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...
Exhibition view: DanHôo, Between Two Cultures, A2Z Art Gallery, Paris (2–30 March, 2019). Courtesy A2Z Art Gallery.
Zhang Yirong, Water power (2019) (Detail). Oil on canvas. 150 x 150 cm. Courtesy A2Z Art Gallery, Hong Kong.
Located in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, A2Z Art Gallery, founded in 2009 and specialising in contemporary art, presents a selection of international artists. Ziwei and Anthony Phuong, the gallery’s founders, have invented a place where artists have carte blanche to express their world. "I want to support artists who have digested the technological revolutions and social mutations all over the world," said Anthony Phuong. Through his first job as framer in a family business (Phuong Workshop), the young gallery owner has mixed with artists that shape the world of art in France and analysed the market for many years before deciding to take the plunge. Ziwei, for her part, by her studies in art and many years of experience in a famous Parisian gallery, has developed an increased knowledge in the field of contemporary art.
The artists from the A2Z Art Gallery stable each develop a characteristic writing, revealing the diversity, specificity and richness of a globalised society. Whether photographer, sculptor, video artist or performer, they use, according to their creations, all the mediums of the contemporary art to share their feelings about the world that surrounds them.
Via a space of 300 sqm spread over 5 floors, A2Z Art Gallery supports these international artists in their creations. Indeed, collaborating with many international galleries and cultural institutions, and developing exchanges between China and France, A2Z Art Gallery has become and continues to affirm itself as one of the most prominent partners to make people discover the international and notably Chinese potential still unknown.
Ocula Photolog Asia Now 2018 19 October 2018 'Founded by Claude Fain and Alexandra Fain, ASIA NOW aims to present the new perspectives and issues for contemporary Asian art and its market: the value of its artists, its potential for development and its rising stars.'–Asia Now Paris (17–21 October 2018).
Ocula Conversation Dr Uli Sigg Collector When Sydney art dealer Ray Hughes visited Swiss collector Uli Sigg at his Mauensee residence near Lucerne some years ago, a mutual friend asked the dealer how the visit went. ‘Did you feel comfortable and find a place to kick your feet up and read?’ ‘No, to both,’ answered Hughes, ‘it seems there was only art...
Related Press Malaysian artist offers a cutting commentary on religion and society South China Morning Post : 25 September 2018 She smokes, she swears and she has written her own six pillars representing her artistic practice: religion, culture, society, roles, gender and humanity.
Related Press Contemporary Chinese Art In Manchester Art Radar / 10 October 2014 : 14 October 2014 Harmonious Society was launched on 27 September and runs until 23 November 2014. Organised by the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), it is spread across six venues in Manchester. Lead curator Jiang Jiehong’s ambitious project is laid out much in the same guise as a biennial or triennial exhibition and responds to the overall theme...
Related Press Li Wei In Beijing Liang Shuhan for Randian Online / 23 January 2014 : 28 January 2014 Stepping into the pitch-black gallery, the darkness wraps up one’s fingers and sends a shiver down the spine. After adjusting to the depth of darkness, the scene laid out gives yet another jolt: flickering candlelight, a cross on an altar, relief carvings on columns and criss-crossing vaulting arches—the exhibit even comes equipped with...
