Ocula Report Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber 15 Mar 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula In Meiro Koizumi's three-channel video installation, The Angels of Testimony (2019), the central frame features an interview with Hajime Kondo about his time as a solider of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The conversation centres on war crimes perpetrated in China, including the beheading of Chinese prisoners for...
Ocula Conversation Diana Campbell Betancourt Diana Campbell Betancourt is a curator working predominantly across South and Southeast Asia. Since 2013 she has been the founding artistic director of the Samdani Art Foundation and chief curator of the Dhaka Art Summit in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a transnational art event that has grown in size and scale ever since its first edition in 2012. Backed by...
Ocula Report Chinternet Ugly at Manchester’s Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art 7 Mar 2019 : Mike Pinnington for Ocula China, home to 802 million internet users, is subject to sophisticated online censorship. This shrouded state of affairs, unsurprisingly perhaps, serves to reinforce stereotypes around conformity elsewhere. Any realm, digital or otherwise, subject to such strict scrutiny must necessarily be bland and uncritical, right? I was mulling over such...
Ocula Photolog West Bund Art & Design 2018 9 November 2018 'With a strong selection of returning exhibitors, the 2018 edition welcomes 87 galleries in the Galleries section, among which 39 are participating for the first time.'– West Bund Art & Design (8–11 November 2018).
Ocula Photolog JINGART 2018 21 May 2018 'Focusing on modern and contemporary art & design, JINGART provides galleries and artists the platform to present art works of different eras and genres, and communicate with international collectors and lovers of art.' –JINGART (17–20 May 2018).
Ocula Photolog Art Chengdu 2018 30 April 2018 'A relatively small fair, Art Chengdu included 30 galleries inside a tent in the Chunxi Road shopping district, including A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Boers-Li Gallery, ShanghART, Sadie Coles HQ, and Peres Projects.' –Art Chengdu (25–27 April 2018).
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Hong Kong 2018 29 March 2018 'The sixth edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong brought together a uniquely global mix of galleries spanning six continents, outstanding artworks by established and new artists from across theworld and a singular gathering of international collectors and institutions.' –Art Basel in Hong Kong (29–31 March 2018).
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Hong Kong 2016 23 March 2016 Following a breakthrough 2015 edition – which placed the Hong Kong show squarely in the center of Asia’s international art scene – the upcoming Art Basel in Hong Kong offers a premier platform for showing works from across the globe, more than half from Asia and Asia Pacific. The show provides an in-depth overview of the...
Ocula Conversation Adeline Ooi Director, Art Basel in Hong Kong Art Basel Hong Kong has started early this year. I don’t mean just the dates, which have been pushed forward from May to March. I mean inboxes are already flooded with invitations for previews and dinners taking place well ahead of the March 22 VIP preview. There are more events, more exhibitions, and certainly more collectors descending...
Ocula Report Ocula Report: ART021 27 Nov 2015 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula The opening of ART021 on Friday, 20 November ended at Shanghai Night Club (上海之夜), a four-storey karaoke bar run by Chinese collector Qiao Zhibing. Painter Ding Yi held a cigar in his hand and wore a bemused expression on his face as singer QT tottered around the venue’s main stage, watched over by several large Yang Fudong photographs,...
Ocula Report A report from ASIA NOW 30 Oct 2015 : Anna Dickie for Ocula When details of the new Parisian art fair, ASIA NOW, were announced only very shortly before its inaugural opening on 20th October 2015, it appeared as though the fair might be a last minute job. Yet, it has, according to numerous accounts, been a very successful fair: carefully planned and organised, and well attended by collectors genuinely...
Ocula Photolog Asia Now, Paris 2015 23 October 2015 Asia Now Paris Asian Art Fair is the first art fair in Paris dedicated to the Asian scene and designed with a human size format that makes its specificity : each selected gallery presents a curatorial proposition (less than 20 projects) in an environment that allows in-depth relations with the key players of the Asian contemporary art world.
