Ocula Conversation Sunjung Kim’s Real DMZ Project Interrogates the North and South Korea Divide Ongoing since 2012, the Real DMZ Project interrogates the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea through annual, research-based exhibitions that bring together the works of Korean and international artists. Sunjung Kim, the independent curator behind the project, conceived the idea of exploring the DMZ while curating Japanese artist...
Ocula Report Sydney Lowdown: Exhibitions to See 6 Sep 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The fifth edition of Sydney Contemporary will take place once again at Carriageworks between 12 and 15 September 2019, with Spring 1883 bringing together a cohort of 27 galleries from across Australia and the region to inhabit rooms at the Establishment Hotel from 11 to 14 September 2019, uniquely presenting contemporary works propped up on...
Ocula Insight | Video Mark Bradford’s Call for Unity at Shanghai’s Long Museum 16 August 2019 Mark Bradford walks through Mark Bradford: Los Angeles Mark Bradford: Los Angeles at the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai (27 July–13 October 2019) is the artist's largest solo exhibition to date in China. In this video for Ocula, Bradford and Diana Nawi, curator of the show, walk through selected works that convey the artist's concerns with...
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
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...
Ocula Photolog Frieze New York 2019 6 May 2019 'Building on Frieze's history as a platform for discovery and challenging the traditional art fair format, the eighth edition introduces new curators and collaborations with leading museum directors; including two exhibitions exploring virtual reality and the significance of self-taught artists, and two new sections celebrating Latin American art...
Ocula Photolog TEFAF New York Spring 2019 6 May 2019 'The Fair's timing in early May is intended to coincide with auctions, exhibitions, and other fairs in New York dedicated to modern and contemporary art and design. The historic Park Avenue Armory provides the prime Manhattan location and setting for the world's leading art dealers to meet with curators and collectors.' –TEFAF New York Spring,...
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 Press The South Korean artist painting a Yorkshire chapel with prismatic light Wallpaper* : 15 April 2019 Five hundred acres of voluptuous hillsides are peppered with wandering eyes, concrete lumps and hollowed Hepworths, all cohabiting the landscape with grazing sheep. Yorkshire Sculpture Park is perhaps one of the only sites in the UK where you might confuse an ovine watering trough with a modernist sculpture. Now it also houses the only chapel where...
Related Press Thukral and Tagra: Bread, Circuses and TBD; Kimsooja: To Breathe – review The Guardian : 7 April 2019 A new gallery has opened in the rolling green paradise of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Or rather an ace cafe with a space for art. The new Weston building, a visitor centre designed by architects Feilden Fowles, is light-filled, airy and undoubtedly beautiful, its concrete and polished plaster tinted to match the sandstone bedrock of this glorious...
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...
