This year at ART HK, regular gallery presentations mixed with special ‘Art Futures’ and ‘Asia One’ booths over 2 levels at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center (HKCEC). The fair was also dotted with 10 large scale installations under ART HK Projects, curated by Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.
ART HK Project : Breathing Flower - Lotus by Choi Jeong Hwa
ART HK Project : I sleep on top of myself by Shen Shaomin
A close up of Shen Shaomin's breathing 'fetuses' laid on mounds of coarse salt.
As with every art fair, Art HK offered a number of talks and fringe events in and around the fair. We took breaks from all the hard walking to attend a couple of Asia Art Archive’s Backroom Conversations, “revisiting the decade” with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Gayatri Sinha, June Yap and Inti Guerrero. “Whose History?” explored a subject currently close to our hearts, with inspiring presentations by Manuel Borja-Villel. Iftikhar Dad, Marian Pastor Roces and Reiko Tomii. Although we missed his much-talked about presentation at the Intelligence Squared debate, we loved Paul Chan’s talk ‘Why artist groups form and why they fall: a theory’ at Asia Art Archive in conjunction with its Uncatalogued: The Case of Oil Street Artist Village project. Also at AAA we fell in love with “An Atlas of Asia Art Archive” being developed by MAP Office artist/architect duo Laurent Guttierez & Valérie Portefaix as part of their residency programme at AAA from February to July 2012.
Paul Chan presenting a talk on 'Why artist groups form and why they fall: a theory' at AAA.
With so many fringe events happening, we had to pick and choose what really piqued our interest. Even though Art East Island is 20 minutes away on a shuttle bus, it’s been heavily promoted as Hong Kong’s latest art district based in industrial warehouses.
Pure Foundation located at Art East Island, Chai Wan.
Dinh Q. Le 'Erasure' installation presented by 10 Chancery Lane gallery at Art East Island, Chai Wan.
Another angle of the Dinh Q. Le's 'Erasure' installation.