Ocula Report 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale: Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life 15 Feb 2019 : Natalie King for Ocula 'Poems are like sentences that have taken their clothes off.' Marlene Dumas' poetic and sensual refrain accompanies her figurative watercolours on view in Possibilities for a Non-Alienated Life, the fourth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) in the southern state of Kerala, India (12 December 2018–29 March 2019).Dumas' new series...
Ocula Conversation Ellen Altfest The paintings of Ellen Altfest are ethereal in their detail. Fields of minutiae come together as pulsating images; small brushstrokes of oil paint accumulate over a series of months to single out seemingly innocuous subjects, such as a hand resting atop patterned fabric (The Hand, 2011) or a deep green cactus reaching upwards from beneath a bed of...
Ocula Report Colomboscope 2019: Cross Currents and Dissonance 8 Feb 2019 : Nada Raza for Ocula On the rooftop of the former Rio Hotel complex in Colombo, it was hard to ignore the high-rise buildings, still under construction, blocking all but a sliver of what used to be an open view over Slave Island, once an island on Beira Lake that housed slaves in the 19th century, and now a downtown suburb. The hotel was set alight during the...
Ocula Insight Wim Delvoye on his art, censorship and the future 7 February 2019 At 53, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye continues to employ the shock factor with abandon. Moving between the sacred and the profane, inflections of gothic drama and high technology imbue the artist's drawings, sculptures, and installations. He frequently swings from fine art to the decorative, applying Belgian ornamental elements such as coats of arms...
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...
Ocula Conversation Lee Ufan Artist, Korea Nowadays, Korean-born artist Lee Ufan needs little introduction. The combination of the opening of his own Tadao Ando-designed museum at the Benesse Art Site, Japan in 2010; his 2011 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New York; and his major show at the Château de Versailles in 2014, have all meant that in recent years Lee Ufan has...
Ocula Conversation Zhang Huan Artist, China Few people were all that rich when China finally officially opened its borders in 1978, but Zhang Huan was poorer than most. He was born in Anyang, Henan Province, in 1965, just before Mao initiated the decade-long calamity of the Cultural Revolution. Living hardscrabble with his grandparents in the remote countryside, his early childhood...
Ocula Report No More Triumphs: A Report on Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW) 2015 9 Nov 2015 : Sophia McKinnon for Ocula ‘I don’t have a concept of place anymore,’ was the response given by Ming Wong when asked about representing specific geographies during a panel as part of New York’s 10th Asia Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), 2015. Presented by the Asia Contemporary Art Consortium (ACAC), it brings together 150 artists, curators, and writers...
Ocula Report The Best Exhibitions to See in Basel 12 Jun 2015 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula Kunsthalle BaselAnicka Yi7,070,430K of Digital Spit12 June to 16 August, 20157,070,430K of Digital Spit is about forgetting as an aesthetic operation. Framed as a “coda” to Yi’s “last few years of intense artistic production"—specifically, the last five years—this exhibition is as much...
Ocula Report Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection 5 Jun 2015 : Jane O’Sullivan for Ocula Yang Zhichao’s Chinese Bible is both unyieldingly monumental and humble. In the latest presentation of the work in Sydney, all 3,000 of the diaries he has collected from Beijing’s fleamarkets are placed in neat rows on a large, rectangular plinth. Dated from 1949 to 1999 they record 50 turbulent years in China’s...
Ocula Conversation Gene Sherman & Suhanya Raffel Collector and Curator When Australian collectors and philanthropists Gene and Brian Sherman moved from South Africa to Australia in 1976, Gene says they instantly recognised a “buzz about Asia” that they weren’t expecting.As an academic teaching French literature, the push towards Asian languages also put her out of a job. “I went into...
Ocula Report Shanghai Museum Shows: “Myth / History II” at the Yuz Museum and “Xu Zhen Solo Show” at the Long Museum 28 Apr 2015 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula Two private museums beside the Huangpu River are celebrating their first birthdays this spring. The Long Museum West Bund, which opened in March 2014, is marking the occasion with a Xu Zhen solo show, while the Yuz Museum, which opened last May, has at last launched its second exhibition. Both shows are milestone moments in the...
Ocula Report Gwangju Biennale: Burning Down The House 4 Oct 2014 : Jeesun Park for Ocula Gwangju is only the sixth largest city in Korea but its history has become well-known to art audiences around the world through its provocative biennale, now a fixed event in the international art calendar. The Gwangju Biennale began twenty years ago specifically to commemorate the historic fight for democracy that took place in the city, known...
Ocula Conversation Doryun Chong Chief Curator, M+, Hong Kong Doryun Chong is Chief Curator at M+, Hong Kong’s super museum for visual culture. Prior to joining M+, Chong was Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and prior to that, he was a curator in the visual arts department at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center from 2003 to 2009. At MoMA,...
Ocula Conversation Doryun Chong Chief Curator, M+, Hong Kong Doryun Chong is Chief Curator at M+, Hong Kong’s super museum for visual culture. Prior to joining M+, Chong was Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and prior to that, he was a curator in the visual arts department at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center from 2003 to 2009. At MoMA,...
Ocula Conversation William Zhao Independent Curator, Critic and Consultant, Hong Kong The last decade has seen an extraordinary interest in the art of China, yet Hong Kong artists have been significantly overlooked in this bubbling and frothing phenomena. It is timely therefore that Ai Weiwei, arguably the most well-known of the Chinese artists, has chosen to curate an exhibition in Hong Kong featuring only Hong Kong artists; and...
Ocula Conversation Dakis Joannou Founder, DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Greece In 1983, Dakis Joannou, along with curators Adelina Von Furstenberg and Efi Strousa, founded the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art. DESTE has staged exhibitions that include Cultural Geometry (1988), Psychological Abstraction (1989), Artificial Nature (1990), Post Human (1992-1993); four shows artist Andreas Angelidakis describes as four...
Ocula Conversation Alan Lo Chairman, Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design, Hong Kong Active in promoting art and design in Hong Kong, Alan Lo is the Chairman of Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design, sits on the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and was a member of Art HK’s advisory group. Lo is also a co-founder and director of Hong Kong-based Press Room Group, owner and operator of various well-known restaurants and...
