CONTEMPORARY ASIAN HOTEL ART FAIR ART MARKET

Art Radar looks into Hong Kong Contemporary, a hotel art fair set to launch on 17 May 2012. The new art fair will run concurrently with the eagerly anticipated ART HK 12 in an effort to draw international collectors and visitors.

A screen capture of the Hong Kong Contemporary website for 2012.

Hong Kong hotel fair Korean led

Hong Kong Contemporary will take place at The Park Lane Hotel on 310 Gloucester Road, Causeway Bay in Hong Kong from May 17 to May 20, with frequent shuttles running to and from ART HK 12. The choice of timing for the fair is a cross-promotion initiative, aimed at increasing attendance to the inaugural event. According to an article in The Korea Herald, the organiser behind Hong Kong Contemporary is Moon Eun-myung, the South Korean owner of Moon Gallery in Hong Kong.

This new fair will showcase contemporary art from different countries in a wide range of prices that aim to attract both new buyers and established collectors. As Roger Lin, the director of Hong Kong Contemporary, reveals in the press release for the event,

We aim to create an art fair that is fresh, trendy and accessible… By setting up a platform for Hong Kong artists and galleries to exchange information and ideas with international galleries, we hope to promote Hong Kong art and bring it to an international level.

Lin also states that this art fair provides a unique experience to the collectors and visitors, allowing them to see the the art works in a room setting.

This method of exhibition helps facilitate a more relaxed interaction between the gallery owner and client, and provides an intimate and attractive setting for the art works to be showcased to their best advantage.

AHAF Seoul 11: installation view of Ovas Art Gallery's hotel room, 27 December 2011. Image from AHAF website.

Hong Kong Contemporary is organising a cohesive programme that is atypical for a hotel art fair. Some of the events include a VIP opening, a special exhibition, media coverage, and an open art competition for local Hong Kong artists who will have a chance to win the ‘Hong Kong Contemporary Artist of the Year’ award.

Hotel art fairs a trend in Asia

The model for Hong Kong Contemporary is similar to AHAF HK, an established hotel art fair that exhibits art works in hotel rooms, and Young Art Taipei, a fair organised by Taiwanese Contemporary Art Link (TCAL). This concept has been well received by many galleries in Asia, and has taken place in major cities including Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong. The fair appeals to galleries looking for alternative venues to show their artists’  works at a cost far lower than in conventional art fair settings. It is also attractive to exhibitors since this model allows the gallery staff to utilise the hotel rooms for their accommodation, as noted by the Hong Kong Contemporary fair director, Roger Lin.

Gallery owners are throwing their support behind this popular and highly successful trend of exhibiting work out of hotels. It is a new concept of showing and selling artworks and growing in popularity in Asia over the past few years.

A screen capture of the AHAF HK 12 website.

Hong Kong burgeoning Asian art hub

Hong Kong is rapidly establishing itself as a premier destination for International art audiences. In 2011, Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses reported unprecedented sales, Art Basel bought a major stake of the Hong Kong International Art Fair (ART HK) and renowned galleries such as Gagosian Gallery opened outposts in the city. White Cube from London will open their branch in March 2012 and in February of 2012, Asia Society will be opening their Hong Kong venue. Along with a no-tax law on the import and export of art in Hong Kong, and exciting developments in art and culture, the city increasingly has the potential to offer many opportunities for those in the business of art.

 CSL/KN/HH

Related Topics: Hong Kong, market watch, art fairs

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• Hong Kong home for top-shelf White Cube art – July 2011 - the latest in a string of international contemporary art interests moving into Hong Kong
• Art Basel takeover of ART HK: What did dealers at ART HK 11 say? – June 2011 – gallerist responses to the Art Basel buyout of ART HK
• ART HK versus Art Stage Singapore: ART HK 11 dealers debate Asia’s top fair – June 2011 – Art Radar asked a number of galleries at ART HK 11 how the fair compared with the inaugural 2011 Art Stage Singapore
• ART HK 11 Hong Kong art fair: Gallery sales – ART FUTURES and ASIA ONE sections – June 2011 – did the concepts of these newly developed sections help or hinder sales?
• ART HK 11 Hong Kong art fair: What did galleries bring to ART HK 11? Picture feast – May 2011 – take a look at some of the international art works ART HK 11

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REGIONAL ART SHOWS JAPAN ARAB CONTEMPORARY ART

As highlighted in an article published in The Japan Times in December 2011, the decision of Japanese curators Kenichi Kondo and Fumio Nanjo to bring contemporary Arab art to Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum also brought with it a number of curatorial challenges, among them, how to define the “Arab world”.

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, 'Untitled 23' (D Series), 2008, digital print. The works of this Palestinian artist are expected to be on display in "Contemporary Art from the Arab World", at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum from 16 June through to 28 October 2012.

West Asian art comes to Japan

New art from the West Asian region is attracting the attention of those in art world power cities like London and New York, and those in know in Tokyo want to see art from the region in local museums, too. As a result, the first exhibition of its kind ever to be arranged in Japan, called “Contemporary Art from the Arab World“, is scheduled to be held at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo from 16 June through to 28 October 2012.

According to The Japan Times feature, the decision to hold an exhibition of contemporary Arab art was problematic for Kondo and Nanjo, Associate Curator and Director of the Mori Art Museum, respectively.

Curating an exhibition or [set of works] from a particular region is never easy, but the Mori’s attempt to create a show of Arab art – a project that began in summer last year, long before the emergence of the Arab Spring – presented a unique set of challenges.

Click here to read the whole article, titled “Restless Arab region presents curatorial challenge”, on The Japan Times website.

Defining the Arab region

In this increasingly globalised world, is it still necessary to put on art shows that focus on a particular region? Members of the Japanese public, explain the curators, are broadly aware of Middle Eastern region, but know little of its art scene, and Kondo believes that a regional approach is necessary in order to introduce the West Asian artists effectively to Japanese audiences and stir public interest in the exhibition. “In order to grab [the public's] interest, you need to start with what they know,” he states.

Reem Al Ghaith, 'Dubai: What's Left of Her Land?', 2008, mixed media installation. This artist’s works are expected to be shown in "Contemporary Art from the Arab World", at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo from 16 June through to 28 October 2012.

The exhibition will present, as quoted on the Museum’s website, works by approximately thirty artists “from ten or more countries in the Arab world, those on and around the Arabian Peninsula including Iraq, the Gulf countries, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan [and] Egypt.” In order to choose the artists for this five-month-long exhibition survey, several research trips to countries in the West Asian region were initiated. Catalogues of important cultural events in Middle Eastern and European countries, such as the Sharjah Biennial, the Istanbul Biennial and the Venice Biennale, were studied by the curators as part of their search.

Need for local experts

A show like ”Contemporary Art from the Arab World” requires of its curators an extensive knowledge of the current art climate in the region in focus, and not just its artists, but its art scholars and other professionals, too. “Of course, I studied the history and politics of the region, but it is equally important to use existing networks of specialists there,” Kondo explains. Connections with West Asian art experts, such as Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi, the president of the Sharjah Biennial, proved particularly valuable during visits to countries like Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia where security can be an issue, either with regard to obtaining visas or navigating violent conflict.

As stated in the curatorial notes for the exhibition,

This exhibition will not subscribe to the commonly held, negative stereotype of the Arab world as a realm of terrorism, conflicts, religious fundamentalism and so on. Instead, through the diverse creative expression of the region’ s own artists, it will depict the people of the Arab world as they are, in real time.

LP/KN

Related Topics: museum shows, Tokyo art events, curatorial practice

Related Posts:

• Japanese curator Yuko Hasegawa plans multi-disciplined Sharjah Biennial 11 - December 2011 – Japanese curator heads curatorial team for this Middle Eastern biennial
• 12th Istanbul Biennial: women artists and emerging regions stand out - November 2011 – explore position of the Middle Eastern artists at the twelfth edition of the Istanbul Biennial
• Collect Arab art? Journalist Mustafa Akyol demystifies Islam – TED video - July 2011 – read highlights of journalist Mustafa Akyol’s TED Talk on the past, present and future of Islamic culture
• Asian Curatorial Network Forum challenges traditional exhibition practices - July 2011 – looks at alternatives to conventional museum venues and brings to the fore new ideas for curatorial  practice
• Contemporary Art in the Middle East – a first book survey – May 2011 - Art Radar reviews this book on contemporary Middle Eastern art

Subscribe to Art Radar for more on museum shows of contemporary art in Japan

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In late 2007, the largest exhibition of erotic art in the UK, Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now, was described by the respected institution which mounted it (so to speak) as being about not about sex but “boundaries of acceptability”. This didn’t stop an English critic Jonathon Jones writing about his sexual response to it in The Guardian newspaper.

It’s not often that a respected critic admits that sex in art has anything to do with sexuality. But Jones had the late art historian, Kenneth Clark to back him up: “No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even though only the faintest shadow – and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals.” Jones goes on to describe Picasso as being “the most sexual artist there ever was”.

Picasso was intensely sexual in his art and life. For him, sex and art were inextricable. His lovers were his muses and he often had several at once. It’s as if every new art work began with a sexual relationship, resulting in a large body of work that was inescapably erotic. But Picasso has never been dismissed as an ‘erotic artist’: in the encoded langauge of art insiders, the term ‘erotic’ is often dismissive, even derogatory. Especially when the artist is a woman.

Like male artists who sleep with their model-muses, my art is entangled with my sex life. My libido and ‘creative energy’ are the same thing and I feel it even when my subject matter isn’t sexual. I have a rudimentary tattoo near the base of my spine, a reworking of the eliptical shape of an atom symbol into the shape of a butterfly. Done when I was young, it marks the origin of a faint vibrating hum between my spine and my pelvis that is at its most intense when I am fucking or making art.

Most critics and curators are discomforted when an artist talks about sex and art in the same breath but they begin to squirm when that artist is a woman. Talk about it too openly and you risk not only accusations of being exploitative but also horrid abuse. Take this example in the comments section of my blog: “Don’t pretend you haven’t traded on sexuality when it suited you – your work and blog is littered with it and you revell in it. On top of that, you clearly manipulate a substantial segment of your collector base with images based on sexualised themes, sell them the source Polaroids and you’re quite happy to bank the cheques.”

And yet it’s long been accepted that male artists’ sexual desires, incited (but only partly satiated) by their muses, influence their creative drive. As Jonathan Jones notes, in his article about the Barbican exhibition, “It was said that Raphael so adored his mistress – and loved sex – that a patron had to install her in his house in order to get Raphael to finish his frescoes there.”

The term ‘erotic fetishism’ was coined by French experimental psychologist Alfred Binet to explain the behaviour of people who were turned on something other than the human. He divided it into ‘spiritual love’ (which is not about religion but a desire based on ideas) and ‘plastic love’ (a desire for physical objects).

For me, being excited about art is exactly the same feeling as having a raging libido. For me, both begin with art not a person. It doesn’t often work the other way round; I don’t get ideas from sexual attraction or sex. I suspect that Picasso’s and Raphael’s raging sexual desires were incited not by their so-called ‘muses’ but by visions of the art they would make (regardless of who they were trying to seduce).

The assumption that an artist is aroused by a muse or lover fits with a conventional notion of human sexuality. It also neatly equates their creativity with procreation, fitting it into a religiously inclined ‘natural order’ – first comes a desire for a person, then a desire to create (whether its new life or art) – and a church-bound moral edict that its ok to fuck to procreate but not for pleasure.

To be turned on by art (with sex only one part of satsifying that arousal) is, by definition, fetishistic. But I embrace it. When I am not making new art, my libido wanes. When I am, my libido is high. My sexuality is not just inextricably linked to art, it’s a by-product of it. I suspect that it was no different for many other artists, male and female, who – as it were – came before me.

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As we enter the fourth year of the blog I would like to thank the galleries that have supplied photographs throughout the year; the curators, gallery directors and media people for their help; and to you, the readers, for supporting the blog.

Have a happy and safe festive season and a great New Year.

We look forward to posting and reviewing many more exhibitions in 2012!

Marcus

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ASIAN CONTEMPORARY ART FAIRS HONG KONG ART MARKET

One hundred international dealers brought 5000 works of art with a total value of over HKD2 billion to the 2011 edition of Fine Art Asia. Art Radar was in attendance, gathering the reactions from galleries that brought Modern and contemporary art to the event.

Booth of Hong Kong gallery, Galerie du Monde, at Fine Art Asia 2011. Image by Art Radar.

Contemporary art section marginalised?

In the past, the emphasis of the fair has always been placed on antiques and vintage jewellery. It may come as no surprise then that there were divergent views regarding the inclusion of the contemporary and modern art section in the fair, with some galleries saying that the dominant presence of antique dealers brought serious collectors to the event, and thus to their booths, while others complained that the section was marginalised.

Fair timing means attendance low

Gallerists from booths within this section noted that foot traffic was generally poor, attributed by some to:

• significant drops in the major stock indices around the world that occurred at the same time as the fair and which diminished investment or purchase sentiment;
• the fact that the fair did not straddle a weekend, although it did coincide with the National Day holiday; and
• a closing time of 7pm which meant that people heading to the fair straight after they finished work did not have sufficient time to browse the artwork on offer nor make serious enquiries about pieces they were interested in.

Booth of US/Hong Kong gallery, Sundaram Tagore Gallery, at Fine Art Asia 2011. Image by Art Radar.

Local collectors, but new art areas

Of the galleries that had made sales, buyers were said to be from Hong Kong or China, with a number of those collectors coming from new art locations such as Aberdeen. Local galleries, those from Hong Kong, tended to be long term supporters of the fair and knew the fair founder and director, Andy Hei, well. They claimed to have made both sales and useful contacts. This was in stark contrast to the results reported by international galleries who, apart from the seasoned spaces who had managed to successfully gauge local tastes, were generally disappointed, with most saying they would not be participating in the 2012 edition of the event.

Click here to visit the website for Fine Art Asia 2011 and here to view a list of participating galleries.

Booth of Hong Kong gallery, Grotto Fine Art, at Fine Art Asia 2011. Image by Art Radar.

About Fine Art Asia 2011

The seventh edition of Fine Art Asia took place in Hong Kong from 3 to 7 October 2011 and was organised by Art and Antique International Fair Limited (AAIF). The fair hosted an “array of museum-quality exhibits rang[ing] from ancient Chinese bronzes and stone wares, Himalayan bronzes, Chinese ceramics and works of art, furniture, textiles and jades, to fine art jewellery, antique silver and exceptional Old Masters, Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary paintings and sculpture from both Asia and the West.” Highlights of the event included “Project Discovery”, a special contemporary art exhibition, which featured “solo exhibitions by a group of selected emerging Asian artists”, and “VISION”, a booth which was donated to the Hong Kong Cancer Fund and showcased “the work of a new generation of twenty contemporary Hong Kong artists.”

DCh/KN/HH

Related Topics: art fairs in Asia, Hong Kong art happenings

Related Posts:

• What sold at Art Taipei 2011? Day 2 in pictures – August 2011 - we bring you works that we noticed had earned the red dot
• Disappearing art: Glass Magazine reviews Art Fair Tokyo 2011 – August 2011 - snappy yet in-depth reviews of what selected booths had to offer
• What art fairs will contemporary galleries be heading to in 2011? – June 2011 – Fine Art Asia gets a few mentions
• ART HK 11 Hong Kong art fair: Gallery sales – ART FUTURES and ASIA ONE sections – June 2011 – we move away from reporting on the “blue-chip” sales
• Art Dubai’s aim of giving back to region realised? Media round-up – March 2011 - international audience and art and connection-generating events

Subscribe to Art Radar for more on art fairs in Hong Kong, China and beyond

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 The $14 million space has now joined a sprawling arts and luxury complex that includes one of Latin America’s swankiest hotels.

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