Advisory Selections from Art Basel OVR: Portals

Running between 16 and 19 June 2021, OVR: Portals is the first curator-led edition of Art Basel's Online Viewing Rooms, with Magali Arriola, Christina Li, and Larry Ossei-Mensah at the helm. Ocula Advisory present a selection of fair highlights.

Kazunori Hamana at Blum & Poe

Kazunori Hamana, Untitled (2020). Ceramic. 71.12 x 68.8975 x 65.7225 cm. © Kazunori Hamana. Courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.

Kazunori Hamana is a self-taught ceramicist living in the Japanese fishing village of Isumi, whose unique clay sculptures are inspired by traditional tsubo storage vessels that have been used to keep food since prehistoric times.

Hamana sources clay and the metals and materials used for his treatments and glazes from the region, linking his work to the surrounding natural environment of the Shiga prefecture while exploring ancient techniques.

The artist's work is being brought together with that of painter Minoru Namata for an exhibition at White Cube Paris between 24 June and 18 August 2021, followed by a solo exhibition at Blum & Poe Los Angeles from 10 September to 23 October 2021.

Hamish Fulton at Galerie Thomas Schulte

Hamish Fulton, Mountain Skyline. Wyoming 2017 (2017). Painting on paper. Framed: 34.3 x 37.3 x 3 cm. © Hamish Fulton. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Thomas Schute, Berlin.

Since graduating from London's Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art in the late 1960s, Hamish Fulton has dedicated himself 'to make art resulting only from the experience of individual walks'.

A self-declared 'walking artist', Fulton's works are commemorations of ventures he has undertaken in every corner of the globe.

His presentation of works with Galerie Thomas Schulte at OVR: Portals takes us from the footpaths of Iceland to the mountains in Wyoming, encouraging a renewed appreciation of nature.

Ha Chong-Hyun at Blum & Poe

Ha Chong-hyun, Conjunction 20-34 (2020). Oil on hemp. 116.84 x 91.123 x 5.72 cm. © Ha Chong-hyun. Courtesy the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo.

Since the 1970s, Ha Chong-Hyun's paintings have all fallen under the same title of 'Conjunction'.

The meditative works consist of bands and pools of oil paint pressed into hemp canvases from the back, resulting in unique forms that celebrate the purity of paint.

As the artist has explained in Ocula Magazine, 'I have continuously used the title 'conjunction' since the early 1970s, because it is really the essence of my work: the conjunction between the materials—oil paint and hemp cloth—and my spirit and performance.'

Raul Guerrero at David Kordansky Gallery

Raul Guerrero, Las Indias (2006). Oil on linen. 142.24 x 203.2 x 3.81 cm. Courtesy David Kordansky Gallery.

In anticipation of Raul Guerrero's first solo presentation with David Kordansky Gallery opening in July 2021, the artist is being featured with the gallery at OVR: Portals.

Drawing on his personal experience navigating U.S. culture as a person of Mexican ancestry, Guerrero's paintings address the shifting cultural landscape of the American Southwest, containing a range of popular and art-historical references.

Alicja Kwade, Hypothetisches Gebilde (2017). Copper, patina, branco granite, coal. 161.3 x 170.2 x 247 cm. Unique. © Alicja Kwade. Courtesy 303 Gallery, New York. Photo: Roman März.

Alicja Kwade at 303 Gallery

Polish-born, Berlin-based Alicja Kwade's immersive artworks bring our perception of time and space to the fore by questioning our relationship to objects.

Kwade is included in the much-anticipated Helsinki Biennial, which opened last weekend. She is also the subject of an exhibition at kamel mennour's Paris space alongside work by sculptor Louise Nevelson, who was a practitioner of site-specific and installation art in the early 20th century.

Samson Young at Experimenter

Samson Young, 30-01-2020 (glossary provided) (2020). Colour pencil, ink, stamps. 21 x 29.7 cm. Courtesy the artist and Experimenter, Kolkata.

Channelling his background in philosophy and musical composition, Hong Kong-born Samson Young presents drawings for Experimenter's OVR: Portals presentation that address the notion of interpersonal relations.

Speaking with Ocula Magazine on the importance of drawing to his process, Young explained, 'I like drawings and works on paper because they seem a little less removed from making musical manuscripts, which is a process that I am already familiar with as a composer'.

Young's work is currently the subject of a solo exhibition at Capitain Petzel, Berlin, running until 19 June.

Matt Connors at Herald St

Matt Connors, Adapted Bug Chaser (2021). Oil, acrylic and pencil on canvas. 101.6 x 91.4 cm. Courtesy Herald St.

Traversing the realms of minimalism and abstraction, Connors' paint-stained canvases revitalise modernist expressions to form his own unique contemporary oeuvre.

In an article on his recent work, Ocula Advisory expressed, 'On closer inspection, one is struck by the brilliantly spontaneous handling of paint, including accidental drops and splatters that permeate flat spaces of colour, contributing to the story of production'.

Connors received his MFA from Yale School of Art in 2006, and today lives and works in New York. —[O]

Main image: Hamish Fulton, Mountain Skyline. Wyoming 2017 (2017). Painting on paper. Framed: 34.3 x 37.3 x 3 cm. © Hamish Fulton. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Thomas Schute, Berlin.