying with stress, so it’s fne. ity of 600 people, that I had to manage a sculpture that belongs to older art history, LT Well, frst of all, I also curate shows. And myself. Huge, gigantic discotheques with basically I have to admit that’s a bit dispro- mostly on my own: I have done 14 of them, BW So you feel deeply Belgian? six bouncers at a time. I’ve still got eyes portionate, if I have to be honest. and quite major ones. That is a way to deal not on my back. I’ve never been mugged in only with other artists, but also with the content LT I feel deeply Belgian because it’s a lone New York, except once. The second time I never gave the market any thought when in a completely non-market-driven way. nation. That’s what is beautiful about it. it was with a banana. The guy said: ‘It’s I started out as an artist. Initially I was Any sense of nationalism I think is horri- a banana stick-up.’ I just went and broke chucked out of every academy and I worked The Belgian nature is one that is not ro- ble, especially in the cultural realm, because the banana and said, ‘Fuck you.’ And he as a bouncer, up to the point that I became mantic. It deals with the real and only the culture has never had boundaries. The di- said, ‘Where are you from?’ and I said, ‘I’m too restless and needed to show my art. It is real, because we’ve been overwhelmed by versity was already there. from Europe.’

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Art Basel in Basel

16–19 JUNE 2016

General impression: Art Basel in Basel (16–19 June 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Timothée Chambovet. 175 Haegue Yang, Sol LeWitt Upside Down—Structure with Three Towers, Expanded 23 Times, Split in Three (2015). Installation view: Kukje Gallery and Tina Kim Gallery, Unlimited, Oscar Tuazon, Zome Alloy (2016). Installation view: Art Basel in Basel (16–19 June 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Timothée Chambovet. Art Basel in Basel (16–19 June 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Timothée Chambovet. Installation view: Ai Weiwei and Frank Stella, Unlimited, Art Basel in Basel (16–19 June 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Timothée Chambovet. Gerwald Rockenschaub, bend it (remodeled) (2016). Installation view: Mehdi Chouakri, Galerie Vera Munro, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Unlimited, Art Basel in Basel Pia Camil, Sleeve Roe Interior (2016). Installation view: Galería OMR, Galleries, Art Basel in Basel (16–19 June 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Timothée Chambovet. (16–19 June 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Timothée Chambovet. John McCracken, Six Columns (2006). Installation view: David Zwirner, Unlimited, Art Basel in Basel (16–19 June 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Timothée Chambovet. OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

DIS

IN CONVERSATION WITH MOHAMMAD SALEMY BERLIN, 23 JUNE 2016

Photo: Julia Burlingham. DIS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

th DIS is a New York-based collective responsible for curating the 9 Ber- MS A few years ago, at a Lower East Side people who want to do good within the lin Biennale for Contemporary Art, The Present in Drag, showing from 4 restaurant in New York, I had a conversa- world, as people who feel powerless, as June to 18 September 2016. The collective—Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, tion with artist Babak Radboy, co-found- people who are complicit, as people who are Marco Roso and David Toro—came together in 2010 around their com- er of Shanzhai Biennial and creative di- just people, as individuals within a system, mon interests in fashion, lifestyle and marketing. Ever since, they have rector of Bidoun magazine, where we and as individuals who generate content for been involved in numerous creative and cultural projects, but are best discussed his intriguing idea about mod- this system. known for publishing the online DIS Magazine, and gathering a core group ern and contemporary art. He believed of collaborators around the magazine’s online ecology. Hortensia Völ- that people like to see financial oper- Artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas’ ckers and Alexander Farenholtz, the executive board members of the ations, political maneuvering and an- work has been particularly controversial, Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation), re- thropological reasoning behind the per- and is especially important. Kulendran sponsible for funding the Berlin Biennale, have called the DIS curatori- sistence of the idea of art from the late Thomas looks at how the emergence of a al debut ‘a friendly takeover’ of an art institution by a group of people 19th century onwards. However, what he new contemporary art market in Sri Lanka who are not rooted in contemporary art but instead are ‘experts in not thought really propels art and its global (accompanying the economic liberalisation wishing to claim expertise.’ With their fingers pointing to new trends, force forward is its ‘conscious and un- that followed a genocide) functioned as part DIS stands at the intersection of pop culture, where everything collides conscious embodiment of the ideals set of a process of ‘soft’ (or economic) ethnic and melts into the air that the wider population eventually breathes. forth by communism’. Even today, in light cleansing, whereby the spoils of prosperity, of the total subsumption of art by cap- Although the curators of this edition of the Berlin Biennale have decided such as contemporary art, became a sort of ital, the art world is one of the only re- to thematically focus on the ‘present’, it is a diferent present from that retrospective justifcation for the violence maining places where concepts of equal- with which contemporary art of the last two decades has been preoccu- on which that prosperity was founded. ity, collectivity and future are discussed pied. On one hand, their notion of contemporaneity comes after the inter- or even exercised. Fast forward to the net and is described as ‘post-contemporary’. On the other, their present, Kulendran Thomas works through the idea surprising endorsement of Bernie Sand- as evident in the title of the Biennale, comes in drag—it is performed not that emancipatory communalism for a state- ers in DIS Magazine’s editorial ahead of exclusively by human agents, but perhaps also through a civilisational less nation might not be achieved today New York State’s Democratic Party pri- reliance on algorithmic intelligence that is equally capable of executing by force or resistance, or even through mary, which for me signified the most a sense of the present. any mass-collective moral choice, but ambitious aspect of the political image possibly through making something that With a busy schedule, the curatorial team made themselves available for of the DIS collective. I strongly believe people want. In a way, it’s a subversion of a few questions about their plans and hopes for the 9th Berlin Biennale. in the positive impact of bafing con- the Silicon Valley ‘disruptive’ mentality, tradictions to the movement of history used to chart an alternative scenario for and the unfolding of the future. How do displaced people, evolving a new economic you personally and professionally recon- model out of the existing economic system cile the contradictions between the lux- without friction. ury-loving, money-fuelled world of art and the emancipatory spirit of social- At the outset, we thought of DIS as a space ism, which guarantees art its social and in which ideas and value systems are not historical relevance? overtly analysed or critiqued, but represented in their most heightened confgu- DIS I think this is one reason some people are ration. We’re political without the usual upset at the Biennale: it’s not about objects, critical melancholy. We don’t have a stan- or about luxury, or about the ‘inside’ world dard oppositional critique and most of the of art. It’s focused on understanding our artists we’re working with don’t either. If complicated relationships with the world anything, critique should occur as a com- we’re in—our internal conficts as con- pulsory reaction in the body of the public, sumers, as political beings, as ‘leftists’, as rather than as a feld of specialised labour.

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Above: Christopher Kulendran Thomas, New Eelam (2016). Developed in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann. Film production: Klein and West, Mark Reynolds. Design: Manuel Bürger, Jan Gieseking. Architecture: Martti Kalliala. Production design: Marcelo Alves. Biosphere: Matteo Greco. Creative director: Annika Kuhlmann. Mixed media. Installation view: 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (4 June–18 September 2016). Cour- tesy Christopher Kulendran Thomas and New Galerie, Paris. Photo: Timo Ohler.

Right: Simon Denny, Blockchain Visionaries (2016) (detail). Commissioned and coproduced by Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art with the support of Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin/New York; Creative New Zealand, Wellington. Installation view: 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (4 June–18 September 2016). Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz. Photo: Timo Ohler.

188 DIS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

MS Does this mean you are intentionally triumph, we can expect the 9th Berlin evoking rage in your audiences? Biennale to be the mother of all post- Internet exhibitions? DIS This is a show about the present, and the present is extremely troubling. In this show, DIS It’s funny, because our ofce and home in you don’t get an opt-out card. It’s aggres- Berlin at Kunst-Werke (KW) Institute for sive and almost violent in its rendering of the Contemporary Art has really bad Wi-Fi. present, and the audience is fully implicated. The rest of the team is on desktops with There is no escape and there is no release somewhat better Ethernet connections, valve for tensions. If you point fngers, you but we use our laptops and the internet have to point them at yourself. So people may is incredibly slow; we were calling it the leave feeling angry or uncomfortable, which ‘No-Internet’ Biennale. This is defnitely is a valid response; and it’s better than them not a nostalgic show. There are so many feeling gratifed, as if they’d just recycled or ways and lenses through which to look at donated to a cause. the 9th Berlin Biennale; post-Internet is just one of them—and maybe not the most in- MS The road to the art establishment’s em- teresting. In a sense it’s a background con- brace of the new aesthetics proposed by dition, but not a closed circuit. Nobody’s your collective has been long and rough. work is simply about the internet—but the We all know about the quarter-century efects of technology and our compulsive obsession of the art world with Marx- connectivity are deeply felt. ist and post-structuralist critiques of everything from art’s commodity form to We were really inspired by Ursula Franklin, its institutional structures. At the same a German-Canadian physicist and historian time, the very same institutions and cu- who’s in her 90s now, and we interviewed rators have lately come to embrace and her for the Berlin Biennale 9 catalogue. Her assimilate not only the digital and the ‘The Real World of Technology’ lectures post-Internet, but the DIS-style blend of from the 1980s release us from our relation- art, commerce, technology and design. ship to technology as a sum of artefacts and We have witnessed the ascension of art- gadgets, instead positing technology as the ists like Ryan Trecartin, Jon Rafman and division of labour and the structures that Katja Novitskova in the museum world. shape and control us. For Franklin, the most I am thinking of the EXPO 1: New York infuential technologies are ‘social innova- exhibition at MoMA PS1 and the New tions’ that are increasingly about structuring Museum’s Triennial in 2015, with which discipline and compliance and diminishing your exhibition in Berlin shares a lot of reciprocity—this has been woven into the artists. Since you were appointed as the fabric of society: politics, banks, schools, curators of the Biennale two years ago, government, transportation and distribution one can assume that there has been of energy. Following this logic, we can see plenty of time for your collective to re- how the internet (as the latest structuring ﬂect back, both on what you have ac- technology) is reshaping all of these socie- complished and what others have done tal elements. At the core of the Biennale is in the name of embracing future forms. a consideration of these immense structures What have been these lessons? Can we of technology and communication, and our claim that, given the signiﬁcance of this position within them as individuals. 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Narrative Devices (2016) featuring Tilman Hornig, GlassPhone. Video still. Produced by Iconoclast. Courtesy Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

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en to its formats and conventions, even if ed here in New York—but in Berlin, even we ‘disrupt’ them—and that ‘disruption’ more so, the club seems to be a space of is precisely what beholds us to similarities freedom and anonymity. within the ‘culture industry’ more generally. After all, it’s a cliché of the ‘creative On the other hand, we lived and worked class’ that everyone can be an artist, that it at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art doesn’t matter, since we’re all content farms on Auguststraße, and it’s pretty monastic anyway. At the same time, people are very to live and work within an art institution. tied to their categories: we are dealing with Berlin, the city itself, is almost self-con- a professionalised ‘art world’ after all. This scious—to gentrifcation, to histories—in is a paradox. a way that New York is not. When a high rise goes up in New York, nobody notices DISCREET—An Intelligence Agency or cares. Here in Berlin it is deeply felt. We for the People, is a platform created by could see ourselves here, but not now. Now Armen Avanessian and Alexander Martos. we are planning our somewhat complicated It assumes the complexity of our society and return to New York. the media-sociological revolution of the In- 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Narrative Devices (2016) featuring Tilman Hornig, GlassPhone. Video still. Produced by Iconoclast. ternet/digital: we humans are no longer the MS Lastly, I want to invite you to ask a ques- Courtesy Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. only big players. Therefore, our point of de- tion of your own, and then to respond to parture—the present—has lost its primacy. it any way you like. MS Would it be correct to say that the ques- tent is more elusive, ephemeral and of- Algorithms, memes, hyperstitions, et cetera, tion of content in the age of the inter- ten only available to those who have the are instead ruling from the future. And the DIS What comes to mind when you hear net is one of the main concerns of the ability to produce it as a result of their future can be predicted with incredible ac- ‘paradessence’? The rise of hyper-individ- 9th Berlin Biennale? I can see that there encounter with the cultural product? Do curacy, but it is also uncontrollable. DIS- ualism in the face of the utter powerlessness are many diferent sides to this debate you think that the current conditions CREET is one example of how to use the of the individual. The shift to a personalised, within what we already know about the of artistic production in the age of net- feld of art without producing objects. So, wireless world of networked individualism, exhibition. First, there is the number of worked, algorithmic planetary comput- yes, if memes really are more important/ with each person switching between ties and designers and architects who have been ing and accelerated capitalism make the relevant today than contemporary art, then networks against the backdrop of complex invited to participate. The shift from ex- distinction impossible or irrelevant? Can the Biennale is also an investigation of what global concerns, impossible to process on hibiting only artists highlights how form this blurring of the distinction be pro- ‘gaining traction’ in the present condition a human scale. The feeling when you open and formal solutions can be rebranded ductive for political progress? might actually look like. The big mistake your inbox, and you see a message or noti- today as content. Second, there is DIS- people make is to see this as a disillusioned, fcation from your boss, your Tinder date, CREET—An Intelligence Agency for the DIS Many people see DIS as another way that cynical or fatalist perspective. followed by an imploring call to arms about People: a Biennale-related consortium the art world ‘eats’ other cultural industries. greenhouse gases, the Zika virus and voting that addresses the issue of the privacy Ironically, that’s just a magazine. We are MS How do you rate Berlin, particularly in in the next election. The way words and of content in the hyper-surveillanced not incredibly invested in the nomencla- comparison to New York? What about expressions are co-opted and rebranded by environments of networked comput- ture of who is an artist versus who is not its nightlife? Would you move here if you corporations and interest groups, like Pa- ing. Third, the fact that the Biennale’s an artist. However, it is a refection of the had the chance? tagonia’s ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ campaign online journal is called Fear of Content. creative industries today that many of our which uses anti-consumerism to sell jackets. participants do not identify with a single DIS Berlin has low stress, low consumption, and Feeling healthy by drinking a green juice How do you resolve the tension that ex- market or feld of production. guilt-free partying for 48 hours. The space while wasting vegetable pulp that emits ists between the deﬁnition of content of nightlife, gay clubs, physical proximi- methane. Soylent, the mysterious substance coming from design and commerce, We don’t take it for granted that contempo- ty in dark spaces with music, has been one on the cover of the catalogue, which prom- which considers all sorts of previously rary art will exist, any more than fashion, generating factor for us, and of course so ises to be the food of the future, while claim- unavailable digitised information as con- music, or any of the other cogs in the culture many others, in terms of our community ing to replace food altogether, but is not ap- tent, and the realm of art, in which con- industry might exist. Still, we are behold- and grounds for creativity. This is celebrat- proved as food in Germany.

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Guan Xiao

IN CONVERSATION WITH STEPHANIE BAILEY LONDON, 8 AUGUST 2016

Photo: Li Songshu. GUAN XIAO OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

This year has been an important one for Guan Xiao. In April, the Institute SB Let’s start by talking about the title Could you describe the formal, compo- of Contemporary Arts in London (ICA) showed Flattened Metal, the art- of your recent exhibition at the ICA, sitional and material thinking that went ist’s first solo exhibition in a British institution (20 April–19 June 2016). Flattened Metal. What does this title into composing the installations at the Organised in association with K11 Art Foundation, the ICA show was a mean to you, and are titles important ICA, in terms of the arrangement of text, perfect articulation of the artist’s practice thus far, incorporating a con- to you as an artist? screen, sound and object? What is the cise body of work that investigates relationships with time and matter. significance of the number of screens, The exhibition consisted of audiovisual works alongside a number of GX In the beginning, I tried to fnd a title that for example, and the texts and objects ‘sets’ that combine backdrops with a series of ‘props’. One example in- articulates and interprets the intentions of you chose to use, and how did these el- cluded a pair of pink stereo speakers on which a blue surfboard rested, the work in a straightforward way. But soon ements fit into the narrative you com- by which a totem-like head rested on a tripod. These objects were po- I realised I was trapped in my least favou- posed for the show? sitioned in front of a greyscale backdrop printed on mesh screen with a rite method, so I changed my perspective. digital collage and lines of text that read: ‘IS THIS OUTFIT MORE MARY Metaphor is the cleverest form of rhetoric: GX Through my installation works I’ve been OR MARTHA?’ ‘MIRANDA’ and ‘THANK YOU FOR WATCHING’. an appropriate way to communicate. For trying to describe a context, rather than The show was well received: it marked at once an arrival and a depar- me, Flattened Metal is more precise than provide a subject—even if they appear to ture in terms of how this artist is moving through the world, process- going straight to an interpretation of inten- exist independently. From Documentary: ing its material information as she goes. Works from the ICA exhibition tions. If I use a word that contains ‘-ism’ or Geocentric Puncture to Documentary: From will form the core of an upcoming exhibition in Shanghai at the chi K11 ‘post-’, you wouldn’t understand its precise National Geographic to BBC (2015), I was art museum, titled Guan Xiao: Elastic Sleep (9 November–8 December meaning if you didn’t already know the infuenced by the arrangements of photo- 2016). Between London and Shanghai, Ocula spoke with the artist about background of these words. But anyone is graphic studios, trying to blur the focus the concepts that concern her practice. capable of knowing what ‘fattened’ and within the structure of the installation, and ‘metal’ mean, with their diferent ideas and the compositions of elements and the range understandings. For me, this type of ab- of complexities, to create multiple subjects stract perception, processed by the imag- or an absence of subject. In a photograph- ination of an individual, is the essence of ic studio, the backdrop is used to empha- the communicated object: the true ‘preci- sise the object being photographed, and I sion’. ‘Flattened metal’ gives a sense of con- intentionally used colourful and complex densing and transforming complexities into snakeskin patterns for these backgrounds to something diferent, resembling the work of make the objects in the front and the back- visual artists who use similar traits to trans- ground equally important—all of their form complex objects. colours, degrees of complexity of detail and importance are blended together. Al- Titles are important. My installations can be though the works in the show at the ICA described as diferent components—includ- are stylistically diferent, the internal lines ing the titles—gathered together in a way of thought align to my previous practice. that brings forth a backdrop that does not seem to focus on any single subject. The choice of colours came out of personal preference. I like images that have been co- SB The sculptural installations you present lour-reversed through a Photoshop process, in Flattened Metal are quite diferent to so I tried to approach that with the colour those you made earlier, such as Documen- scheme for the show. The paleness of the tary: Geocentric Puncture (2012), where metallic colours was based on gradient you presented composed photography options in Photoshop that refect those dig- studio settings. There, artefacts such as itally inverted colours. The deliberate grey- an Easter Island Moai statue were posi- scaling and mild colour schemes I used for tioned in front of brightly coloured, cam- the ICA show are just another type of sharp ouflaged screens resembling snakeskin. contrast. I want the relationship between

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the installations to be better fused, with my ‘stereo set’ and its relationship with sound. I treatment of the backdrop not only letting don’t need the presence of sound here. I just the installation itself be able to describe a need people to think of any sort of sound context, but also transforming the space. So they can imagine when they frst see the this time I chose a semi-transparent mesh stereo. It is just as I treated the photogra- fabric, hoping that the visuals, like the phy equipment: I don’t need it to actually colour and texture, would overlap between work, I only need the concept of it and its installations, making the background, fore- relationship with seeing. ground and environment lighten and fuse. Therefore, the words I use are like the other SB Is there a particular way you want peo- components in the installations: they are just ple to relate to your works, in terms of diferent materials of a medium. The ref- how you condense, compress and ﬂatten erences in the words, the meanings behind time and meaning within them? them, their contexts, are not so important to me. The words and the stereo exist as a GX There are internal relations within the set of conceptualisation materials, broken works that I am experimenting with. It’s up from their former existence. Their literal not that people lack the abilities to imagine meaning at this time becomes the shape of and perceive, but there needs to be a gap to their being as materials. One thing to note allow people to believe what they actually is that diferent installations represent dif- feel. Hence, for the exhibition at the ICA, ferent word combinations and structures. I didn’t design complex relational structures between compartments. On the con- SB How does this relate not only to the trary, I controlled only the most basic ele- three-screen video work you included in ments, such as the volume of the works and Flattened Metal, but also to your work their positioning. How they are to relate to with video and multi-screens in general? each other became an unspeakable abstract component to be returned to the audience. GX This becomes a more complicated question However, as usual, I still ofered the audi- when it comes to the relationship between ence elements or keywords. multi-screens and my videos. I love TV shows that feature a host introducing an SB What keywords did you utilise for the artwork in a gallery or museum, or pro- ICA show? grammes that show spectators visiting an exhibition. I also like travel shows featur- GX I’ve retained my preference for sculptur- ing a presenter explaining objects that the al forms, putting two conceptually oppos- camera points at—I fnd these mostly on ing objects together: ancient sculptures and YouTube. On some occasions, the camera modern readymades; limited-edition art replaces the role of the host, and then we objects and endlessly reproduced public are able to see the exhibit and the spectators facilities, for example. But readers should at the same time. know that this is not my only standard of selection. After all, for me anything is a Diferent perspectives and ways of seeing material, including concepts. For instance, are emphasised in these videos. The pre- while this time I chose the stereo set as the senter’s voice, the exhibits and the viewers

main readymade, I don’t need its speakers (we may also include the host here) become Installation view: Guan Xiao, Flattened Metal, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London in association with K11 Art Foundation (20 April–19 to function; what I need is the concept of the three diferent types of media which, when June 2016). Photo: Mark Blower.

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put together, form an image. I’m interested enon, letting it grow into a precise shape GX My statement that ‘new or modern things in terms of what most people would think in the fact that the three components are at from intentionally created chaos. are also ancient in some perspective’ is fragments of history might be. They are the same time distinctive and in tune. based on the infuence of things such as ar- themselves. SB You said that Documentary: Geocentric chaeological artefacts and the latest techno- What distinguishes this kind of flm from Puncture marked a turning point for you logical products that might escape from the You asked whether Flattened Metal con- feature flms and documentaries is that one in terms of bringing the old and new to- constraints of meaning due to our insuf- tinues my exploration into the notion of can easily diferentiate the three things in- gether. Does Flattened Metal mark a de- cient understanding or unknowing of them. time as expressed through the objects that volved: the scene, the host and spectators. velopment in your practice at all? Also, because of unknowing, the abstract defne who we are culturally and histori- Feature flms, by contrast, tend to merge language of forms can escape its function- cally. I don’t necessarily agree with this. I diferent components as much as possi- GX Putting together the new and the old is only ality into an independent narrating subject, think there’s an implication being created ble: the actors, scenes, storylines, voice- one way of putting two conceptually oppos- and so be full of imagination. here, that limitations created by culture and overs and so on. The TV show clips do ing objects together, because I think two op- history become a deliberate discrimination, not speak their entirety through images; posing concepts often come from the same How the audience understand my works and are intended to induce a value system. what emerges is rather some scattered key- abstract perception. And the emphasis in the must be a free and also very personal act. This approach is not only too symbol- words—the images can be described as dif- development of this concept lies in how to My works don’t provide a standard answer. ised, but is also an interference and abduc- ferent components gathered in a way that defne and present diferent, opposing con- Hence, what the composition and structure tion of perception. Besides, time is a word brings forth a backdrop, without focusing cepts. But Flattened Metal as a round-up ex- of my works lead you to think about is your that measures. My intention has nothing to on any one subject. These diferent perspec- hibition doesn’t take this point as the main own business. However, with all the mate- do with this. And as the author, my works tives have motivated my interest in using the direction of discussion. Its presentation is rials I use, I don’t care about their referenc- do not expressly talk about ‘who we are’ triptych format. It allows the fexibility of only a part of the work. es, history, the meanings behind them, or identity issues. spectatorship: the members of the audience their contexts; for me they exist here as con- are implicated in a new scene, themselves SB One aspect of your work is the inten- ceptualised materials, broken up from their SB How might this also feed into your con- the consumers and agents. tion to reveal how—as you have said— former existence. The reason I prefer using ception of space and place? I ask this the things we deem as new or modern conceptually opposed objects is not only thinking about your participation in I suppose there is a strong presence of the are also ancient, which is something that because paradoxical, polarised things often Don’t You Know Who I Am? Art After sense of time in a single screen, but it is is expressed through the composition- come from the diferent expressions of the After Identity Politics, the major group weakened and even resolved in three. This is al logics you employ in order to manipu- same perception, but also because they can exhibition organised by M HKA, the Mu- an important aspect for me, and another late apparatuses of seeing. In the case of further emphasise this fracture, and liberate seum of Contemporary Art Antwerp reason why I chose to work with three Documentary: Geocentric Puncture, for things from their historical and functional (13 June–14 September 2014). In that screens. Although my installations and instance, we see the camera that doc- meanings, and thus from taxonomy. In my exhibition you presented Documenta- videos appear to exist independently, video uments fragments of history, the frag- work, history has never been my concern. ry: Geocentric Puncture and the video functions on a similar basis to my instal- ment itself, and the frame within which For me, history is a lump of recycled things work Cognitive Shape (2013), a three- lation works, in which I try to describe a the representation is staged. In Flattened in changing packages, some accumulating screen installation in which we see a vi- context rather than prove a subject. But due Metal, it feels like you have employed a materials. sual timeline of world history through to the diferences of media languages, the similar approach, but we are no longer in its artefacts, from Neolithic arrowheads actual ways of working difer. Objects of a photographic studio, but in a museum In some ways, the human race has never to rollerskates. Some of the images we perception are a complex but unique mul- instead: a place in which we see, for in- progressed; we keep moving in cycles, re- see in that video work, in fact, reappear tiple; they are born out of the combining stance, a large Grecian foot—a fragment, peating ourselves. I try not to make the au- in London. efects of various elements and methods. a viewer might imagine, of a larger stat- dience think that I’m talking about the his- To deliver a clear message of this kind ue—as an object of monumental time. torical values of things. Therefore, I don’t GX Following on from my answer to the last through objects of perception, a linear logic like the phrase, ‘the fragments of history’. question, the relationships I consider be- cannot be followed. For my videos, I used Would you say Flattened Metal con- On one hand, if we see certain forms and tween works and space and locations are the analogue of this forming process for tinues your exploration into the notion think of them as the fragments of history, within cognitive domains. As for how I my objects of perception as my means of of time, as expressed through the ob- the reading of them might be too sym- consider the relations with space in the ex- communication, and to hide the intentions jects that deﬁne who we are culturally bolised; on the other hand, nothing in my hibition at the ICA, I have already deliv- underneath a carefully fabricated phenom- and historically? work is a ‘fragment of history’, at least not ered a relatively detailed explanation. But

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Installation view: Guan Xiao, Flattened Metal, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London in association with K11 Art Foundation (20 April–19 June 2016). Photo: Mark Blower.

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diferent concepts. In my recent exhibi- When I frst started as an artist, someone tion Weather Forecast [7 June–25 Septem- gave me the following advice: one, never do ber 2016] with the Jeu de Paume in Paris, what you don’t want to do; two, be polite; curator Heidi Ballet had the same discussion three, see your goal and go for it. about identity, and the cultural and political complexity that has followed identity poli- I want to add another point: As long as tics. In the publication for the show there is you hold on to it, you will have a position more detailed documentation on my views for yourself. about identity.

SB Could you tell me how Flattened Met- al will combine with Elastic Sleep and other works in your upcoming K11 show in Shanghai?

GX The works have diferent focuses of expression, and the media is diverse as well. It cannot be explained like a thesis. They are all practices of mine; I am the point of connection. In my answer to your frst question, I briefy introduced the core value of

Installation view: Guan Xiao, Flattened Metal, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London in association with K11 Art Foundation (20 April–19 my works—it is in this way that they are June 2016). Photo: Mark Blower. internally connected.

what makes me curious is that although But knowing how you feel—or don’t SB You once said your work is very much you would think a visual timeline of world feel—about identity, or perhaps about about betraying the world while being history is presented in Cognitive Shape, in definitions and frames in general, I’m loyal to it in your own way. To this end, fact the actual purpose of the animation is curious how you, as an artist working what advice would you give those who the opposite: it intends to deliver a timeline in the art world today, felt about your wish to become artists? that is messed up—a viewing state that is participation within the exhibition at M an arbitrary tiling. This is also the reading HKA, which sought to explore cultural GX That idea refers to a sentence about Got- state that one encounters when browsing and political complexity through a post- thold Ephraim Lessing in Hannah Arendt’s the internet. identity frame? 1968 book Men in Dark Times, describing Lessing as never feeling at home in the SB This is what I meant when I described GX For the exhibition at M HKA, the cura- world and probably never wanting to, but Cognitive Shape as an exploration into tors had a clear curatorial topic, and each in his own fashion always remaining com- the notion of time as expressed through artist presented diferent levels of the topic. mitted to it. The last time I mentioned it, it the objects, or fragments, that define My view on the identity issue is: I don’t was more about my attitudes towards art, who we are culturally and historically— approve of any discrimination/identifca- rather than about the creation of works. For it is a frame in which time is materially tion by nationality, history, culture, geog- me, this is a mentality an artist should have. flattened in much the same way you pro- raphy and so on. I recognise only one iden- A mind that is always alert and observing duced the Documentary installations. In tity, and that is ‘human’. Apart from this, the surroundings in the opposites of expe- other words, all things—from a scuba any other identifcation for me is a concept rience and ‘should-dos’. However, this is diving suit to a Neolithic arrowhead— that may change and transform constantly. not some kind of clever strategy, but rather are placed on the same expansive plane, The diferent identities are not the point: a responsibility and loyalty to the self and like ‘arbitrary tiling’ to use your words. the point is how to transfer between these the world.

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Ho Tzu Nyen

IN CONVERSATION WITH ELLIAT ALBRECHT BASEL, 8 AUGUST 2016

Courtesy the artist. Photo: Amos Wong. HO TZU NYEN OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Ho Tzu Nyen’s two-channel video The Nameless (2015) is currently part EA As I was not familiar with Tony Leung to the Malayan Communist Party. In 1945, of the exhibition Time of Others at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (11 Chiu-wai’s movies before I first watched when the Japanese surrendered, these armed June–18 September 2016). Initially commissioned for the 2014 Shanghai The Nameless, I thought that you had Communist guerillas could well have under- Biennale and delayed due to censorship, the work was shown earlier this filmed all of the footage yourself. I was taken an armed insurrection, in which they year in the Unlimited sector of Art Basel, Switzerland, making Ho the surprised to find out that the entire would likely have succeeded in the face of first Singaporean artist to present work in that sector. work is comprised of found footage from a tired and weakened British empire. But mainstream films. The Nameless revolves around the story of a man named Lai Teck, who Lai Teck, the triple agent, played a key role served as the Secretary-General of the Malayan Communist Party from in turning the Communists away from this HTN 1939 to 1947, and who is rumoured to have used 50 aliases during his life- Yes, I appropriated all the footage from path and onto that of an electoral process. time. Lai Teck’s real name and background have never been confirmed, but existing flms starring Tony Leung. I took That was when the Communists lost the evidence suggests that he was born in Vietnam to a Chinese mother, and special pains to ensure that it wouldn’t feel initiative. Two years after the British reserved as a spy for the French, Japanese and British governments. The like that by colouring all of the images to turned, the Communist Party discovered story goes that Lai climbed the ranks of the Malayan Communist Party make them consistent. I also added grain that Lai was a triple agent, so they got rid by operating as an informant to sabotage his adversaries, and escaped throughout the whole flm to unify all the of him. One year later, the Malayan Com- Japanese execution by pledging allegiance to their intelligence forces. In clips. So we basically have flm footage munist Party started an armed insurrection, 1947, Lai was said to have been murdered by party Communists in Thai- spanning 20 years with the same actor. but by that time it was a lost cause. Things land after the extent of his disloyalty was discovered. would have turned out very diferently if not EA Why did you choose Tony Leung to rep- for Lai: almost like an alternate universe. Piecing together found footage from several Hong Kong films starring resent Lai Teck? actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, The Nameless acts as a fragmentary portrait EA Is Lai a well-known figure in Singaporean of Lai Teck. Ominous and shadowy, the film features Leung (as Lai) in HTN Tony Leung has always been one of my fa- history? times of distress and introspection, interspersed with repeated motifs vourite actors. I think there is a very special of smoke, water, torture and death. A speculative voiceover describes quality about his presence; a kind of rest- HTN No, most people don’t really know about him. what is known of Lai’s mysterious life. To add to the work’s ambiguity, lessness beneath an almost impenetrable the film is presented simultaneously in two separate rooms, one narrat- mask of calm. EA I noticed that there isn’t very much in- ed in Vietnamese and the other in Mandarin—a nod to Lai’s bilingualism formation about him online. Was your and fluid Sino-Vietnamese identity. I’ve been interested in Lai Teck for the last research process difcult? Ho was born in Singapore in 1976. To date, his focus has been the com- two or three years, but I couldn’t fgure plex colonial narratives of Southeast Asia and, in particular, Singapore, out how to make a work about him. Then HTN Most of the information exists in special- which was established as an independent nation only in 1965. Ho works somehow I began to associate Lai Teck with ised academic texts, but you also fnd him primarily in film, pulling at the threads of fictionalised myths and po- Tony Leung, who had been cast in a number mentioned, often in passing, in accounts of litical histories. Through his work, the artist acts as a critical historian, of flms as a stool pigeon, double agent, in- Communist histories. His successor as the examining hegemonies to expose their structures and faults. In 2011, he former and traitor. Secretary-General of the Malayan Commu- represented Singapore at the Venice Biennale with his film The Cloud of nist Party, Chin Peng, who is far more well EA How did you first find out about Lai Teck? Unknowing (made the same year), which comprised a series of vignettes known, released a biography which is very centred around the depiction of clouds in Western European paintings widely read. Much attention was funneled by artists such as Caravaggio, Bernini and Magritte, as well as in the HTN I’ve always been engaged with the histories to Chin Peng because he was the man who Eastern landscapes of Mi Fu and Wen Zhengming. of the left in Singapore and Malaysia, much led the armed struggle, but not many people of which remains repressed. In any case, knew about his shadowy predecessor. In this interview, Ho discusses The Nameless, his practice, the complex this was when I came across the fgure of history of Southeast Asia and his fascination with double agents. Lai Teck. I fnd him extremely interesting EA Why do you think that is, if Lai was such because he’s really pivotal to the history a pivotal figure in history? of our region. During the Second World War, the main resistance to the Japanese HTN I think there are a few factors. One is that were guerrillas of the Malayan People’s An- up to today, we still know very little about ti-Japanese Army, which was closely tied him. Lai Teck is one of the 50 or so aliases

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he employed, and we still do not know what sifed by the British, which in a way led to his real name is, just as we can’t really say an invention of the notion of the Malay race for sure what even happened to him. Chin as a single, monolithic category. But then Peng mentioned in his biography that Lai we have this fgure Lai Teck, with over 50 Teck was murdered in 1947 by Communist names, and no one knows his real name. hitmen. Chin Peng didn’t witness it himself; So it becomes a way of eluding this notion rather, it’s what he heard. Another factor is of naming. the strong repression of information over this entire period, whereby access to the EA There are segments, sometimes quite archives was highly restricted, and many poetic, of different motifs in the early scholars who worked in this feld had video. For example: blood, ink, water— ties to the colonial administration or the as in tears, bodies of water, or rain— secret police. The histories of insurrec- and cigarettes. tions are often told by informers, double agents and traitors, fltered through their HTN Water, for me, is a major metaphor. I think so-called handlers, and then locked up in about the mode of being a man like Lai archives or destroyed. Teck as something that is really like water, and I always think of Southeast Asia as EA A line in the video mentions the ‘secret a kind of empire of water, in its various knowledge and the holy motors of his- states, from its seas and rivers to its inces- tory’. What does that refer to? sant rain and oppressive humidity. Water enables the circulation of language, bodies HTN I think that the history of reception of com- and goods, which is why it was important munism in Southeast Asia has to be un- for me to include the story of Lai Teck’s derstood in relation to localised modes of birth in Vietnam, and how, in his youth, he peasant utopianism, which were bottom-up travelled across the diferent port cities of and organic modes of beliefs in equality and Asia as a sailor, where he meets and has ex- fraternity. With this passage, I was attempt- changes with all kinds of people. But water ing to fold these two forms of messianism is also the prime element of fux, change and into a strange, incommensurate whole. metamorphosis.

EA Can you explain the way that you divid- The cigarette motif wasn’t something I ed the video into chapters? had planned from the beginning, but something that came up repeatedly in the flms HTN The chapters are a way of organising the nar- of Tony Leung. It became an interest- rative into things that I’m interested in pur- ing way to link up the footage, while also suing. For example, the very frst chapter is creating a certain kind of atmosphere as- ‘Every Name in History is I’, and that is about sociated with anxiety, waiting, or clichéd my interest in naming. In the Western tradi- images of spies and double agents. But tion, Adam named the animals, and naming above all, the lit cigarettes became, for me, is the frst act of possession. something that evoked breath and also the element of fre itself. EA Which is also very true in colonial history. EA The work does evoke a very strong sense HTN Exactly. With Southeast Asian colonial of inner turmoil. history, the diferent ethnicities were clas- Ho Tzu Nyen, The Nameless (2015). Video still. © Ho Tzu Nyen.

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HTN Exactly. This is one of the main reasons I screen. On one side we have a voiceover in chose Tony Leung. He has been repeatedly Mandarin, and on the other in Vietnamese. cast as a traitor, informer or double agent in I chose those two languages because one of a lot of Hong Kong and Chinese-language the few things we know about Lai Teck is cinema, the last of which was Lust, Caution that he was supposed to be Sino-Vietnam- (2007) by Ang Lee, where Leung was cast ese. If you don’t understand both Vietnam- as a Chinese traitor who was working for ese and Chinese, you will never be able to the Japanese puppet government in Shang- know if the same story is being told on both hai. Before that, he was in Infernal Afairs sides of the installation, and there is this per- (2002) [directed by Andrew Lau and Alan sistent feeling of something being left out. Mak], in which Leung was cast as a police There is an excess of context that you can ofcer inserted into the Triads. The re- never fully exhaust, which is how I think straint of Leung’s acting is what makes about the story of Lai Teck. him very unique in this industry, which is populated by powerful and overtly dramatic EA I suppose there are so many unknowns actors. There is a kind of blankness to Tony in his story, the audience projects their Leung’s persona, which invites imaginative own ideas to ﬁll in the gaps. projections from spectators. HTN There is perhaps a certain strangeness in EA I think that feeling of uncertainty is the flm that comes from the fact that it’s transferred to the viewer through the combining elements from all these dispa- video’s looped cycle and disjunctive narrate sources from over 24 years. So there’s rative. I recently read an interview where always already a fundamental instability you said that you try to produce work for within the image already. an imaginary spectator who might have no understanding of your references. Do EA Did you write the score as well? you think that also applies to this ﬁlm? HTN I didn’t add any new music or sound ele- HTN I think very much so. After all, the videos ments, except for the two narrative voices seem to have worked for you even though in Mandarin and Vietnamese. All music and you weren’t aware of the sources of the sound elements were gleaned from the orig- images. It has always been important to inal sources, rearranged and remixed. me that a work of art contains manifold possibilities for reading, and that it does EA There is a parallel with your 2011 work not require a single key or master code. The Cloud of Unknowing, of sampling For someone who recognises Tony Leung material from familiar sources to make or his flms, every clip evokes at least two something new. possible meanings. The frst is the narrative I’ve constructed, but the second would HTN Sampling, collage and mixing is very be the original context from which these much my mode of operation. I just re- flms were derived. We could speculate on arrange things in diferent confgurations. the third meaning, which might be gen- Another work, Pythagoras (2013), was erated out of the clash between these two made when I started working with found contexts. This duality is in turn embodied footage, which is a nice way of saying through the form of the installation, with ‘stolen footage’. I am always surprised that Ho Tzu Nyen, The Nameless (2015). Video still. © Ho Tzu Nyen. its double projections on two sides of the we don’t see more of this in Asian media

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work. After all, mixing and piracy is a big I selected Leung was because I remembered part of everyday life here. that he acted in a great flm set in Vietnam called Cyclo (1995) by Tranh Ahn Hung. EA There are indeed a lot of mysterious DVD shops. Do you notice sampling in Asian EA So he must also speak Vietnamese and music culture? Chinese?

HTN In Asian popular music, we see a lot of ap- HTN No, he doesn’t. In Cyclo, he plays a man of propriation and translation, for example, few words, a silent gangster. He is always the transformation of hip-hop into Korean just walking around and smoking, though pop music. But I haven’t come across a lot we hear his interior thoughts which are in of sampling in Asian music, except for the the form of poetry. I think there is some- work of some experimental musicians. It thing fascinating about this practice of is interesting, however, to consider that over-dubbing, or speaking with other while copyright laws are much stricter in voices. In a way, The Nameless is exactly a the West, there is much more sampling in kind of conceptual over-dubbing, in which art and music there. I am inserting these alien narratives into foreign images. I especially enjoyed doing EA Do you think that will change? this with a lot of the Hong Kong flms, which seem to me to have an obsession with HTN I believe it is a matter of time. This access traitors, informers and double agents. to information, to images and sounds that exist in the infnitely transferrable and trans- EA Why do you think that is? latable form of data, is just awaiting recy- cling, reactivation and reanimation. This is HTN I think it’s an expression of Hong Kong’s a very ecological way of working. political history. In a way, Hong Kong is the great double or triple agent, with multiple EA What is your process like? allegiances and skilled in the pragmatic way of playing one force against another. This HTN I mostly work with a team when I shoot is why flms about informers, stool pigeons, my videos. For The Nameless, I had just traitors and double agents are a whole genre moved to Berlin and was far away from special to Hong Kong. I think that although my usual crew, so I took it as an opportu- The Nameless is a narrative woven around a nity to create a flm on my own. I edited the historical person from Southeast Asia, it is flm, but worked with a great colourist who also a work about Hong Kong cinema and blended all the images together. its fascination with shifting identities.

EA Had you watched all of Tony Leung’s ﬁlms before you began the project?

HTN Most of them I had seen before because I’m a bit of a cinephile. Actually, when I began, there were specifc scenes from flms I’d seen ten years ago that I could recall and which I knew would end up in certain scenes of The Nameless. One of the reasons Ho Tzu Nyen, The Nameless (2015). Video still. © Ho Tzu Nyen.

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Maria Lind & Margarida Mendes

IN CONVERSATION WITH SRINIVAS ADITYA MOPIDEVI GWANGJU, 31 AUGUST 2016

Portraits: Bernd Krauss. MARIA LIND & MARGARIDA MENDES OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

th th In July 2015, Maria Lind was appointed the artistic director of the 11 SAM The title of the 11 Gwangju Biennale is infrastructures and engage with the ur- Gwangju Biennale (GB11) in South Korea, which runs from 2 September to The Eighth Climate, a reference to the gencies of our time. How does the design 6 November 2016. Her curatorial team includes curator Binna Choi, assis- ideas of 12th-century Persian mystic and of the Biennale as a ‘constellation of many tant curators Margarida Mendes, Azar Mahmoudian and Michelle Wong, philosopher Suhrawardi and 20th-centu- moving parts’ address this concern? and local curatorial associate Mite-Ugro, a Gwangju-based art collective. ry French philosopher Henry Corbin. Can you speak more about this concept of ML Under the curatorial team’s direction, the Biennale’s main exhibition pos- Take, for example, the black and white the eighth climate? To what extent does es the question: ‘What does art do?’ The question is raised in an attempt photographic series Land of Undefned it relate to climate change? to query the agency of art today, and its relationship to the future. The Territory (2014–2015) by Munem [Wasif], Biennale also evokes the idea of the ‘eighth climate’, a philosophical no- showing a surreal barren rocky landscape ML tion that refers to ‘a state, or inter-world, one might reach using imag- The Eighth Climate is a title rather than a with traces of human activity and occasion- inative capacities.’ Described as a ‘constellation of many moving parts theme; a title that indicates an inter-world ally even a human, which comes out of a happening over one year,’ the Biennale includes a series of programmes which has a number of similarities with how project co-organised by Dhaka-based art in addition to the main exhibition. These include: 'Monthly Gatherings' contemporary art is functioning today. We collective Britto [Arts Trust] on the border (informal gatherings taking place in Gwangju with the aim of fostering might understand Suhrawardi’s and Henry between Bangladesh and India. The series connections between the Biennale and the local art community); the on- Corbin’s proposition of the eighth climate speaks about the right to the land, to the re- going 'Infra-School' (a programme including group discussions and sem- as a space of potentiality that establishes sources above and below ground and how inars by GB11 artists and curators aimed at developing a connection be- real imaginative knowledge and function, they are distributed. Another example is tween the Biennale and educational institutions); and a forum (through while escaping rationalism as we know it. Apolonija Šušteršicˇ’s participatory project which 'Biennale Fellows'—art organisations whose work is considered The eighth climate does not refer directly to Master Plan for Duam-dong with the resi- important to the art ecology, artists and other cultural practitioners—are climate change. However, it is conscious of dents of the Duam-dong area in Gwangju, invited to come together to share their work and experiences). the relevance of this topic today, and many based on numerous meetings and work- of the artists we are showing share such con- shops about the needs of the neighbour- In this Ocula Conversation, Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi speaks to Maria Lind cerns in their practice. hood, which have taken place since early and Margarida Mendes about the conceptual framework of the Biennale 2015, resulting in a ‘performative master and its other associated projects. MM Take, for example, Natascha Sadr Haghighian plan’ to be used in the local community and Ashkan Sepahvand’s installation Carbon centre. The lavish tapestry, From Where I Theater (2016), which will be located at Stand (2015) by Otobong Nkanga, which the GB11 outdoor amphitheatre, where refers to natural resources in terms of the colour coding of the space mirrors mining, is another such work. In radical- the molecular links of carbon compounds. ly diferent ways all of them relate to one Whoever passes through the auditorium is of the urgencies of our time: what goes on already complicit with the ‘carbon democ- above and below the ground. racies’ narrated in the audio fle that one can download and listen to at this location. The works in GB11 do things in various We address through several angles the ways, which is the point: contemporary problems raised by climate change, the art is radically heterogeneous, multifacet- difculty in representing its totality as a ed, fragmented. As a form of understand- planetary phenomenon, and the challenge ing that helps us grapple with existence in to accept our complicity with it and reach all its variety, it can include everything else. pragmatic consensus on how to manage its Each work does this in its own way, whether consequences. concretely, abstractly, poetically, critically, associatively, based on research and so on. SAM ‘What does art do?’ is the central ques- In doing so, it also says something about tion posed by GB11. This framework ref- the future, whether the artists are undertak- erences the need to revive the role of art ing this consciously or not. This approach beyond its relationship to institutional means that GB11 will be kaleidoscopic.

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SAM Could you tell us more about the re- SAM The forum component of the Biennale, search approaches that you adopt- entitled ‘To all the Contributing Factors’, ed during the process of putting the brings together around 100 small- and Biennale together? medium-scale organisations from different parts of the world; institutions ML I was lucky that I was able to put together a that push the boundaries of artistic and curatorial team that included Binna Choi as curatorial practice. Can you elaborate a curator and Azar Mahmoudian, Margari- more on the importance of the forum in da Mendes and Michelle Wong as assistant relation to the larger framework of the curators. Everybody brings special knowl- Biennale? edge and competence and yet also shares the experience of working with small structures ML The forum features Biennale Fellows who and with self-organisation. The Gwangju- represent organisations that often func- based art collective Mite-Ugro became our tion as the research and development de- local curatorial associate. The relative- partment of the art world, generating new ly short time for preparation—less than a ideas, giving opportunities to emerging year—has afected the process in terms of artists, and shaping new curatorial and edu- what has been possible. For example, while cational methods. Yet they tend to be under shorter residencies for artists have been or- the radar of both the mainstream art scene ganised, longer ones became impossible. and the media. Concretely, being a Bien- nale Fellow means that the organisations MM Crucial to GB11 was a curatorial and re- go on doing the great work they normally search process that privileges a methodol- do, without GB11 being involved in their ogy over a topical approach. In September activities. By connecting the dots, the aim 2015, a dozen artists joined the curatorial is to manifest a critical mass and to under- team for the frst research trip to Gwangju line its value. and Seoul, and all were invited to make new work. To these invitations—and along- The forum is a great opportunity for such side several research trips across the world an encounter. Taking place on the opening and a signifcant amount of time spent in days of GB11 from 2 to 4 September 2016, Gwangju itself—we added further artists and curated by myself and Binna Choi, it to the list and started noticing shared con- will include contributions by Han Kang, cerns and methodologies. Furthermore, we author of The Vegetarian (2007); Dr Andrea debated among our team what was common Phillips, art theorist and PARSE Profes- in their concerns and practice, and devel- sor of Art and Head of Research at Valand oped what we call ‘strands’, gathering artists Academy, University of Gothenburg; and by their afnities. It was a very intuitive yet Shin Ji Young, researcher and author of Mi- necessary process, and rather organic. This nority Commune. From lectures to working is how we believe this particular project groups to mountain hiking at Mudeungsan should grow: with acute sensibility for what National Park, this forum will be a special is happening in our surroundings. ‘Above moment to debate questions of value, and below the ground’, as mentioned by continuity and scale, and imagining acts Maria, is one of the ‘strands’ within GB11. in common.

Munem Wasif, Land of Undefined Territory (2014–2015). Archival pigment print. 30.5 × 20.3 cm (33 × 22.9 cm framed). Courtesy the artist and Project 88, Mumbai.

220 221 Otobong Nkanga, The Weight of Scars (2015). Woven textile and photography/yarns, viscose bast, mohair, polyester, bio cotton, linen, acrylic and inkjet print on 10 laser cut forex plates. 4 tapestries, 253 × 153 cm each. Courtesy the artist and M HKA, Antwerp. MARIA LIND & MARGARIDA MENDES OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

SAM Can you expand on the curatorial asso- Bookshop for the Living and the Dead (2016) ciation with the Gwangju-based art col- by Dora García will come to life. And I lective Mite-Ugro in engaging with the am also very curious to see the local re- local context of Gwangju? ception of Hito Steyerl’s Factory of the Sun (2015), and Gunilla Klingberg’s installation MM When we frst started working on this When Stillness Culminates There is Move- edition of GB11 we were asked to choose ment (2016) at Uijae Museum in the Mu- a local curator to collaborate with. After our deungsan National Park area, Gwangju. frst research trip in September, it was clear that Mite-Ugro collective is one of the most ML I am excited about how the gallery spaces exciting art places in Gwangju. Opting for of the exhibition, with their diferent at- a collective rather than an individual was a mospheres or climates, will come together. conscious choice, especially as most of our Among the 28 commissions, I am curious curatorial team comes from a self-organised about Bernd Krauss’ work Tantogruppen, background, and we share many afnities No Cure for Gardens! And Greetings from with Mite-Ugro’s programme, curatorial Traveling Poohall (Best of Norwich)(2016), approach and methodologies. in the Mudeung Museum of Contemporary Art, and how it will inhabit the space given We actively developed the Monthly Gath- the artist’s concerns about creativity, using erings programme with Mite-Ugro in found material and his intention to change Gwangju. We expanded Mite-Ugro’s book the installation during its six-week stay; and collection with art and theory publications also Ane Hjort Guttu’s new flm The Lost and started group readings, as well as group Dreams of Naoki Hayakawa (2016) about an critiques (‘The Artwork in Focus’), curated overworked art director of an advertising walks and artist flm screenings. frm in Japan who starts to hallucinate. An existing work that I am looking forward to The Infra-School programme is another seeing installed is Siren Eun Young Jung’s good opportunity to engage with education- flm Act of Afect (2013), which is about the al platforms, art students and the broader Korean Yeosung Gukgeuk theatre tradition in Gwangju audience. Additionally, many of which, to this day, women play all the roles. the activities we develop with our part- ners—such as lectures and artist talks— occur also in Seoul and online. Venues such as Chosun University, the Gwangju Inter- national Center, and RAT school of ART became regular platforms to host our visiting artists as well as the curatorial team. It is about using what is already there, connecting the dots.

SAM Finally, what artist projects are you excited about seeing realised at the Biennale?

MM It is difcult to select among so many interesting projects, but I must confess that I Curated Walk—Monthly Gathering (May 2016), 11th Gwangju Biennale (2 September–6 November 2016). Courtesy Gwangju Biennale Foundation. am particularly excited to see how Nokdu’s

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Frieze London

6–9 OCTOBER 2016

Installation view: Carol Bove and Bridget Riley, David Zwirner, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. 227 Installation view: Kohei Nawa and Leo Villareal, Pace Gallery, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Paulo Nimer Pjota, Vaporware, some samples (2016). Installation view: Maureen Paley, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Jose Dávila, Joint Effort (2016). Installation view: Travesía Cuatro, Sculpture Park, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Lisa Oppenheim, Patrick Caulfield and Jack Lavender, The Approach, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Paul Fägerskiöld and Meuser, Galerie Nordenhake, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Johan Creten and Pieter Vermeersch, Galerie Perrotin, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Gary Hume, Sprüth Magers, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Eddie Martinez, Whoa, that came up out of everywhere (2016). Installation view: Timothy Taylor, Galleries, Frieze London (6–9 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Anish Kapoor

IN CONVERSATION WITH ELLIAT ALBRECHT SEOUL, 9 SEPTEMBER 2016

The artist with Non-Object (2013). Courtesy Kukje Gallery, Seoul. Photo: Keith Park. ANISH KA POOR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Anish Kapoor’s large-scale works are among the most recognisable in a material made of carbon nanotubes and apparently the blackest sub- the art world. A tenacious afnity for drama, form and curvature char- stance known on earth. Some in the artistic community were outraged at acterise his sculptures, which hold court in public spaces, collections Kapoor’s proprietorship of the material, and it remains to be seen exact- and art institutions around the globe. He is best known for works that ly how far Kapoor will push its artistic potential. use curved metal, marble, wax or stainless steel to flirt with and mate- Recent works by Kapoor were presented in a solo exhibition Gathering rialise the sublime. His sculptures explore dualities such as disappear- Clouds at Kukje Gallery in Seoul (31 August–30 October 2016). The show ance and being, heaven and earth, the visible and the just out of sight. was named after his series of circular concave ‘void’ works, which filled Kapoor makes a strong case for spectacle in art, unearthing it from the one room of the gallery. This grouping is painted with a flat shade of dark pile of conditions that critics have deemed unfashionable and dusting grey, resulting in an illusion of oscillating flatness and curvature. Also it of to create works with monumental presence. Take, for example, his on view were works from Kapoor’s ‘Non Object’ series, which are, in the ‘Sky Mirror’ series: enormous concave mirrors made of reflective steel artist’s words, based on a ‘simple, stupid idea’. Larger-than-life mirrored that are tilted upwards to reflect the sky, fashioning earthly portals to prisms have been ‘twisted’ on their axes, never amounting to a full ninety the clouds. Or consider Descension (2014), a perpetual whirlpool first degree turn, to become curving, mysterious forms in which reflections presented at the 2014 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and later realised in larger of the gallery space and its inhabitants seem to constantly shift. A series scale as part of Anish Kapoor Versailles in the gardens of the Palace of of smaller versions of these works were also included in the show. Ocula Versailles (9 June–1 November 2015), with a version shown earlier this spoke with Kapoor on the occasion of the exhibition’s opening in Seoul. year as part of Nuit Blanche in Paris. Kapoor’s works are unapologeti- cally meant to be experienced by the public at large.

Despite the often colossal size of his works, a strong relationship to the human body is rooted deeply in Kapoor’s practice. He has spoken at length about his interest in the human psyche, and the oriﬁces, aper- tures, caves and tunnels present in his sculptures carry physical conno- tations. The artist took heat last year after a casual remark was interpreted as identifying his funnel-shaped Dirty Corner (2015), installed at the Palace of Versailles, as the ‘queen’s vagina’. Jackie Wullschlager, writing for the Financial Times, described the work perhaps less antag- onistically as ‘an erotic, feminised disruption to Le Nôtre’s masculine ri- gidities and tamed harmonies of lawn and hedge.' Kapoor shrugged of the controversy during a recent press conference in Seoul, pointing out that the majority of monuments and sculptures are plainly phallic, yet routinely escape public outrage.

Kapoor was born in Mumbai, India, in 1954. He studied in London (where he now lives and works) at Hornsey College of Art, and later at Chelsea School of Art (now called Chelsea College of Arts). In 1990 he represented Britain at the 44th Venice Biennale, winning the Premio Duemila. The following year he won the coveted Turner Prize. Some of his most recognisable projects include the installation of Marsyas (2002) in the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern (2002–2003), and his 110-tonne sculpture Cloud Gate (2004), forged of a seamless series of highly polished and reﬂective stainless-steel plates and installed in Chicago's Millennium Park. In 2009, Kapoor was the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and in 2013 he was knighted for his services to visual arts. Earlier this year, he was announced as a recipient of the Lennon Ono Grant For Peace. Kapoor made news for a diferent reason recently when it was reported that the artist had obtained the exclusive rights to Vantablack,

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Installation view: Anish Kapoor, Gathering Clouds, Kukje Gallery, Seoul (31 August–30 October 2016). Courtesy Kukje Gallery. Photo: Keith Park.

EA When I first viewed the reflective ‘Non ever been true. There is something about Object’ works in the exhibition, I found the performative in a work, where the work the experience similar to that of per- almost switches itself on as you enter its forming theatre or dance: one circles space. I think it’s terribly important because around the pieces, sometimes repeat- that’s a conversation between a viewer and edly, interacting with and sizing them an object. You’re asked to enter its space. up. One’s reflection even seems to jump Sculpture and the body are like this [gestures from place to place as it moves over to imply closeness]. the curves of the work in a way that is almost cinematic. I thought that was EA When I stood in front of the circular rather interesting given the fact that concave ‘void’ works [Gathering Clouds you just designed the set for the English I, II, III IV (2014)]—and I had never ex- National Opera’s production of Tristan perienced this before, though I’ve seen and Isolde. Can you tell me about the iterations of them many times—and presence of theatricality in your work? spoke directly in front of them, it was as if someone had turned the volume on a AK I’m quite interested in theatricality. In the radio up. My voice suddenly became am- art world in which I grew up in the seven- plified. It was almost magical. I wonder if ties, the theatrical was always seen as hor- that kind of poetic or surprising experi- rifc. You’d never do anything theatrical. ence is something that you pursue when Installation view: Anish Kapoor, Gathering Clouds, Kukje Gallery, Seoul (31 August–30 October 2016). Courtesy Kukje Gallery. Photo: Keith Park. Sculpture must be real! I’m not sure that’s you make a work.

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AK I’ve worked a lot with concavity over many, high. And I thought to myself, actually you many years, and it’s one of the things about know what, this has something to do with concave forms and concave space—that it it. It’s as stupid and direct as that. almost always has a focus. Just as it focuses light, it focuses sound. EA I read an interview in which you said that at the time when you grew up there it EA On the subject of voids, Vantablack is was a very beautiful place—with empha- often described as ‘blacker than a black sis on ‘at the time’. hole’—a phenomenon that absorbs light by sucking all matter into a concentrated AK Yes. It still is actually. space. Is that cosmic comparison something that you think about often when you work with the material?

AK I’m deeply interested in the cosmic.

EA Me too.

AK [Laughs] I was reading somewhere today that almost all religious places have a meteorite at their heart. For example, the most famous of them is obviously the Kaaba in Installation view: Anish Kapoor, Gathering Clouds, Kukje Gallery, Seoul (31 August–30 October 2016). Courtesy Kukje Gallery. Photo: Keith Park. Mecca; there’s a meteorite at the centre of that. Almost all great cathedrals, at some time, had a meteorite. A bit of heavenly matter. The Australian Aborigines even believed that the sky was made of stone. So it’s quite common, this idea that somehow there’s something cosmic about our psychic material. It’s not dissimilar from the space you hold in yourself. It’s vast, dark and it’s cosmic.

EA You grew up in India and spent your adolescence in a kibbutz in Israel, and now you live in England. Those cultures all place very diferent importance on monuments, sacredness and beauty. How did they inﬂuence your sense of the sublime?

AK I recently went back to the small town where I grew up in northern India. I’ve always known, but I never realised the extent of it—that it’s a valley. The Himalayas are almost all the way around it; they’re huge objects, huge. I mean, the Himalayas are

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John Kaldor

IN CONVERSATION WITH SUSAN ACRET SYDNEY, 23 SEPTEMBER 2016

Photo: Peter Greig. JOHN KALDOR OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Since 1969, arts patron and collector John Kaldor has been sharing his love SA Tell us about your introduction to con- SA At the time, Australian audiences woul- of contemporary art with the Australian public through what is now his temporary art in the early 1960s. What dn’t have seen a lot of international con- non-proﬁt organisation Kaldor Public Art Projects, which commissions excited you about it then? temporary art. Was there a real hunger major large-scale projects from well-known international artists. Kaldor to see it? has sat on the boards and international councils of many art organisa- JK I was trained as a textile designer, and in tions over the years, and is currently on the International Council of the my job I was required to travel regularly to JK Yes, Australian audiences just didn’t have Museum of Modern Art, New York. He was also commissioner for the the US and Europe to see the latest fashion access to it. The only way they saw such Australian Pavilion at the 51st and 52nd Venice Biennales. In 2011, Kaldor trends. During that time, Pop art emerged as art was through reproductions, which was gifted his private collection, which includes works by Robert Rauschen- a very strong movement, primarily in New a terribly second-hand way of seeing it. berg, Richard Long, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Sol LeWitt, Jef Koons, York. Coming from Australia, what I saw Ugo Rondinone, and Bill Viola to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was totally new and it really excited me. It It was a shock to see contemporary art. It Sydney, bringing the works into public view. was so diferent from the landscape-based was a shock to me when I frst travelled. I The 32nd Kaldor Public Art Project presents Australian-Aboriginal Wir- works that were prominent here. Pop art just wanted to expose people to it. I was adjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones’ barrangal dyara (skin and bones), was the frst radical art movement after hoping that the reaction would be positive, which is on view in Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden from 17 September the post-war years, and it signalled the be- but that wasn’t my priority. If people didn’t to 3 October 2016. ginning of consumer society, of afuence, like it immediately, maybe in a few years which it both refected and commented on. they would think, ‘Oh, that was interesting’ or ‘That makes sense to me now’. SA What inspired you to initiate Kaldor Pub- lic Art Projects in 1969? SA So the main focus of Kaldor Public Art Projects is education? JK On these initial trips to the US and Europe— as a junior employee on a low salary— JK From the very beginning, the aim was for I started collecting small works by artists people to see groundbreaking art. Present- like Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschen- ing this art was intrinsically educational in berg, which at that time were cheaper than a very non-didactic way; we didn’t have a works by Australian artists such as John formal education programme until 2011. Olsen or Fred Williams. I could buy a small work by Andy Warhol for as little as 50 or Since we presented our frst art project 60 US dollars. in 1969—Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast, One Million Square Feet, Contemporary art at that time was a very Little Bay, Sydney, Australia—our projects small club. Only a few people were collect- have always been free. We hoped that this ing and it was shown in only a handful of would encourage audiences to come to our galleries. It was so diferent to the recent projects, particularly those who might not explosion in the feld, where there is now ordinarily go to the traditional white-cube an enormous market with many galleries, gallery space. artists and collectors. SA The work you present is quite avant-gar- After a while, I began to feel that collect- de. It is often performance- or installa- ing was a very selfsh thing because you tion based. How do you choose the art see it, your family sees it, friends see it, but for your projects? the general public doesn’t, and I wanted to share my love of art with the art community JK Well, what we are trying to do is always and the general public. That’s why I wanted exhibit the latest developments in con- to bring international artists to Australia. temporary art. It really depends on what I

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feel is the art of the moment. It should be Sydney showing housed international contri- something that has meaning and relevance butions from countries that included France, to what is going on today. If ten years ago Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Japan. someone had said we would be presenting performance or dance projects—like our The Garden Palace was an enormous 2015 project with French choreographer building, with a foor area measuring over Xavier Le Roy [Temporary Title]—I would 112,000 metres. It stretched almost to the have said you are out of your mind because Conservatorium of Music on the north side we are about visual art. But in the last few and to the State Library on the south side of years we have seen a breakdown of bound- the Garden. Yet today it is totally forgotten. aries between diferent art forms. The dis- If you asked a hundred people, maybe one tinction between visual arts, performance person would have heard something about and dance no longer exists in traditional, it, so we are really looking at recreating an prescriptive ways. important part of Sydney’s history.

SA For the 32nd Kaldor Public Art Project, Jonathan is coming from an indigenous Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan angle, focusing on the part of the [1879] ex- Jones presents barrangal dyara (skin and hibition that featured an ethnographic court bones) in the Royal Botanic Garden, Syd- display of Aboriginal shields and weapons. ney. This is the ﬁrst time an Australian The display was included to juxtapose the indigenous artist has been chosen for progress that had been made since white a Kaldor project. Could you tell us why settlement with the ‘primitive’ nature of Exterior, Garden Palace, Sydney (circa 1879). Collection: Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney. Courtesy Kaldor Public Art Projects, Sydney. Jones was chosen, and about the partic- Aboriginal culture. It was presented to ular work he is presenting? excuse white settlement and the ongoing devastation of Aboriginal Australia. After JK For our 45th anniversary in 2014 we wanted the exhibition, which lasted seven months, to do something diferent, so instead of in- the Garden Palace was used as a cultural viting an international artist we held a com- centre and as a storage place for the Ab- petition open to Australian and Austra- original artefacts, which were subsequently lian-resident artists. The brief was to come destroyed in the fre. It was a tremendous up with a concept that could be the founda- loss to the indigenous community. All of tion for a project. We had 160 entries, and their early objects were lost. an international jury unanimously chose Jonathan as the winner of the competition. Jonathan is looking to turn this loss into At that time, Jonathan had only a concept, something positive. While the objects were so we have been working solidly for over lost, the culture thrives and lives on. a year to turn that concept into a reality. It’s one of our most important projects. SA What do you think about today’s in- The project recreates the Garden Palace, ternational contemporary art market? built for the Sydney International Exhibi- Contemporary art has gone from being tion, which opened in the Botanic Garden quite an esoteric, avant-garde ﬁeld to in Sydney in 1879. Sadly, the Garden Palace very much a mainstream attraction, with burnt down in 1882. The exhibition was part multiple global art fairs, biennales, and of the World Fair phenomenon, which began blockbuster exhibitions. What is your feeling about this? Are there negative with the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Wrapped Coast, One Million Square Feet, Little Bay, Sydney, Australia (1969). 1st Kaldor Public Art Project. in 1851 and spread across the world. The aspects to this kind of booming market? Courtesy Kaldor Public Art Projects, Sydney. Photo: Harry Shunk.

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JK Well, yes, there are negative aspects because SA Australia does not have a strong tradi- galleries are very market driven—that’s tion of philanthropy. Do you think this is their business. There is a pressure on artists changing? to always come up with something new, and a pressure on young artists to develop JK Changing, yes, but not fast enough. We very quickly. There is also the danger that, have to celebrate the achievements of because art is now like fashion, artists are philanthropy, whether it is in the feld of discarded in favour of the new. medicine, culture, education or art. Also, those who are asking for support—the de- SA So what happens when you take that art velopment managers of philanthropic or- away from the market—which is what ganisations—have to be more professional. you do with your projects—and you take In the US it is a well-regarded profession, it into the public sphere, allowing people and it is an accepted way of running not- to see it for free and learn from it? Does for-proft organisations. In Australia there that process somehow change the art? is a cringe factor in asking for support.

JK The art is not commercial; it cannot be sold. SA Do you still collect? What drives you to The purpose is diferent. Because it isn’t collect a particular artist or work? commercial and the projects are temporary, there’s much more freedom in the scope of JK Yes, I am still collecting. I collect a partic- subjects the artist can work with. There’s ular work because it says something to me. room to create new concepts, and experi- It is never an intellectual exercise; there is ment with innovative ways of communi- always an emotional or gut reaction. If I like cating with the public. a particular artist, I collect their work over the years. I think if you like an artist, you SA In 2011, you gifted your private collec- have to collect their work over a period of tion to the Art Gallery of New South time to really understand their concepts. Wales. Could you tell us about the works in that gift?

JK The collection starts with American Pop art and includes Minimal art, German photography, and artists who worked in the 1990s and early 2000s. I am constantly adding to the collection.

I’m drawn to large and difcult works which don’t ft into my home, so in the end they fnd a home at the gallery.

Jonathan Jones, barrangal dyara (skin and bones) (2016). 32nd Kaldor Public Art Project (17 September–3 October 2016). Courtesy Kaldor Public Art Projects, Sydney. Photo: Peter Greig.

252 253 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Danh Vō

IN CONVERSATION WITH DIANA D’ARENBERG HONG KONG, 28 SEPTEMBER 2016

Danh Vō and Mathieu Paris. Installation view: Danh Vō, White Cube, Hong Kong (7 September–12 November 2016). © White Cube. Photo: Kitmin Lee. DANH VŌ OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Artist Danh Vō brings together fragments—pieces of his life and objects The letter is a copy of the French Catholic missionary Saint Jean- of history—to tell stories. These stories are told in exhibition spaces Théophane Vénard’s last correspondence to his father, written just be- where layers, pauses and silences between statements are created with fore he was beheaded in 1861 for his eforts to spread Catholicism in considered restraint. There is space for phantoms and memories to float Vietnam. Written in French, one of the lines translates into English as: between works, creating a dialogue between the past and present; and ‘A quick cut of the sword will separate my head, like a springtime flow- there are moments of poetry. er that the gardener picks for pleasure.’ Vō’s father, Phung Vō, expertly copied the letter as part of an ongoing edition, which Phung Vō will con- Born in Bà Rịa, Vietnam, Vō was just four when his family fled the country tinue to produce on his son’s request until his own death. by boat in 1979, four years after the fall of Saigon. The family was rescued by a Danish shipping freighter and settled in Denmark where Vō was Ultimately, the show presents seemingly random objects; bits of a riddle raised. Much is made of this history; it is fetishised by the media, pored that require piecing together. But these fragments highlight destruction, through in the hope that it will provide clues for interpreting the works cultural production, dismemberment, war, violence and exile. They evoke of this elusive artist. But Vō avoids a didactic or expository approach elements of political, sexual and religious history and also the artist’s to art. His press releases reveal little, and often there is no explanatory own identity, history and experiences. note accompanying the art in his shows. He allows the audience to complete the story—an approach that encourages the viewer to navigate works unaided, and sift through layers of symbolism to create meaning.

For his first Hong Kong solo exhibition at White Cube, curated by Mathieu Paris (7 September–12 November 2016), Vō suspended 450 Pleistocene mammoth fossils and a 17th-century Dutch ivory crucifix in the main up- per-level space of the gallery. The title—which includes the words ‘You’re gonna die up there/ Keep away! The sow is mine/ Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me/ Let Jesus fuck you, let Jesus fuck you! Let him fuck you/ Lick me, lick me/ Do you know what she did, your cunting daughter?’—is taken from the lines delivered by a demon in the 1973 horror film The Exorcist. The installation is both a tongue-in-cheek rebuke of Vō’s Catholic upbringing, and a reference to archeological finds and the spoils of colonial ex- peditions. The work was first exhibited by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía at the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid as part of the artist’s exhibition Banish the Faceless / Reward Your Grace (1 October 2015–4 April 2016). At White Cube, the work is accompanied by a hanging object installed in an adjoining corridor: a sword taken from the Mamluk Arsenal at Alexandria during the last Crusade in the second half of the 14th century.

The gallery’s lower-level space contains a glass-box refrigerator which functions as both a vitrine and a plinth. It contains the wooden head of a polychrome Christ, and displays a fragment of a 16th-century Roman marble sculpture. A gold-leafed cardboard Budweiser box sits partially open against the wall not far from the refrigerator, and at the entrance to the room hangs a handwritten letter.

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DD In your White Cube exhibition, you com- DD Would you say it’s an exorcism of your bine fragments of antique sculptures own feeling? and Pleistocene mammoth fossils with a beer carton and lines from The Exor- DV [Laughs] I think so. It’s not provocation cist. You once said you wanted to liberate because it’s about myself frst of all. yourself from the conﬁnes of modernism by including objects and historical arte- DD A lot of your work seems to be exploring facts. Could you talk about that? the idea of renegotiating or reinventing your identity; it is as if you play with and DV Modernism detaches itself from broader layer diferent identities. history, and I don’t think that should necessarily be the case. I learned much later DV Yes, anything else but being nationalist is about the Renaissance and antiquities. You good, particularly in these times. Nation- fnd traces if you dig deeper into it. I felt it alism prevents you from playing with the necessary to add historic layers for my own multiple possibilities of identities, which is sake, as a learning process. I think that’s stupid, almost. how that started. Also, I started to travel much more to Italy and began looking at DD You always seem to challenge or defy so- fantastic things that are part of the cultural cial conventions and institutions. There production there. The [cardboard] boxes are the provocative lines from The Exor- came much earlier, and they have much cist, and the questioning of the institu- more of a modernist context. tion of marriage through your ongoing ‘Marriage Project’, for which you have I was raised Catholic and went to church married and divorced friends whilst add- every Sunday, and I hated it. But today I ing their surnames to yours since 2003. feel fortunate to have been raised with this What is your relationship with, or feel- crazy iconographic imagery. You have to ing towards, societal institutions? respect it. It’s a culture that’s brutal and bloody and perverse. DV I think almost everything—society and social constrictions and expectations of DD In that context, using quotes from The what is happiness, and so on—is construct- Exorcist for titles makes sense, as does ed by other people. I was raised with ideas the press release, which ofers little in- of things that didn’t ft me, and I think they formation about the meaning of the ft very few people in general. We have to works on show, except for an extract push these aside to be able to insert our- of demonic possession from the ﬁlm’s selves into them, to fnd a space for our- script that is very provocative in its selves. blasphemy. Is this revenge against your Catholic upbringing? Are you trying to We were all raised with this expectation deliberately provoke? that if we have a family and a good job, we will be happy. It’s just not right, especial- DV It’s taken from popular culture. It’s all done ly in my case as a gay man from another with a bit of humour. And it’s liberating, I culture, raised in Denmark—that’s a lot of needed that. In the beginning, I had difcul- baggage. From very early on I had to rene- ties expressing those words, but now I feel gotiate these things, and yes, I think this is fne with it. That’s good enough for me. refected in the work I’m doing. Installation view: Danh Vō, White Cube, Hong Kong (7 September–12 November 2016). © White Cube and Danh Vō. Photo: Kitmin Lee.

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Danh Vō, Untitled (2016). Late-14th-century crusader sword from the Mamluk arsenal at Alexandria; steel, leather, resin cast of hilt. 3 × 24 × 125 Danh Vō, 2.2.1861 (2009). Ink on A4 paper. 29.6 × 8.25 cm. Installation view: Danh Vō, White Cube, Hong Kong (7 September–12 November 2016). cm. Installation view: Danh Vō, White Cube, Hong Kong (7 September–12 November 2016). © White Cube and Danh Vō. Photo: Kitmin Lee. © White Cube and Danh Vō. Photo: Kitmin Lee.

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DV If I knew that I would be a very rich man barely see it unless you know that it’s there. [laughs]. That’s the same idea when you have a fragment. You only need a piece, you don’t need DD You said in another interview that you the whole thing: just a piece to give you the don’t like to interpret your work. How freedom to imagine. do your ideas coalesce?

DV It’s very simple. When I put things together and it becomes too direct, then I feel that it’s not right. It’s a constellation of things that still leaves openness and freedom. It’s allowing people the space to still insert themselves into the work.

DD Is that the most important thing for you as an artist?

DV Yes, the dialogue and freedom, for sure.

DD You previously exhibited the fragments Installation view: Danh Vō, White Cube, Hong Kong (7 September–12 November 2016). © White Cube and Danh Vō. Photo: Kitmin Lee. of mammoth fossils you are showing at White Cube in Hong Kong with the Re- ina Sofía in Madrid. These are two very DD It’s interesting that your work constant- if you’re wearing a scarf or covering up, diferent spaces—one is a national insti- ly gets framed in terms of your person- people are outraged that you’re expressing tution and the other is a white cube. How al history and experience as a refugee. your private life in public. What is this? do you navigate these spaces? How do A certain expectation is imposed based What is the public and who defnes it? It’s you curatorially approach them? You’re on your biography. How do you feel a really tricky defnition. It’s what I oppose. very hands-on, right? about that? And it’s not a fxed structure either. That powerful structure moves all the time and DV Yeah, it’s a risk every time because I don’t DV Of course, it’s terrible. But it also expresses we’re not even aware of it. I think that is work with a studio. The exhibition space the structure that defnes it. It would be dif- why we have to challenge these notions. becomes the place of experimentation, so I ferent if it were a white man making abstract have some ideas and materials that I bring paintings because it comes from the dom- DD You are challenging these notions but with me, and then I get to work. inant structure. If it doesn’t get expressed, in a subtle and indirect way. You leave a then we don’t defne it. very open space for interpretation. DD What is the relationship between the various objects you have used in the It’s like two guys holding hands in the street DV Yes, well I have had too many teachers and White Cube show? 20 years ago; people would say that they priests in my life [laughs]. I don’t want to act were bringing their private life into the like them and impose more dogma. You can DV Of course, I think I have a reason that I public. But if a man and a woman do that, suggest things and people can use it or not. use certain references and imagery, but it doesn’t get defned because it’s hidden to be honest when I install it’s primarily within the dominant structure. DD You use a lot of personal objects and ar- aesthetic. When you see the fridge with tefacts in your work as well. How do you the box [Lick Me, Lick Me (2016)], it’s all Or like burkinis. You can lay naked on approach this? At what point do you re- fragments inside. And then the cardboard the beach and it doesn’t get noticed, but alise an object can become a work of art? box has fragments of a fag inside, but you

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Liu Xiaodong

IN CONVERSATION WITH ELLIAT ALBRECHT SHANGHAI, 18 OCTOBER 2016

Chinese artist Liu Xiaodong takes figure painting out of the studio and into EA How does Weight of Insomnia fit into It is impossible for an artist to be reincar- the fields, factories and family homes of regions rife with political turmoil, your practice as a whole, and what nated as a machine. As an artist, I value ob- economic unease and environmental degradation. Setting up easels on loca- prompted such a high-tech project? jectivity very much. There’s no better way tion to depict real people in places such as rural China, Thailand, Tibet and to show that than with a machine, because Israeli-Palestinian conflict zones, Liu is a modern plein air artist, painting his LX It was primarily because of the curator, a machine is very objective. It doesn’t have subjects in their natural settings with a sensitivity to their complex situa- Zhang Ga. He and I were at the same art an attitude. Having said that, it also assumes tions. His large-scale works are like history paintings for the contemporary school, and he has always been considered a certain type of attitude because I’m the world, allowing still-unravelling narratives to tell themselves. a pioneer in pushing the boundaries of art. one behind it. I control the speed of the Liu paints with loose brushstrokes in a realist style, drawing out his subjects He’s quite infuential among his peers, in- arm’s movement, the size of the pen and and their surroundings first, getting to know them during the process. His use cluding me. It was Zhang Ga who con- what kind of subject the machine draws. of colour leans towards the liberal, while remaining vivid and believable, and vinced me to take this on. It was a real chal- So even though the subjectivity is minimal, the curves, shadows and textures of the bodies in his works combine to give lenge because I’m computer illiterate and there’s still a trace of it. But I try as much as their subjects a lifelike presence. Equal attention is given to the landscapes don’t know much about new media. I’ve possible to still retain the objectivity. that surround them; grass, mountains, water and trees are rendered with painted for the past 30 years, and initial- highly varied impasto textures. It is obvious that Liu is a painter who is serious ly Zhang painted as well, but he then ven- This fts into my practice and interest in about the act of looking. An avid notetaker, he writes and sketches his obser- tured into new media, so he knows a lot flm. I’ve worked in flm a lot, mainly doc- vations and plans in his diaries, which are often exhibited alongside his work. about it. It really was a huge challenge for umentary, which has had a very big impact me, but I wanted to take it on and create a on me. I don’t know what’s going to happen Liu also has an extensive personal history with film, both appearing in and very high-quality work. in the next second in flm. It’s the same as making moving pictures to supplement his work. The documentary Home- this project, because I don’t know what’s town Boy (2011), directed by Yao Hungi, followed Liu on his return to his home- EA The press release for the exhibition going to be captured in the next seconds by town of Jincheng in Liaoning Province, where he spent three months paint- poetically suggests that the driving the camera. So this is very objective. ing his family and childhood friends amid the economic and environmental force behind Weight of Insomnia is you, devastation that befell the town after the local paper mill closed. Similarly, reincarnated as a robotic consciousness. EA One of the cameras faces a busy cross- the 2006 Jia Zhangke-directed documentary Dong (‘East’, ӳ), trailed Liu as What do you make of this—can a painter ing in Sanlitun. Why did you choose he painted a group of labourers near the Three Gorges Dam in Yichang—a be reincarnated as a machine? this location? controversial structure that has flooded archaeological and cultural sites, displacing nearly 1.3 million people. LX Actually, there are two levels of meaning to LX Actually, I frst wanted to set up a camera A brand-new work of a rather diferent sort is on view in the exhibition Da- the title Weight of Insomnia. The frst is on a to capture my apartment in Beijing, but it’s tumsoria: An Exhibition of Liu Xiaodong, Carsten Nicolai, and Nam June Paik more personal level: we’ve all experienced not a very busy street—not very happen- at Chronus Art Center in Shanghai’s M50 district (17 September–30 Decem- difculty in sleeping, and when we wake ing—so I was looking for a more exciting ber 2016). Created specifically for the exhibition, Liu’s ultra high-tech Weight up in the middle of the night, we get very place. It just so happened that one of my of Insomnia (2016) features three robotic arms set up in front of large-scale depressed. We look outside the window high-school friends has become a very suc- canvases mounted on construction scafolds. Below, laptops screen live foot- and stare out at the night, not moving. cessful businessman and owns an ofce. He age from video cameras fixed on three locations: the first near the Bund in From a personal perspective, it creates a invited me to come visit, and I saw it was a Shanghai, the second in Beijing’s Sanlitun district, and the last on a public pla- lot of pressure in one’s mind. The second very good spot so I installed a camera there. za in the artist’s hometown where, at dawn or dusk, elderly people gather to level of meaning pertains to machines It so happens that the camera is facing the dance to disco music. As the exhibition’s introduction states, these robotic themselves. A machine gets even more cross street in a busy district of Beijing. It’s arms translate the incoming data into ‘contours of buildings, silhouettes of depressed, because when it is built and very congested; there are a lot of cars and trees, outlines of vehicles, and shadows of human figures’, and transfer them put into the factory it must run 24 hours people. I think it’s a good representation of onto the canvases in real time over the course of the exhibition, testing just non-stop. Unlike the people in facto- a city which is very cramped. It’s a power- what painting can be in the age of new media and data. ries, machines work all three shifts: in the ful and, to some extent, violent image. morning, evening and through the night. Ocula spoke with Liu before the opening of Datumsoria at Chronus Art Cen- Machines can’t stop. Insomnia is even more EA What can the moving image do or convey ter. The exhibition will open at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe on depressing for them. that painting cannot? 9 September 2017 and will run until 12 November 2017.

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LX It’s about the element of time. In painting, on. I like to visit places of complexity; places you only see the end result, so the element that can show the dynamics of society. So of time is missing. But in the moving image, you won’t fnd me working in a park, because people experience the element of time by that’s too simple. I want to work somewhere watching the video—it is a process that with contradiction and confict. can be seen. Actually, in this new project I also wanted to employ the element of EA What is it about an individual that draws time. Because by showing the machine’s you to paint them? arms paint in real time, people can see the passing of time. This is also in line with my LX Basically, the selection process is more of ideas about painting. I want to show people a comparison; I try to base it on my own the painting process, which is full of surpris- perception. For example, if I want to paint es. It can even be considered a performing fve people out of a group of ten, I will art. It’s very humorous and lively. just choose the fve people based on what I prefer. So there are no set rules. EA How has your art education at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, EA In Ocula’s last interview with you in 2013, which was rooted in Chinese socialist you said that painting is the most dif- realism, impacted your work? I ask be- cult thing to do in today’s art environ- cause your paintings don’t depict the ment. Yet you seem to paint very quickly Liu Xiaodong, Weight of Insomnia (2016). Installation view: Datumsoria: An Exhibition of Liu Xiaodong, Carsten Nicolai, and Nam June Paik, Chronus traditional, grandiose political ideals and very often. How do you maintain this Art Center, Shanghai (17 September–30 December 2016). Courtesy Chronus Art Center. that characterise that style, but rath- momentum? Do you ever get frustrated er reﬂect the hardships and realities of with your paintings? everyday life. LX I get frustrated when I’m not painting. It’s LX It has impacted my work. However, if you a strange feeling. It’s like you’re addicted follow socialist realism through its history, to a drug. If I don’t paint, I start to ques- it has two stages. The frst allows you to go tion life. I start to question painting itself. into real life, to experience other people’s But once I pick up the brush, it’s all in the lives, so the end result is a work that ex- process. The process is what’s driving me. presses a stance that is highly summarised The process breaks painting into several from the artist’s perspective. However, I parts that are systematically organised in a only go into other people’s lives to experi- day. So for example, today I have to fnish ence them. I feel that other people’s lives this part, tomorrow, that part. I feel very are already artworks. So I don’t want to content and full of energy. summarise; I don’t want to make a political stance. I want to just faithfully reproduce EA So there’s structure to it. other people’s lives, because it’s already a very difcult and great thing to try to record LX Yes, it’s a very structured process. people’s stories. EA Through your work, you’ve immersed EA How do you choose your subjects when yourself in sites of cultural and political you are painting on location? tension, including Thailand, Cuba, Israel, China and America. Out of all of these places, which was the one that impact- LX When I paint, I like to go somewhere that one Liu Xiaodong, Weight of Insomnia (2016). Installation view: Datumsoria: An Exhibition of Liu Xiaodong, Carsten Nicolai, and Nam June Paik, Chronus can’t explain in one sentence what’s going ed you the most? Art Center, Shanghai (17 September–30 December 2016). Courtesy Chronus Art Center.

268 269 LIU XIAODONG OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

LX Actually, it was America. At the time, I wanted to paint a group of high-school students. I wanted to make a diferent kind of painting. However, when I spoke with the students, they weren’t cooperative. Then I realised I was the problem. As a painter or any kind of artist, we determine what we want to convey. We never think about the subject’s ideas or how they feel. If you go to a poor country, people might not have many opinions about the way you paint them because as long as you give them money, they’re satisfed. However, if you go to places like the United States where people are very opinionated—even the kids have their own ideas—then you’ll have a problem.

So I realised that art is a process of coop- eration. This is not a one-way street—the process cannot be solely decided by the artists themselves. So I invited the students to write their own opinions directly on the painting, and then they became very cooperative. I believe this is an aspect of democ- racy and equality, which inspires me a lot. Liu Xiaodong, Time (2014). Oil on canvas. 20 canvases, 60 × 60 cm each. Overall dimensions: 240 × 300 cm. © Liu Xiaodong. Courtesy Lisson Gallery, London/New York/Milan. It also aligned with my ideas about objectivity in my works, because objectivity is also a refection of fairness. So the process of creating art is a reciprocal one that can only be created by two parties working together. It’s not a matter of ‘work for me’, but rather ‘work with me’. So it’s not about how difcult the painting was; the painting itself was not difcult. But it’s about the working process.

EA Where and what would you like to paint next?

LX I’ve already been there, but Bangladesh. My next project will be about Bangladeshi workers who demolish abandoned ships from all over the world, taking of all the metal parts in order to sell them. It’s a very painstaking job.

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FIAC Paris

20–23 OCTOBER 2016

General impression: FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. 273 Installation view: Barbara Kruger, Sprüth Magers, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Liza Lou, Lehmann Maupin, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Sam Falls, Josh Smith and Ugo Rondinone, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Urs Fischer and Sarah Lucas, Sadie Coles HQ, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Chou Yu-Cheng, Edouard Malingue Gallery, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Do Ho Suh, Hub, Wielandstr. 18, 12159 Berlin (2015). Installation view: Victoria Miro, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Jose Dávila, Jesper Just and A Kassen, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Kishio Suga, Tomio Koyama Gallery, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Imi Knoebel, Theaster Gates and Damien Hirst, White Cube, FIAC, Paris (20–23 October 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Xiaoyu Weng

IN CONVERSATION WITH STEPHANIE BAILEY NEW YORK, 25 OCTOBER 2016

In 2015, Xiaoyu Weng was appointed The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foun- SB In your introductory essay you talk about artists are going to work on. In other words, dation Associate Curator of Chinese Art at the Solomon R. Guggen- one of the greatest challenges in work- to let the artworks somehow illustrate a heim Museum in New York, where Weng is working with consulting ing on this show: how to reconcile theme—such a method can itself be an act curator Hou Hanru to implement a long-term research, curatorial and the contemporary condition in China of ‘marking territories’ through curatorial collections-building programme that focuses on commissioning major that is characterised by a conflicting authority. Therefore, the concrete theme works from artists born in Greater China. The appointment was a natu- relationship between China’s develop- actually came after we did the studio visits, ral progression for Weng, who has organised exhibitions and public pro- ing globalism—summarised by a ‘cloud’ selected the artists, and received their programmes at such venues as the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, CAFA mentality in which the ‘free-floating in- posals. We understood from the beginning Art Museum in Beijing, and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art dividual’ embraces the idea of the glob- that we would like to work with artists who in Rotterdam. Prior to her appointment at the Guggenheim, Weng was al community—and its own national and practice in similar conditions—who under- the founding director of Kadist Art Foundation’s Asia Programs for Paris political character. stand the plural and rich tensions between and San Francisco, where she oversaw artist residencies, built the con- China and the rest of the world, and share temporary Asian art collection, and launched the Kadist Curatorial Col- You sum up this complex situation in a similar concerns. Therefore, these artists laboration, which organises exhibitions designed to encourage cultural really succinct question: ‘Can we diag- either have experience living and working exchange. Before that, she was the programme director of the Asian Con- nose and counteract the deceptive de- abroad or have participated in exhibitions temporary Art Consortium in San Francisco and a curator at the Wattis territorialization enacted by the ideol- substantively outside of the context of Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts. ogy of the cloud, without resorting to China, or both. After fully comprehend- reterritorialization—that is, without In this interview, Weng talks about Tales of Our Time, the second exhi- ing what they were working on and think- projecting an equally false monumental bition organised within the framework of the Guggenheim’s Robert H. ing about, or their interests at the time, the and unified Chinese artistic character?’ N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative (4 November 2016–10 links started to emerge among some of the March 2017). Shown at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the ex- artists we visited. After further evaluation, Could you talk about how you sought hibition will present new commissions by nine artists born in mainland we decided to work with these seven artists to answer this question along with Hou China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan: Chia-En Jao, Kan Xuan, Sun Xun, Sun Yuan and artist groups. Then, we provided these Hanru, your fellow curator, in the various and Peng Yu, Tsang Kin-Wah, Yangjiang Group, and Zhou Tao. Tales of artists a set of keywords for them to respond stages of the project? Our Time brings together artists who, as the exhibition’s introduction to, including ideas of territory, boundary states, ‘challenge the conventional understanding of place’ by consid- and borders, but we invited them to think XW ering ‘concepts of geography and nation-state’ through artworks that Hanru and I hold interesting positions our- as speculatively and poetically as possible. reflect on ‘often-overlooked cultural and historical narratives’. These selves in understanding this condition. As We also provided the same set of keywords works ‘address specific locations, such as their hometowns, remote bor- Chinese-born curators, we both work in to the fction writers who contributed short derlands, or a group of uninhabited islands, as well as abstract ideas, such an international context; we absorb infor- stories to our catalogue. as territory, boundaries, or even utopia.’ The curatorial premise considers mation, communicate with diferent artists, China ‘not only as a country but also as a notion that is open for ques- look at exhibitions, and participate in dis- What is worth mentioning is that these tioning and reinvention.’ cussions with peers and colleagues from artworks have all entered the permanent multiple cultural and political environ- collection at the Guggenheim Museum. In creating work for the show, each of the artists responded to a challenge ments. Such plurality has enabled us to con- The Robert H. N. Ho Family Founda- Weng and Hou Hanru posed: how to represent—and respond to—the stantly refect on these issues. Therefore, tion Chinese Art Initiative does not only conditions of globalism and a certain kind of national frame, which in the we are always more interested in the ten- present exhibitions, but also builds a col- case of this exhibition and the programme to which it belongs, is ‘China’. sions between China and the global situa- lection to contribute to a larger narrative tion, and other diferent cultural contexts. of our contemporary art history. This The point is not to place one in opposition is very important and interesting, because to the other but to examine the complexity another layer of ‘deterritorialization’ takes of these relationships. place in this context. We hope that these new commissions will have a diferent life I am very much against the idea—especial- after this exhibition. After being interpret- ly for commissioning projects—of imposed in Tales of Our Time, they will go on to ing a theme before even knowing what the be interpreted and displayed in many other

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exhibitions, in many other narratives, and, these specifc sites but also Taipei and even most importantly, to be connected to art- Taiwan as a concept of place. Therefore, for works not produced in a ‘Chinese’ context. Kan, it is cities of old times and for Jao, it is the urban metropolis of today. Zhou Tao SB Could you talk about the works that investigates the formation of the urban en- will be shown, and how they reﬂect the vironment; taking Guangzhou and Shen- theme at hand? zhen as starting points, he flmed many of the construction sites and their interesting XW If I can draw a parallel, I would love to semi-ecologies and the relationship between compare this exhibition to a poem, but natural and artifcial elements of our con- absolutely not a piece of argumentative temporary existence. The complex relation- writing or expository writing. I hope this ship between nature and culture is also ex- can enable an understanding of the rela- emplifed through Sun Xun’s new work, tionship between all these artworks with for which he used the mining history of his the ‘theme’ or ‘title’ of this exhibition hometown Fuxin as an entry point. The and, more importantly, how they relate to history of coal mining is itself extremely each other. As a curator, I never consid- political and is a history shared by many difer artworks as illustrations of a curator’s ferent regions in the world. So again, China, idea. Curators provide a context for art- or a specifc place in China, becomes a con- works to be experienced, but not a didactic nection point for many larger discourses. speech of how they should be understood. Then we have Tsang Kin-Wah, who looks Therefore, for me, making an exhibition is at the Diaoyu Islands, known as Senkaku always a process of many threads woven to- Islands in Japan: a place of constant and gether, from the issues we curators would enduring territorial dispute between China like to put forward, the ideas the artworks and Japan. He uses this group of uninhabit- express and the materiality of the artworks, ed islands to refect on the course of history, to the spatial relationships, architectur- and the relationship between human expe- al conditions, the route a visitor will nav- rience and the writing of history. igate through, how such spatial experiences enhance the meaning of an artwork com- If the above-mentioned artists all consid- pared to when it is displayed alone, and so er a specifc site as the starting point of on. Perhaps such an approach also diferen- their work, Beijing-based duo Sun Yuan tiates my practice as a curator versus other and Peng Yu speak about the concepts of museum curators. territory and boundaries in an allegori- cal way. They have employed a robotic With that said, I can give a very brief outline machine and programmed it to conduct a of how these artworks connect to each specifc action: monitoring a puddle of red other. But again, these connections are in- liquid on the foor and shovelling it back Chia-En Jao, Taxi (2016). Colour UHD video with sound. 79 min., 32 sec. The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Collection, 2016.37. Courtesy tended to be read as one would read a poem. whenever it spreads over a predetermined Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. © Chia-En Jao. Kan Xuan takes us to places that used to border. But the exhibition ends on an up- be cities in diferent eras of history, spin- lifting note about the possibility of creating ning from earlier centuries to more recent a utopia—another concept of a place—in times, across thousands of years; Chia-En a contemporary art exhibition. Yangjiang Jao visited sites loaded with historical and Group transplanted their autonomous zone political signifcance with local taxi drivers from Yangjiang, China, to the Guggenheim in Taipei. But the work is not only about Museum. Since 2002, this collective has been

290 OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

organising communal gatherings in their eter we shall be working from. We simply studio, where they invite neighbours and selected interesting artists whose practices friends to share meals, practice calligraphy, in recent years will make an attractive exhi- drink tea and play soccer. They have trans- bition and generate previously non-existent formed part of the Guggenheim gallery into artistic connections. a tea gathering space, a Chinese garden with calligraphy murals. There is not much politics in this exhibition in terms of balancing a relationship between SB I am curious about how you made this se- the mainland, Hong Kong or Taiwan. I lection based on the geographical criteria think this approach has already diferenti- set by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foun- ated us from exhibitions at Para Site, whose dation Chinese Art Initiative, which in- exhibitions in recent years do carry much cludes wider China—that is, artists born bigger ambitions. (Para Site is doing very in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. There important work and creating interesting are of course political undertones to this narrative-based essay exhibitions.) regional framing of China, which makes me think of how Para Site’s executive di- We are not escaping/denying/protesting rector and curator Cosmin Costinas and anything, but are open to complicating any Asia Art Archive senior researcher An- pre-fxed frame. Simply ‘escaping’ does not thony Yung used the term ‘Chinese world’ equal ‘making fuid’. We can apply your in the 2015 group show, One Hundred same questions to the ideas of what Hong Years of Shame—Songs of Resistance and Kong or Taiwan are. So what is Taiwan? Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Can’t Help Myself (2016). Kuka industrial robot, stainless steel and rubber, cellulose ether in coloured water, lighting grid Scenarios for Chinese Nations. with Cognex visual-recognition sensors, and polycarbonate wall with aluminium frame. Dimensions variable overall. The Robert H. N. Ho Family How do you understand it? Is it just an Foundation Collection, 2016.40. Courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. © Sun Yuan & Peng Yu. island? A place whose recent history was To that end, could you elaborate on the made by Chiang Kai-shek? How do people politics of this exhibition, as complex as living there feel about Japanese culture? I they are? On one hand, we have a show am afraid the answer is not that black and consciously trying to escape the regional white. But art practice, through the power or national frame in monumental, or sol- of imagination, can make these places and id terms—that is, by allowing the defini- notions plural. tion of ‘China’ to remain fluid. But on the other, we also have a definition of that This is not an exhibition based on ‘China’, very national space. but a show with artists participating from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. If XW We are not interested in or capable of pro- we continue the rhetoric from the media posing a new ‘canon’ in how to defne world—the art critics, the writers and even ‘China’, not even the art from China, not the educators—in interpreting the making to mention China in its historical, political of the exhibition and the artists’ works, then and cultural complexities. This is too big we will be running in circles and end up at a of an issue to be addressed through an ex- dead end. We have to think and refect crit- hibition, and I am a disbeliever of anyone ically on ourselves as part of the art com- who claims to do so. But this is the condi- munity and how we actually contribute not tion we are working from. What you have so positively and efectively in perpetuating described is the condition of the [Robert such rhetoric. Have we opened up our own

Sun Xun, Mythological Time (2016) (detail). Two-channel colour HD animated video with sound, and ink, graphite and acrylic on mulberry bark H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art] minds? Have we even made an attempt to paper. The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Collection, 2016.38. Courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. © Sun Xun. Initiative, on many levels; and it is a param- understand these exhibitions and artworks

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and artists with fresh eyes? Can we get rid tions we all refect on and the answers are crossover from a more independent, free- For my upcoming exhibition at the Gug- of the burden of pre-existing notions? not easy. But I would like to consider Tales lance position. You might call this another genheim, for example, I am bringing many of Our Time as a trigger for people to think kind of cultural exchange of sorts. such independent and critical voices to be One important question I always ask myself more about these issues, rather than fnding part of the programme accompanying the is this: are there any alternatives for showing ready answers. XW For sure. I am experiencing big learning show. I think new innovations in exhibit- contemporary art from China in a non-Chi- curves, but it’s all interesting curatorial ex- ing and interpreting art from China has to nese context, besides the existing models— SB I wonder if you could talk about how perience. I think, in the museum context, come from such cross-pollenating eforts. one, the historicisation of art, meaning the this exhibition develops on your previ- I am not only an exhibition maker but also situation of artists in frameworks of poli- ous work, predicated as it was on creat- a curator in its traditional sense: a care- tics and identities; and two, the market and ing moments of cultural exchange? This taker of collections. As I mentioned, these commercial success of art and whoever is includes the work you did at the Kadist newly commissioned works will enter the hot and big? Is it possible to create a dif- Art Foundation, and with the Kadist Cura- museum’s permanent collection, forming ferent relationship with history? Can we go torial Collaboration, which you initiated, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation to the specifcities: the specifcs of an artist, as well as the curatorial projects and writ- Collection together with Wang Jianwei’s the specifcs of one artwork, the specifcs of ing projects you have engaged in prior to work, the artist commissioned for the one element, one object? Are we still able your appointment at the Guggenheim. frst cycle of the Initiative as organised to be imaginative? Can we feel them phys- by Thomas J. Berghuis. I really hope that ically and let go of our mind? Can we love XW I always think about alternatives to our these works will have a diferent life, being them? Can we balance the sensory and in- current condition, alternatives to the dom- shown at diferent exhibitions and museums tellectual experience? inant art systems, cultural and knowledge internationally. At the same time, I am very productions and circulations, mainstream excited to be able to have a much bigger au- The same comments can be applied to the values and even social organisations: I guess dience for my work. I am curious to learn making of an exhibition. It is not just a re- a lot of the things artists think about. I am how people can create a relationship with portage or commentary of a theme. For me, also a true believer of the power of imag- this initiative and this exhibition, and what spatial relationships, site-specifcities and all ination in art. I think the possibilities of kinds of relationship. other experiences during one’s visit to an alternatives come from exchanging ideas exhibition are equally as important as what and values, which makes the deconstruc- But I also miss the independent work en- will be read on a wall label. tion of stereotypes possible. I am interest- vironment and spirit. For me, it is really ed in introducing new things and ideas to important to always keep that criticality SB How does this exhibition ﬁt into the pol- people, as I am by nature very curious. I and independent thinking no matter what itics of its context—that is, the United am always open-minded and ready to step kind of position I am in. I like to challenge States? out of my comfort zone. I think art is such myself. I also would like to create connec- a great thing when it comes to stimulating tions between independent practices and XW What exactly is the cultural specifcity people to do the same. Many of our world’s institutional practices, not only by myself of the US, or let’s be more specifc, New problems could be solved by more commu- but also with other practitioners in the feld. York? How can we understand the idea nication and exchange. I want to engage people who are doing of the cosmopolitan today? Immigration amazing work but do not necessarily have culture? Do the American people know? SB In turn, how do you see your practice de- a big audience. I think the institution is a And how to articulate it? Why is an Amer- veloping with The Robert H. N. Ho Family great platform to circulate these ideas and ican audience interested in arts and cultures Foundation Chinese Art Initiative at the knowledge. At the same time, these inde- from Asia, Africa and Latin America? Are Guggenheim, and how do you see the pendent practices also challenge the insti- people really still interested? Has a kind Initiative developing as a result of your tution, pushing its boundaries and motivat- of global ambition evolved in the past own evolving practice? You mention ing its reinvention. Perhaps this is how the decades? How can American institutions that this is really your ﬁrst experience museum might avoid becoming the ‘mau- genuinely engage with art produced in these within a major institutional setting, and soleum’ described by Theodor W. Adorno. places of the world? These are the ques- I’m curious how you’ve experienced the

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Raqs Media Collective

IN CONVERSATION WITH SRINIVAS ADITYA MOPIDEVI SHANGHAI, 11 NOVEMBER 2016

Photo: Dreamvilla. RAQS MEDIA COLLECTIVE OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

th Curated by the New Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective, the 11 edition SAM The form of the biennale is currently sit- On the other hand, this time of exhaustion is of the Shanghai Biennale (SHB11) Why Not Ask Again: Arguments, Count- uated between the conceptual states of also the time of another kind of renewal— er-arguments, and Stories opens to the public on 12 November 2016 and excess and exhaustion. The collective the emergence of new journals, new flm runs until 12 March 2017. Anchored by the idea that making a biennale is discourse produced from the hundreds festivals, new student groups, new sites a form of posing questions, the exhibition seeks to challenge the current of biennales that take place all over the of de-occupation, new friends and new divisions of the world between ‘East’ and ‘West’ by developing a ‘South- world is fostering a sense of hyper-sat- recipes, which are all very welcome. They South’ dialogue. In this Ocula Conversation, Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi uration in the ﬁeld. Both the curatori- show an inherent desire for lateral exten- speaks to the members of Raqs Media Collective—Jeebesh Bagchi, Moni- al narratives and the artists that take sions and expressions. They make us move. ca Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta—about the relevance of engaging part in these mega-scale events are of- with the biennale form today, and their speciﬁc plans for SHB11. ten repetitively framed, insofar as they Relentless conversations with so many become merely symbolic of today’s wid- people across disciplines, practices and er socio-political events. This situation borders bring energy, confusion and in- has lead me to think about the idea of ex- sights. Lantian Xie, an artist based in Dubai, haustion as a way to frame contempora- captured this elegantly in a social media neity within a biennale context. The mo- post: ‘A few weeks ago, I spent some time ment of exhaustion is a generative state in Shanghai with the Biennale’s curatorial where existing imaginary resources are team. At some point in our conversations, burnt out, and in order to proceed new their words seemed to pull apart and loosen forms must be invented. Does the con- their shapes, turning into tempos, melodies, ceptual premise of SHB11, Why Not Ask interruptions, syncopations. It was then Again, allude to and develop from this that I began to suspect that I was in fact in productive condition of exhaustion? the company of a jazz band in full swing.’ Making a biennale can possibly become a RMC Exhaustion has emerged as a provocative weave of praise, of other dissimilar sensi- turn in thought in the last few years. It has bilities and improvisations. been tagged to the concept of labouring bodies, and has found itself annotating the Why Not Ask Again does not afrm or destiny of hydrocarbons, immaterial labour, negate—or elide over—the present pan- fresh water, minerals, the ozone layer and demonium. It is trying to bring into play a oxygen, among many other things. Mean- panoply of vantage points, itineraries and while, the global GDP in 2013 was over 75 imaginaries. It seeks to foreground a way trillion US dollars. In 1990 it was 28 trillion to tap into subterranean and imperceptible dollars, and in 1950, 4 trillion dollars. These forces, perceptional edges, hibernating con- shifts emerge from complicated calculations versations and interrupted journeys, as it that tell us some things and also do not tell leaps into heretical historical detours, and us something else. We are in the midst of into speculative geographies. an unprecedented acceleration in produc- tivity, labour processes, access to raw ma- During a conversation in Delhi between terials, mobility, deployment and the distri- Monica and artist Peter Piller, whose work bution of surplus. Art is in some measure a uses found material from small-town news- site, a spike, within this seismic upheaval. papers in Germany, and after hearing him This shift—what we in Raqs call ‘thresh- talk about the exhaustion and serendipity he old time’—overfows with excess and ex- experienced while spending endless years haustion, extension and shrinkage, boom inside photo archives, Monica observed: and bust. There is no Archimedean point ‘Perhaps it is only when you are exhausted outside its jagged edge. and have exhausted all your curiosities and

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ways of seeing that you are aware of, that bodies, unresolved consciousness, in deliri- an unknown vision erupts for you.’ Maybe ous moods and states of being. The story of we are all in wait, on the cusp of exhaus- Shiva’s wedding ends with the god dancing tion and eruption. in rage in response to being insulted by his in-laws for the nature of his companions. SAM When biennales began proliferating two Shiva appears to have been Nietzsche’s fa- decades ago, they coincided with new vourite god. Such processions will always global forms of exchange and circula- fnd it difcult to enter history and, by ex- tion and were framed as an alternative tension, the museum. Rather, these unruly to museological exhibition practices. energies are detours. They take paths and The key binary between these two ap- seek connections that are not yet there; they proaches is that conventional institu- play with instruments whose sound is yet to tions are occupied in both recovering fnd an amplifer. Biennales are on that cusp the past and appropriating the present, that Hannah Arendt marked as the present: while, in contrast, biennales instead in- the indistinct zone between ‘has been’ and sist on a critical reflection of the present ‘not yet’. It is a tightrope dance, like in the in speculation of the future. Recent in- 1923 Paul Klee painting, Tightrope Walker. stances include All the World’s Futures, th curated by Okwui Enwezor [56 Venice SAM The emphasis on the ‘politics of a place’ Biennale (2015)], and The Eighth Climate is becoming an increasingly important Hu Xiangqian, The Labor Song I Night (2012). High definition video. 1920 × 1080 p. Courtesy the artist. (What does art do?), led by Maria Lind framework for biennales. This comes [11th Gwangju Biennale (2016)]. Will this with the rising pressure faced by cura- specific emphasis on art as a site of the tors when working outside of their own present and the future—both as a pre- local contexts, to both ethically and gen- diction and possibility—continue to in- eratively work in a way that is informed fluence the framing of biennales and the by the discourse of the host. How did making of the art? you, as curators of the 11th Shanghai Bi- ennale, envision the selection of artists th RMC Recently, during the opening of the 11 for a Chinese audience and their posi- Gwangju Biennale, we were in a discussion tioning in the local context of Shanghai? with Babi Badalov, the exiled artist from Azerbaijan, now based in Paris. For Babi, RMC On our frst curatorial visit to Shanghai, biennales are critical mobilisations that we met the young artist Yu Ji. Along with need to keep questioning how the narrative her practice—where she explores forces and multiplicity of locations are formed, of nature—she has created a studio-resi- because that afects the poetics of afrma- dency process for other artists in her studio tion—the hues and textures of the relations space. We found this enfolding invitation that are produced in a biennale—as well as for others very moving and challenging. the kind of provocations being proposed. With subsequent visits, we have begun to understand that there is a way in which To us, the contemporary is a space to join artists in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing in the ridiculed and halted Bhole ki baraat and other places activate and support each (the marriage procession of Shiva). Shiva’s other. One young artist downloaded ten gi- wedding party was a raucous procession of gabytes of videos, images and other mate- wild animals, outcasts of all kinds, ghosts rial by all his artist friends so that we could Peter Piller, Looking into Holes (2000–2005) (detail). Courtesy the artist. and goblins with distorted, imperfect look at everyone’s work when we visited Next page: Simone Fattal, Freedom is a State of Mind (2004). Collage. Courtesy the artist.

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Guangzhou. We also got the same feeling consider this shift a productive direction as a singular event that has a specific be- in Radical Space, a project space in Shang- for biennales to head towards or would ginning and an end, but as a prolonged hai. This conviviality, this specifc tonality it mark a regression, signalling the bien- activity over time, during which a con- of living, is probably what makes a place nale’s inability to live up to its original stellation of ideas congregate and find expressive amid the intensity of the accel- ambitions? habitation. This method unbinds the eration these cities in China have witnessed. otherwise static configuration of an ex- th RMC When the curators of the 6 Moscow Bien- hibition into a diferent dialogue that is In her acceptance speech for the 2012 Kyoto nale suddenly found that they were strapped more flexible and open. For SHB 11, how Prize in Arts and Philosophy, Gayatri with minuscule resources and a shrunken will you continue to build on the idea Chakravorty Spivak described her journey space, they did not abandon the Biennale. of duration, a principle feature of Raqs’ eloquently as one woven in many voices Instead, they acted with agility, inventing earlier projects, and critique prevalent and lives that continue to speak through her a challenging scale and an intensifcation exhibition forms? as ‘the gift of spirit’. This gift is a special of time. This is the propositional quality one as it lives within and uncoils over long that biennales are attentive to. Ideally, a RMC Exploring the time feld that a biennale years with newer insights and dimensions. biennale should run for two years slowly ofers is exciting. It conjures up two spe- This spirit is in many ways visibly present morphing, and then after two years make cifc directions: one is to expand into the among the artists in these cities. Within the a course change with fresh energies and di- city, and another is to thicken the experi- Biennale, we are trying to draw in energies versions. We frst talked about this in our ence of time in the exhibition. There are that expand on this sense. This is one tra- essay for e-fux, ‘Earthworms Dancing: two processes we are working with. The jectory of our approach. Notes for a Biennial in Slow Motion’. frst is the ‘51 Personae’ project, which is being developed with Chen Yun (with The Biennale also positions many works Close to home, the proposed Srinagar Bi- whom we have been in conversation for from artists in China as conceptual fulcrums ennale seems to be working out a unique the last six years), looking at entire unrec- around which other works from other lo- model. They have put forth the proposi- ognised life zones of the city and bringing cations gather, making new readings pos- tion that you can iterate an event in the Sri- them into a space of co-existing visibili- sible. Zheng Bo, an artist who extensively nagar Biennale from anywhere in the world. ty. Chen Yun is working with a group of researches and creates social extensions of This is their way of transversally ofering a young artists, teachers and researchers at artistic practice, confrmed an observation disputed space—a space of violence by the Dinghaiqiao Mutual-Aid Society to meet that we made: that in China the space of state—as a platform that thinks itself glob- people and create scenarios emerging from contemporary art is becoming a crucial site ally. This is bold, as it opens out a radical their desires, fantasies and aspirations to where people of the younger generation stay rethinking of the relation between place make gatherings. This will happen through- and converse. This has defnitely made an and event. out the exhibition period and spread out all impact on the ways we have looked at the over the city. The second process or axis work being made and imagined by the in- Manifesta 6: The European Biennial of that we have conceptualised and are devel- coming generation of artists. Contemporary Art (which was supposed oping with Liu Tian, a member of our cura- to take place in Cyprus) did not go ahead torial collegiate, and scenarist Yao Mengxi, SAM Recently, there has been a rising de- due to political reasons. Manifesta sufered a is called ‘Theory Opera’. Here we turn the bate about the necessity of scaling major fnancial loss and yet, despite that, the exhibition space into a site for an experiment down biennales and controlling their model that was proposed by the curators of on what we term the ‘sensation of thought’. preoccupation with spectacle. The aim Manifesta 6—of the biennale as a school— This will draw in academic research, per- has been to generate initiatives that has shaped the subsequent discourse of ex- formative procedures, music and improvi- are more small-scale, experimental and hibition-making. sational display modes. Through both these sustainable. The 6th Moscow Biennale of durational modes, the Biennale should be Contemporary Art in 2015, for instance, SAM Raqs’s engagement with curatorial prac- able to give us a new form of doing, singing, was staged as a ten-day gathering rath- tice has, from the very beginning, been thought and mutuality. er than a conventional exhibition. Do you about seeing the exhibition format not

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Martine Syms

IN CONVERSATION WITH KATE BRETTKELLY-CHALMERS AUCKLAND, 15 DECEMBER 2016

Photo: Marco Braunschweiler. MARTINE SYMS OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Martine Syms is a Los Angeles-based artist who is gaining critical at- KBC I am interested in the way you refer to family references. There is this interesting tention for works that explore the relationship between black creative yourself as a ‘conceptual entrepreneur’ relationship between ‘authentic’ versus ‘per- cultures and contemporary digital media. She opened her solo exhibition rather than ‘artist’. How is this term a formed’ movement. Fact & Trouble at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in April better ﬁt for you? 2016, and is currently showing in group exhibitions across the globe, in- KBC And these gestures are looped in Notes cluding Public, Private, Secret at the ICP Museum, New York (23 June MS After I left art school, I was much more on Gesture so that they appear like re- 2016–8 January 2017); Los Angeles—A Fiction at Astrup Fearnley Mu- interested in creating structures for myself petitive GIFs. seet, Oslo (22 September 2016–22 January 2017); and Potentially Yours, and other artists to have a sustainable prac- The Coming Community at Artspace, Auckland (10 November–22 De- tice. I was really infuenced by the way that MS I’m interested in GIFs or Vines because of cember 2016). Ocula talked with Syms about her practice, focusing on people ran record labels or bookshops. the way they circulate the behaviours of her recent video Notes on Gesture (2015). The work was shown as part When I frst graduated, I was defnitely not black people right now. I am sad about Vine of the Artspace exhibition, and addresses the viral circulation of images making the kind of art that my school was being shut down, because it was such a re- of black women in television and online media. prioritising, so [‘artist’] didn’t feel like the source and source of inspiration for me. It right term to me. I actually started a book- was really amazing seeing these teenagers shop as a project space right out of school. making artwork with very limited means— In one sense, it was just a business, but I’m writing and telling stories with such prof- interested in having diferent kinds of plat- ciency and economy. I am most interest- forms for creative output. ed in how they’re choosing to represent themselves and narrativise their experi- KBC Can you tell me about your video work ences. There are certain cinematography Notes on Gesture, currently showing at styles that are pioneered to do that and then Artspace? Its title refers to Giorgio Ag- these are circulated widely online and re- amben’s 1992 essay of the same name incorporated back into bigger flm-produc- that discusses ‘gesture’ as a central fea- tion models. This cycle is really interesting. ture of cinema, but the work also draws Once it’s in a big movie, another teen sees on an earlier and much more obscure it, picks it up and then it morphs again. The text on body language. problem for me might be that when this infuential style gets copied, it is not really MS Yes, a 17 th-century book by John Bulwer thought of as being part of black aesthetics called Chirologia: Or the Naturall Language or a black tradition. of the Hand. I found it when I was looking at diferent acting techniques. I was think- KBC Does this relate to your interest in Afro- ing about how much everyone is record- futurism? You recently made the docu- ed in their everyday lives, and how this mentary piece The Mundane Afrofu- might relate to an actor cheating or block- turist Manifesto (2015), which looks at ing a scene, so I tried to make an index how this artistic or aesthetic movement similar to that found in Bulwer’s Chirolo- emerged in the 1970s. This included con- gia. The Bulwer text relates to gestures in versations with contemporary artists Shakespearean theatre and I noticed simi- who are similarly interested in futuris- larities between these and emojis. Some of tically ‘reimagining’ black experiences. the symbols are exactly the same—like the What is your own relationship to the ‘prayer hands’ and the ‘raised hands’ emojis. movement? When I was working with the actor in this video, I was thinking about how we learn MS I wouldn’t call myself an ‘Afrofuturist’, as the way that we move in life and what in- other artists do, but my methodology is tied fuences these things, from pop culture to to Afrofuturism in terms of taking things

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from the past or using technology to fll in kind of baseline, like the way white is sup- information that’s not available in the of- posed to be a neutral or ‘non-colour’. fcial archive. I use speculation as a technique to imagine what could happen. Even KBC This baseline purple is both the ‘green my use of the term ‘entrepreneur’ is about screen’ for the video Notes on Ges- speculating with value—about asserting a ture but also the colour of the walls new value, or diferent ideas around what in its Artspace installation. The work could be valued. Lessons (2014) in your recent ICA exhibition also established a similar spatial di- The Artspace work [Notes on Gesture] is alogue between a video screen installed concerned with the image of black women in the middle of the gallery and the wall and how these images have acquired greater behind it. This spatial dynamic actually value through their circulation in the media reminds me of high-end fashion or so- as GIFs and on American TV shows. While called ‘concept’ stores. Is this something I was making this piece, all the September that interests you? issues of [the major Western fashion and lifestyle] magazines happened to have black MS Commercial aesthetics that use glass and women on their covers. This was the frst coloured light; those kinds of presentation time that these magazines had simultaneous- methods are defnitely an infuence, for sure. ly promoted black women on their covers I’m also concerned with how to make the and there were a whole lot of news stories video installation more sculptural and ar- patting each other on the back for having chitectural. The Artspace installation forms done this. People were making a bigger deal a circular space that you [the viewer] are of it than I thought it deserved. I started positioned within. The four-channel audio thinking a lot about what cultural circum- also works with this—it should sound dif- stances had changed to the point where these ferent depending on where you’re standing white magazines were interested in featur- within that space. This also involves flm ing black women—what was it about them narratives, including how a story unfolds that became valuable in the course of a year? spatially while still being committed to a two-dimensional fat screen. KBC The colour purple is really prominent in your work. Can you talk about how it KBC I can’t end this interview without asking functions? you about the recent election of Donald Trump. How has your own art communi- MS Yes, purple is a frequent colour motif for ty responded to Trump’s rise to power in me. Initially, I started using it as shorthand the US? for thinking about the black feminist tradition. The phrase ‘the colour purple’ obvi- MS I was talking to people a lot in the week after ously references the book [by Alice Walker], he was elected who were saying, ‘I didn’t but also the Steven Spielberg movie. I was realise things were this bad’ and ‘I’ve never particularly interested in the way Spielberg felt this hated’. While I totally understand benefted the most from that movie—some- that those are valid feelings, it was not the thing that was an important point of inves- frst time I had felt hated. It was not the tigation for me. I used to use purple like an frst time I had felt unwanted somewhere.

Yves Klein blue, but now I realise that it In many ways, it was confrmation of a lot This page and previous: Installation view: Martine Syms, Fact & Trouble, Institute of Contemporary Arts London (ICA), London (20 April–19 functions more like a ‘white’. I use it as a of things I had been feeling already. June, 2016). Photo: Mark Blower.

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There has been this Twitter conversation about how most people learnt about the history of Japanese internment in the US through the memoir Farewell to Manzanar [by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston] in high- school English class. So I’ve been thinking about how literature and art do this heavy lifting, historically and politically. I fnd that not hopeful—I can’t call it ‘hope’— but something I feel compelled to do.

My hope is that [Trump’s election] actually radicalises people and that art returns to being a place of non-normative ideas. Many art collectors and people on the boards of museums are Trump supporters. For the past decade or so, the art world has felt increasingly conservative, racist, homophobic and misogynistic, in my professional experience. There are a lot of afrming spaces that I feel excited to be a part of, but then there are institutional spaces that I don’t feel that way about. So, I hope that this might encourage people not to be so concerned with the institutional ‘stamp’, because it can be a really hostile space.

Installation view: Martine Syms, Fact & Trouble, Institute of Contemporary Arts London (ICA), London (20 April–19 June, 2016). Photo: Mark Blower.

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Art Basel in Miami Beach

1–4 DECEMBER 2016

General impression: Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. 317 Installation view: Sam Durant and Henry Taylor, Blum & Poe, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Anish Kapoor, Random Triangle Mirror (2016). Installation view: Galleria Continua, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Louvre (Apollo Sauroctono) (2013). Installation view: Galleria Continua, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Charles Roussel. Paul McCarthy, White Snow Head (2012–2013). Installation view: Xavier Hufkens, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Elena Damiani and Meuser, Galerie Nordenhake, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Julieta Aranda, Jose Dávila and Matti Braun, Galería OMR, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Jaume Plensa, Galerie Lelong, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. Installation view: Ugo Rondinone, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Galleries, Art Basel in Miami Beach (1–4 December 2016). Courtesy Ocula. Photo: Charles Roussel. OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

Ocula Partner Gallery Directory

329 OCULA PARTNER GALLERY DIRECTO RY OCULA CONVERSATIONS 2016–2017

ADELAIDE Trish Clark Gallery Galerie Urs Meile BERLIN 1 Bowen Avenue 104 Caochangdi Hill Smith Gallery Auckland 1010 Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 Galerie Nordenhake 113 Pirie Street New Zealand China Lindenstrasse 34 Adelaide 5000 +64 9 379 9556 +86 10 6433 3393 Berlin 10969 Australia [email protected] [email protected] Germany +61 8 8223 6558 www.trishclark.co.nz www.galerieursmeile.com +49 30 206 1483 [email protected] [email protected] Two Rooms Long March Space www.hillsmithgallery.com.au www.nordenhake.com 16 Putiki Street, Newton 4 Jiuxianqiao Road ANTWERP Auckland 1021 Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 Peres Projects New Zealand China Karl-Marx-Allee 82 +64 9 360 5900 +86 10 5978 9768 Axel Vervoordt Gallery Berlin 10243 [email protected] [email protected] Stokerijstraat 21A Germany www.tworooms.co.nz www.longmarchspace.com Wijnegem 2110 +49 30 275 950770 [email protected] Belgium BANGKOK Pace Gallery +32 477 88 80 60 www.peresprojects.com 2 Jiuxianqiao Road [email protected] Serindia Gallery 798 Art District, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 Sprüth Magers www.axel-vervoordt.com O.P. Garden China Oranienburger Straße 18 +86 10 5978 9781 AUCKLAND Soi Charoen Krung 36 Berlin 10178 Charoen Krung Road, Bang Rak [email protected] Germany Bangkok 10500 www.pacegallery.com +49 30 2888403 0 Gow Langsford Gallery Thailand [email protected] 26 Lorne Street Pékin Fine Arts +66 2238 6410 www.spruethmagers.com Auckland 1010 [email protected] 241 Caochangdi Village, Cui Ge Zhuang New Zealand www.serindiagallery.com Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 BRUSSELS +64 9 303 9391 China [email protected] +86 10 5127 3220 BASEL Almine Rech Gallery www.gowlangsfordgallery.com info@pekinﬁnearts.com Abdijstraat 20 Rue de l'Abbaye www.pekinﬁnearts.com Hopkinson Mossman Anne Mosseri-Marlio Galerie Brussels 1050 19 Putiki Street, Level 1, Arch Hill Malzgasse 20 ShanghART Beijing Belgium +32 2 648 56 84 Auckland 1021 Basel 4052 261 Caochangdi, Airport Side Road [email protected] New Zealand Switzerland Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 www.alminerech.com +64 9 358 0855 +41 61 271 71 83 China [email protected] [email protected] +86 10 6432 3202 Xavier Hufkens www.hopkinsonmossman.com www.annemoma.com [email protected] 6 Rue St-Georges www.shanghartgallery.com Michael Lett BEIJING Brussels 1050 312 Karangahape Road, Newton ShanghART S-Space Belgium +32 2 639 67 30 Auckland 1010 de Sarthe Gallery 4 Jiuxianqiao Road, Seven Star East Street [email protected] New Zealand 328-D Caochangdi 798 Art District, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 www.xavierhufkens.com +64 9 309 7848 Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015 China [email protected] China +86 10 6432 3202 www.michaellett.com +86 10 8418 2441 [email protected] [email protected] www.shanghartgallery.com Starkwhite www.desarthe.com 510 Karangahape Road, Newton Auckland 1010 New Zealand +64 9 307 0703 [email protected] www.starkwhite.co.nz

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CHENGDU DAEGU de Sarthe Gallery Opera Gallery 20/F Global Trade Square W Place, 52 Wyndham Street, Central A Thousand Plateaus Art Space Leeahn Gallery 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road Hong Kong South Square, Tiexiang Temple Riverfront 188-1, Icheon-ro, Jung-gu Wong Chuk Hang District +852 2810 1208 Shengbang Street, High-tech Development Zone Daegu 41956 Hong Kong [email protected] Chengdu 610041 South Korea +852 2167 8896 www.operagallery.com China +82 53 424 2203 [email protected] +86 28 8512 6358 [email protected] www.desarthe.com Pearl Lam Galleries 601–605 Pedder Building [email protected] www.leeahngallery.com 12 Pedder Street, Central www.1000plateaus.org Edouard Malingue Gallery Wooson Gallery 6/F, 33 Des Voeux Road, Central Hong Kong CHICAGO 72 Bongsanmunhwa-gil, Jung-gu Hong Kong +852 2522 1428 Daegu 41959 +852 2810 0317 [email protected] [email protected] www.pearllam.com Kavi Gupta South Korea +82 53 427 7736 / 7737 / 7739 www.edouardmalingue.com 835 W. Washington Blvd Pearl Lam Galleries [email protected] Chicago, IL 60607 Gagosian Gallery Shop No. 1 G/F & 1/F, SOHO 189 www.woosongallery.com USA 7/F Pedder Building 189 Queen’s Road West, Sheung Wan +1 312 432 0708 GUANGZHOU 12 Pedder Street, Central Hong Kong [email protected] Hong Kong +852 2857 1328 www.kavigupta.com +852 2151 0555 [email protected] Vitamin Creative Space [email protected] www.pearllam.com Kavi Gupta Hualong Agriculture Grand View Garden www.gagosian.com 219 N. Elizabeth Street Panyu District, Guangzhou 511434 Pékin Fine Arts Chicago, IL 60607 China Galerie Perrotin 16/F Union Industrial Building +86 20 8429 6760 USA 17/F, 50 Connaught Road, Central 48 Wong Chuk Hang Road [email protected] +1 312 496 3552 Hong Kong Aberdeen www.vitamincreativespace.com [email protected] +852 3758 2180 Hong Kong www.kavigupta.com [email protected] +852 2177 6190 HONG KONG www.perrotin.com info@pekinfinearts.com CHRISTCHURCH www.pekinfinearts.com 10 Chancery Lane Gallery Hanart TZ Gallery Jonathan Smart Gallery G/F, 10 Chancery Lane 401 Pedder Building Rossi & Rossi 52 Buchan Street, Sydenham SoHo, Central 12 Pedder Street, Central Unit 3C, Yally Industrial Building Christchurch 8023 Hong Kong Hong Kong 6 Yip Fat Street, Wong Chuk Hang New Zealand +852 2810 0065 +852 2526 9019 Hong Kong +64 3 365 7070 [email protected] [email protected] +852 3575 9417 [email protected] www.10chancerylanegallery.com www.hanart.com [email protected] www.jonathansmartgallery.com www.rossirossi.com Axel Vervoordt Gallery Kwai Fung Hin Art Gallery COPENHAGEN Unit D, 15/F Entertainment Building G/F, 20 Ice House Street, Central Simon Lee Gallery 30 Queen's Road, Central Hong Kong 304, 3/F Pedder Building Galleri Nicolai Wallner Hong Kong +852 2580 0058 12 Pedder Street, Central +852 2503 2220 [email protected] Corkgade 6, Nordhavn Hong Kong [email protected] www.kwaifunghin.com Copenhagen 2150 +852 2801 6252 www.axel-vervoordt.com/en/gallery [email protected] Denmark Lehmann Maupin +45 32 57 09 70 www.simonleegallery.com Ben Brown Fine Arts 407 Pedder Building [email protected] 303 Pedder Building 12 Pedder Street, Central Sundaram Tagore Gallery www.nicolaiwallner.com 12 Pedder Street, Central Hong Kong 4/F 57–59 Hollywood Road, Central Hong Kong +852 2530 0025 Hong Kong +852 2522 9600 [email protected] +852 2581 9678 hkinfo@benbrownfinearts.com www.lehmannmaupin.com [email protected] www.benbrownfinearts.com www.sundaramtagore.com

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White Cube Hong Kong David Zwirner Sadie Coles HQ White Cube Bermondsey 50 Connaught Road Central 24 Grafton Street 62 Kingly Street 144-152 Bermondsey Street Hong Kong London W1S 4EZ London W1B 5QN London SE1 3TQ +852 2592 2000 United Kingdom United Kingdom United Kingdom [email protected] +44 20 3538 3165 +44 20 7493 8611 +44 20 7930 5373 www.whitecube.com [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.davidzwirner.com www.sadiecoles.com www.whitecube.com LONDON Gazelli Art House Simon Lee Gallery White Cube Mason’s Yard Almine Rech Gallery 39 Dover Street 12 Berkeley Street 25-26 Mason's Yard Grosvenor Hill, Broadbent House London W1S 4NN London W1J 8DT London SW1Y 6BU London W1K 3JH United Kingdom United Kingdom United Kingdom United Kingdom +44 20 7491 8816 +44 20 7491 0100 +44 20 7930 5373 +44 20 7287 3644 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.gazelliarthouse.com www.simonleegallery.com www.whitecube.com www.alminerech.com Maureen Paley Sprüth Magers LOS ANGELES Almine Rech Gallery 21 Herald Street 7a Grafton Street 11 Savile Row, First Floor London E2 6JT London W1S 4EJ Blum & Poe Mayfair, London W1S 3PG United Kingdom United Kingdom 2727 South La Cienega Boulevard United Kingdom +44 20 7729 4112 +44 20 7408 1613 Los Angeles, CA 90034 +44 20 7287 3644 [email protected] [email protected] USA [email protected] www.maureenpaley.com www.spruethmagers.com +1 310 836 2062 www.alminerech.com [email protected] Paragon Timothy Taylor www.blumandpoe.com Bartha Contemporary 6 Wetherby Gardens 15 Carlos Place 25 Margaret Street London SW5 0JN Mayfair, London W1K 2EX Sprüth Magers United Kingdom London W1W 8RX United Kingdom 5900 Wilshire Boulevard +44 20 7409 3344 United Kingdom +44 20 7370 1200 Los Angeles, CA 90036 [email protected] +44 20 7985 0015 [email protected] USA www.timothytaylor.com [email protected] www.paragonpress.co.uk +1 323 634 0600 www.barthacontemporary.com [email protected] Rossi & Rossi Victoria Miro www.spruethmagers.com Ben Brown Fine Arts By appointment only 16 Wharf Road 12 Brook’s Mews London W1S London N1 7RW LUCERNE London W1K 4DG United Kingdom United Kingdom +44 20 7629 6888 +44 20 7336 8109 United Kingdom Galerie Urs Meile +44 20 7734 8888 [email protected] [email protected] Rosenberghöhe 4 info@benbrownﬁnearts.com www.rossirossi.com www.victoria-miro.com Lucerne 6004 www.benbrownﬁnearts.com Sadie Coles HQ Victoria Miro Mayfair Switzerland +41 41 420 33 18 Christine Park Gallery 1 Davies Street 14 St George Street [email protected] 35 Riding House Street London W1K 3DB London W1S 1FE www.galerieursmeile.com London W1W 7EA United Kingdom United Kingdom United Kingdom +44 20 7493 8611 +44 20 3205 8910 +44 20 7930 9865 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] www.sadiecoles.com www.victoria-miro.com www.christinepark.net

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MANILA THIS IS NO FANTASY + Dianne Tanzer Gallery MUMBAI Cheim & Read 108–110 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy 547 West 25th Street The Drawing Room Melbourne 3065 Chemould Prescott Road New York, NY 10001 Bldg. C Karrivin Plaza Australia Queens Mansion, 3rd Floor USA 2316 Chino Roces Avenue +61 3 9417 7172 G. Talwatkar Marg, Fort +1 212 242 7727 Extension Brgy Magallanes, Makati [email protected] Mumbai 400 001 [email protected] Manila 1231 www.thisisnofantasy.com India www.cheimread.com Philippines +91 22 2200 0211 / 2 Tolarno Galleries David Zwirner +63 2 801 4397 [email protected] th [email protected] 104 Exhibition Street, Level 4 www.gallerychemould.com 519, 525 & 533 West 19 Street www.drawingroomgallery.com Melbourne 3000 New York, NY 10011 Australia Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke USA +61 3 9654 6000 +1 212 727 2070 MELBOURNE First Floor, 2 Sunny House [email protected] [email protected] 16/18 Mereweather Road www.tolarnogalleries.com www.davidzwirner.com Anna Pappas Gallery Behind Taj Mahal Hotel, Colaba Mumbai 400 001 2-4 Carlton Street, Prahran MEXICO CITY David Zwirner India Melbourne 3181 537 West 20th Street +91 22 2202 3030 Australia New York, NY 10011 Galería OMR [email protected] +61 3 9521 7300 USA Córdoba 100, Roma Norte www.galeriems.com [email protected] Mexico City D.F. 06700 +1 212 517 8677 www.annapappasgallery.com [email protected] Mexico NEW DELHI +52 55 5207 1080 www.davidzwirner.com ARC ONE Gallery +52 55 5511 1179 45 Flinders Lane Exhibit 320 [email protected] Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art Melbourne 3000 37 West 57th Street, 2nd Floor www.galeriaomr.com F-320 Lado Sarai Australia New Delhi 110030 New York, NY 10019 +61 3 9650 0589 MILAN India USA [email protected] +91 11 4613 0637 +1 212 517 2453 www.arcone.com.au [email protected] [email protected] Primo Marella Gallery www.exhibit320.com www.edwardtylernahemfineart.com Flinders Lane Gallery Via Valtellina angolo Viale Stelvio, 66 137 Flinders Lane Milano 20159 NEW YORK Galeria Nara Roesler Melbourne 3000 Italy 47 West 28th Street, 2nd Floor +39 02 8738 4885 Australia Almine Rech Gallery New York, NY 10001 +61 3 9654 3332 [email protected] USA 39 East 78th Street, 2nd Floor info@flg.com.au www.primomarellagallery.com +1 646 791 0426 New York, NY 10075 www.flg.com.au [email protected] USA MOSCOW www.nararoesler.com.br +1 212 804 8496 Neon Parc [email protected] 1/53 Bourke Street Gary Tatintsian Gallery Galerie Lelong www.alminerech.com Melbourne 3000 Serebryanicheskaya Naberezhnaya, 19 528 West 26th Street Australia Moscow 109028 Blum & Poe New York, NY 10001 +61 3 9663 0911 USA Russia 19 East 66th Street [email protected] +1 212 315 0470 +7 495 645 44 04 New York, NY 10065 www.neonparc.com.au [email protected] [email protected] USA www.galerielelong.com www.tatintsian.com +1 212 249 2249 Neon Parc [email protected] 15 Tinning Street, Brunswick www.blumandpoe.com Melbourne 3056 Australia +61 4 0102 4329 [email protected] www.neonparc.com.au

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Jane Lombard Gallery Paul Kasmin Gallery Timothy Taylor 16 x 34 RIO DE JANEIRO 518 West 19th Street 515 West 27th Street 515 West 19th Street New York, NY 10011 New York, NY 10001 New York, NY 10011 Galeria Nara Roesler USA USA USA Rua Redentor 241, Ipanema +1 212 967 8040 +1 212 563 4474 +1 212 256 1669 Rio de Janeiro 22421-030 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Brazil www.janelombardgallery.com www.paulkasmingallery.com www.timothytaylor.com +55 21 3591 0052 [email protected] Lehmann Maupin Tina Kim Gallery Sean Kelly Gallery www.nararoesler.com.br 201 Chrystie Street 475 10th Avenue 525 West 21st Street New York, NY 10002 New York, NY 10018 New York, NY 10011 SAN GIMIGNANO USA USA USA +1 212 254 0054 +1 212 239 1181 +1 212 716 1100 GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Beijing / Les Moulins / Habana www.lehmannmaupin.com www.skny.com www.tinakimgallery.com Via del Castello 11 Lehmann Maupin Simon Lee Gallery PARIS San Gimignano 53037 536 West 22nd Street 26 East 64th Street, 2nd Floor Italy +39 0577 943134 New York, NY 10011 New York, NY 10065 Almine Rech Gallery USA [email protected] USA 64 Rue de Turenne +1 646 678 5654 www.galleriacontinua.com +1 212 255 2923 Paris 75003 [email protected] [email protected] France www.simonleegallery.com SÃO PAULO www.lehmannmaupin.com +33 1 45 83 71 90 [email protected] Sundaram Tagore Gallery Galeria Nara Roesler Metro Pictures www.alminerech.com 519 West 24th Street 547 West 27th Street Avenida Europa 655 New York, NY 10011 New York, NY 10001 Galerie Lelong JD Europa USA USA 13 Rue de Téhéran São Paulo 01449-001 +1 212 206 7100 +1 212 677 4520 Paris 75008 Brazil [email protected] [email protected] France +55 11 2039 5454 www.metropictures.com www.sundaramtagore.com +33 1 45 63 13 19 [email protected] [email protected] www.nararoesler.com.br Paul Kasmin Gallery Sundaram Tagore Gallery www.galerie-lelong.com 293 10th Avenue 1100 Madison Avenue SEOUL New York, NY 10001 New York, NY 10028 PLOVDIV USA +1 212 288 2889 Gallery Baton +1 212 563 4474 [email protected] SARIEV Contemporary 65, Apgujeong-ro 29-gil, Gangnam-gu [email protected] www.sundaramtagore.com Otets Paisiy str. 40 Seoul 06005 www.paulkasmingallery.com Taka Ishii Gallery New York Plovdiv 4000 South Korea +82 2 597 5701 Paul Kasmin Gallery 23 East 67th Street, 3rd Floor Bulgaria +359 88 852 0375 [email protected] 297 10th Avenue New York, NY 10065 [email protected] www.gallerybaton.com New York, NY 10001 USA +1 646 912 9300 www.sariev-gallery.com USA Gana Art +1 212 563 4474 [email protected] REYKJAVÍK 28, Pyeongchang 30-gil, Jongno-gu [email protected] www.takaishiigallery.com Seoul 03004 www.paulkasmingallery.com Throckmorton Fine Art i8 Gallery South Korea +82 2 720 1020 145 East 57th Street, 3rd Floor Tryggvagata 16 [email protected] New York, NY 10022 Reykjavík 101 www.ganaart.com USA Iceland +1 212 223 1059 +354 551 3666 [email protected] [email protected] www.throckmorton-nyc.com www.i8.is

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Kukje Gallery ShanghART Shanghai Pearl Lam Galleries SYDNEY 54 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu West Bund, Bldg. 10, 2555 Longteng Avenue 15 Dempsey Road, #01-08 Seoul 03053 Xuhui District, Shanghai 200232 Dempsey Hill Artereal Gallery South Korea China Singapore 249675 747 Darling Street, Rozelle +82 2 735 8449 +86 21 6359 3923 Singapore Sydney 2039 [email protected] +86 21 5424 9033 +65 6570 2284 Australia www.kukjegallery.com [email protected] [email protected] +61 2 9818 7473 www.shanghartgallery.com www.pearllam.com [email protected] Leeahn Gallery www.artereal.com.au 9, Jahamun-ro 12-gil, Jongno-gu SINGAPORE ShanghART Singapore Seoul 03043 9 Lock Road, #02-22 Arthouse Gallery South Korea ARNDT Fine Art Gillman Barracks 66 McLachlan Avenue, Rushcutters Bay +82 2 730 2243 47 Malan Road, #01-25 Singapore 108937 Sydney 2011 [email protected] Gillman Barracks Singapore Australia www.leeahngallery.com Singapore 109444 +65 6734 9537 +61 2 9332 1019 Singapore [email protected] [email protected] ONE AND J. GALLERY +65 6734 0775 www.shanghartgallery.com www.arthousegallery.com.au 31-14 Bukchon-ro, Jongno-gu info@arndtﬁneart.com Seoul 03055 www.arndtﬁneart.com STPI Gallery 9 South Korea 41 Robertson Quay 9 Darley Street, Darlinghurst +82 2 745 1644 Gajah Gallery Singapore 238236 Sydney 2010 [email protected] 39 Keppel Road, #03-04 Singapore Australia www.oneandj.com Tanjong Pagar Distripark +65 6336 3663 +61 2 9380 9909 [email protected] [email protected] PKM Gallery Singapore 089065 Singapore www.stpi.com.sg www.gallery9.com.au 40, Samcheong-ro 7-gil, Jongno-gu +65 6737 4202 Seoul 03049 Sundaram Tagore Gallery Martin Browne Contemporary [email protected] South Korea www.gajahgallery.com 5 Lock Road, #01-05 15 Hampden Street, Paddington +82 2 734 9467 9 Gillman Barracks Sydney 2021 [email protected] Mizuma Gallery Singapore 108933 Australia www.pkmgallery.com Singapore +61 2 9331 7997 22 Lock Road, #01-34 +65 6694 3378 [email protected] Gillman Barracks SHANGHAI [email protected] www.martinbrownecontemporary.com Singapore 108939 www.sundaramtagore.com Singapore LEO XU PROJECTS Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery +65 6570 2505 Lane 49, Building 3, Fuxing Xi Road STOCKHOLM 8 Soudan Lane, Paddington [email protected] Xuhui District, Shanghai 200031 Sydney 2021 www.mizuma.sg China Galerie Nordenhake Australia +86 21 3461 1245 +61 2 9331 1919 Pearl Lam Galleries Hudiksvallsgatan 8 [email protected] [email protected] 9 Lock Road, #03-22 Stockholm 113 30 www.leoxuprojects.com www.roslynoxley9.com.au Gillman Barracks Sweden +46 8 21 18 92 Pearl Lam Galleries Singapore 108937 TOKYO Singapore [email protected] G/F, 181 Middle Jiangxi Road +65 6570 2284 www.nordenhake.com Shanghai 200002 8/ ART GALLERY/ Tomio Koyama Gallery [email protected] China www.pearllam.com Shibuya Hikarie 8F, 2-21-1 Shibuya +86 21 6323 1989 Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-8510 [email protected] Japan www.pearllam.com +81 3 6434 1493 [email protected] www.hikarie8.com

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Blum & Poe URANO 1-14-34 Jingumae 1-33-10-3F Higashi-Shinagawa Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001 Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0002 Japan Japan +81 3 3475 1631 +81 3 6433 2303 [email protected] [email protected] www.blumandpoe.com www.urano.tokyo

Mizuma Art Gallery WELLINGTON 2F Kagura Building 3-13 Ichigayatamachi Bartley + Company Art Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0843 56A Ghuznee Street, Te Aro Japan Wellington 6011 +81 3 3268 2500 New Zealand [email protected] +64 4 802 4622 www.mizuma-art.co.jp [email protected] www.bartleyandcompanyart.co.nz SCAI The Bathhouse Kashiwayu-Ato, 6-1-23 Yanaka Hamish McKay Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-0001 1st Floor, 39 Ghuznee Street Japan Wellington 6011 +81 3 3821 1144 New Zealand [email protected] +64 4 384 7140 www.scaithebathhouse.com [email protected] www.hamishmckay.co.nz Taka Ishii Gallery 6-5-24 3F Roppongi Page Blackie Gallery Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032 42 Victoria Street Japan Wellington 6011 +81 3 6434 7010 New Zealand [email protected] +64 4 471 2636 www.takaishiigallery.com [email protected] www.pageblackiegallery.co.nz Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film 5-17-1 2F Roppongi ZÜRICH Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032 Japan Galerie Eva Presenhuber +81 3 5575 5004 Limmatstrasse 270 [email protected] Löwenbräu Areal www.takaishiigallery.com Zürich 8005 Switzerland Tomio Koyama Gallery +41 44 515 78 50 Complex 665 2F [email protected] 6-5-24, Roppongi www.presenhuber.com Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032 Japan Galerie Eva Presenhuber +81 3 6434 7225 Zahnradstrasse 21 [email protected] Maag Areal www.tomiokoyamagallery.com Zürich 8005 Switzerland +41 43 444 70 50 [email protected] www.presenhuber.com

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