Ocula Conversation Emi Eu: ‘We have to look at Southeast Asia as one market’ Stephanie Bailey, Singapore STPI's Emi Eu reflects on S.E.A. Focus, an STPI project platforming artists and galleries from Southeast Asia, in the wake of Art Stage's decline in 2019 and ahead of the launch of Singapore's new art fair, Art SG, in October 2020.
Ocula Report New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata: Shows to See Kanika Anand, New Delhi With India Art Fair set to open amid nationwide protests, Kanika Anand introduces shows in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Kolkata that express shifting socio-political identities, modes of resistance, and explorations of place-making.
Ocula Insight Images from Abroad: Lada Nakonechna at Galerie EIGEN + ART Phoebe Blatton, Berlin Images from abroad , Lada Nakonechna's solo exhibition at Galerie EIGEN + ART in Berlin, considers the barriers that exist between depictions of conflict and their viewers.
Established in 2011 by Boris Vervoordt, Axel Vervoordt Gallery has developed strong bonds to a range of established and mid-career artists and prominent artist estates, with a vision towards connecting the past and present, East and West, and exploring the concepts of the void, space and time.
Read MoreBoris’ father Axel Vervoordt—a designer, collector, curator, and entrepreneur of international renown—began the Axel Verdvoordt company at the age of 21, operating out of the Vlaeykensgang from a collection of 15th- and 16th-century buildings in Antwerp, 11 of which Vervoordt set out to renovate in 1969. The company is a family-led business in the field of art and interiors & design, aimed at the pursuit of beauty. Boris created the gallery in 2011 as a new start for the company’s long relationship with art.
Opening in Antwerp in January 2011 with an exhibition by German sculptor Günther Uecker, Axel Vervoordt Gallery’s early focus was on the German ZERO and Japanese Gutai Movements. Post-War contemporary art movements in Europe, Japan, and Korea continue to form the backbone of the gallery’s exhibition programme, with later expansions into movements such as Dansaekhwa. The gallery moved in 2017 from the center of Antwerp to the industrial site ‘Kanaal’, situated outside Antwerp on the banks of the Albert Canal. Originally a distillery and malting complex the company began developing Kanaal into a cultural and residential centre and headquarters in 1999. The location opened with an extensive retrospective of key Gutai artist Kazuo Shiraga. In this new home the gallery’s programme of prominent and mid-career artists is enhanced by surrounding spaces that feature permanent installations by James Turrell, Marina Abramović, Takis, Tatsuo Miyajima, and Anish Kapoor, and spaces showing the extensive art collection managed by the Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation, which was founded in 2008.
In 2014, building on its mission to connect across time and culture, the gallery opened a space in Central Hong Kong before expanding its operations in the city by moving, in 2019, to a larger space in Wong Chuk Hang’s Coda Designer Centre in the southern area of Hong Kong Island in 2019. The space in Wong Chuk Hang opened with Infinitive Mutability (2019) a group exhibition featuring sculptor, Peter Buggenhout, installation artist, Kimsooja, and painter Bosco Sodi. Based on Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction, the show examined the unlimited possibilities created by new interpretations of art and ideas.
Exhibition view: Ryuji Tanaka, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong (19 October 2019–1 February 2020). Courtesy Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
Ocula Photolog West Bund Art & Design 2019 'The fair provides a platform for international exhibitors to showcase the finest quality of modern and contemporary art in Shanghai. With exhibitions and art events offered by museums and galleries in the city, West Bund has made November's Shanghai a permanent fixture on the global art calendar.' –West Bund Art & Design, Shanghai (7–10...
Ocula Photolog Frieze Masters 2019 'Coinciding with Frieze London, Frieze Masters features more than 130 of the world's leading galleries specialising in antiquities, Asian art, ethnographic art, illuminated manuscripts, medieval, modern and post-war art, Old Masters and 19th century, as well as photography and sculpture.' –Frieze Masters (3–6 October 2019).
Ocula Insight Kim Inhye on Yun Hyong-keun’s Retrospective at Palazzo Fortuny Ocula IGTV Yun Hyong-keun at Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, is the first international retrospective exhibition of the eponymous Korean artist's work since his death in 2007. Curated by Kim Inhye, the retrospective runs throughout the duration of the 58th Venice Biennale , which concludes on 24 November. In this Ocula video, created for Ocula's IGTV , Kim...
Ocula Report 58th Venice Biennale: May You Live In Interesting Times Mohammad Salemy, Venice The 58th Venice Biennale , May You Live In Interesting Times (11 May–24 November 2019), certainly benefitted from low expectations, given the lacklustre curatorial of the previous edition, when different segments of the show were conceptually framed with titles like 'Pavilion of Joys and Fears' and 'Pavilion of Colours'. Add to this the...
Related Press Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Announces 7 Site-Specific Installations 5 December 2019, The New York Times The artists are El Anatsui, Byung Hoon Choi, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Olafur Eliasson, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Cristina Iglesias and Ai Weiwei, and they were commissioned to create a mix of sculptures, light installations and suspended artworks for the 14-acre premises, known as the Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus.
Related Press 10 Hong Kong Art Exhibitions To See In November 2019 5 November 2019, Hong Kong Tatler Sinuous sculptures crafted from steel, post-WWII abstract paintings and celebrity portraits by Annie Leibovitz are just a few of the highlights of this month's exhibitions
Related Press Mirror image: Kimsooja’s self-reflective installations take over the French city of Poitiers 12 October 2019, Wallpaper* For more than 25 years, South Korean artist Kimsooja has focused her practice on a specific element in her country's visual culture: the bottari, a colourful bundle of cloth used to wrap and transport items by hand. It is a traditional and timeless component of life in Korea, where bottari fabrics are often recycled from old silk bedcovers, a...
Related Press Kimsooja in conversation 24 September 2019, Art Gallery NSW In the new exhibition Here we are at the Art Gallery of NSW, some of the most compelling women artists at work today consider the connections we create with others and how these connections resonate outwards through our lives. In the 2009 video A needle woman by Kimsooja, from the Gallery's collection, the figure of the artist, seen from...
Related Video & Audio El Anatsui: ‘The golden rule is, there are no rules’ 7 June 2019, Art Basel El Anatsui has carved a name for himself with his monumental hanging sculptures made with recycled metal scraps. As imposing and spectacular as they are fragile and portable, these works have been exhibited in some of the world's most prestigious institutions, most recently at Munich's Haus der Kunst and in the Venice Biennale's first Ghana...
Related Video & Audio Angel Vergara | Straatman 23 August 2017, Axel Vervoordt Straatman first appeared in front of the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1988. Ever since, he has been popping up in various places from Antwerp to Tokyo, both announced and by surprise. Leading up to the exhibition at Axel Vervoordt Gallery in September 2017, Straatman turned up in several locations around Antwerp throughout the month...
Related Video & Audio Michel Mouffe - Axel Vervoordt Gallery 8 June 2017, Axel Vervoordt Gallery © Hugo Frey. Courtesy the artist and Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
Related Video & Audio Kimsooja on 'Brilliant Ideas' 26 January 2017, Bloomberg Born in 1957 in Daegu, South Korea, Kimsooja started attracting the attention of the international art community when she began constructing Korean bottaris in her art – a gesture and motif that continues to appear in her work till today. Her art centers on the work and labor of women –beginning with her early sewn works, to her films and video...
