Ocula Conversations
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
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.