Ocula Conversation Jess Johnson: Worlds Within Worlds Geometric patterns, anthropomorphic characters, architectural spatial environments, and relics of the ancient world appear throughout Jess Johnson's artworks.Johnson's solo art-ventures began in drawing, but her long-term collaborative relationship with animator Simon Ward brings her drawings to life in videos and virtual reality. The animator has...
Ocula Report Lagos Biennial 2019: Stories from Africa’s most Populous City 15 Nov 2019 : Jareh Das for Ocula Under the artistic direction of Folakunle Oshun, the second edition of the Lagos Biennial (26 October–23 November 2019) includes works by over 40 Lagos-based and international artists, architects, and collectives. Curated by architect Tosin Oshinowo, curator and producer Oyindamola Fakeye, and assistant curator of photography at the Art Institute...
Ocula Insight | Video Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy.Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Exhibition view: Ryuji Tanaka, Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong (19 October 2019–1 February 2020). Courtesy Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
Boris Vervoordt created the Axel Vervoordt Gallery in 2011. The gallery opened in a historic space in the centre of Antwerp with an exhibition by Günther Uecker. Boris chose to open the gallery in the same exact place where his father had mounted exhibitions for Uecker and Jef Verheyen in the 1970s. The first exhibition—and those that followed—linked this new start to the company’s long history with art and its original home in the Vlaeykensgang. This continued a path of more than 40 years of working closely with artists.
'Our company has always followed a path of discovery and knowledge through art.'
– Boris Vervoordt
Boris's goal was to create the best possible platform for solo artists to present their work. Central to the gallery's on-going mission is a commitment to partnering with artist’s estates, as well as rediscovering artists whose work was under-appreciated during their lifetimes to preserve and promote their valuable contributions to art history.
The gallery expanded to Asia in 2014 with a space in central Hong Kong in the Entertainment Building.
In 2017, the Antwerp gallery moved to a new space at Kanaal, opening with a monumental retrospective of Kazuo Shiraga.
The gallery’s early program included a specialty in post-war and contemporary art with a specific focus on art from Europe, Japan, and Korea, particularly art from the ZERO and Gutai movements. An emphasis on Dansaekhwa followed, as the gallery’s program and participation in global art fairs grew in prominence and its roster of artists expanded.
'Art offers joy and endless inspiration. Artists force us to look at the world in new ways. Seeing works by gallery artists in in major institutions—like the Tate and Guggenheim—is validating, but even more, it ensures that they will be shared with a wide audience in the context of passionate scholarship.'
– Boris Vervoordt
![Kaze '91 (Ryuyoku) [Winds (Green willows)] by Ryuji Tanaka contemporary artwork](http://d3rtf5gv0re40d.cloudfront.net/anzax/a2/a289502c-ae81-41be-8d4b-2b790103a65a_300_201.jpg)
![Kaze '91 (Kako) [Winds (Red Blossoms)] by Ryuji Tanaka contemporary artwork](http://d3rtf5gv0re40d.cloudfront.net/anzax/4c/4c66e2f1-ae9e-4845-8588-6f84e9ce364f_300_201.jpg)
Ocula Photolog West Bund Art & Design 2019 11 November 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 7 October 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 | Video Kim Inhye on Yun Hyong-keun’s Retrospective at Palazzo Fortuny 11 July 2019 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 provides an...
Ocula Report 58th Venice Biennale: May You Live In Interesting Times 24 May 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula 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 Mirror image: Kimsooja’s self-reflective installations take over the French city of Poitiers Wallpaper* : 12 October 2019 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 Art Gallery NSW : 24 September 2019 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 behind,...
Related Press When the Arts Resist Imperialism Hyperallergic : 7 September 2019 A resplendent display of 272 fuchsia-colored paper lotus lanterns adorns the light-filled oculus on The Rubin Museum of Art's top floor. The sweeping circular installation, Lotus: Zone of Zero (2019) by Kimsooja, is among the more striking of the works by 10 international artists selected by guest curator Sara Raza for the exhibition Clapping with...
Related Press The Art Newspaper's pick of the 2019 Venice Biennale The Art Newspaper : 30 April 2019 There are hundreds of exhibitions in Venice during the Biennale. Alongside the main exhibition in the Giardini and Arsenale, there are 90 national presentations, many in nearby pavilions in the Giardini and in spaces around the Arsenale, but also dotted throughout Venice. Then there are the official collateral exhibitions in museums and galleries,...
Related Video & Audio El Anatsui: ‘The golden rule is, there are no rules’ Art Basel : 7 June 2019 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 Axel Vervoordt : 23 August 2017 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 Axel Vervoordt Gallery : 8 June 2017 © Hugo Frey. Courtesy the artist and Axel Vervoordt Gallery.
Related Video & Audio Kimsooja on 'Brilliant Ideas' Bloomberg : 26 January 2017 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...
