Latest Ocula Conversation Artist Taloi Havini and Ruth McDougall, curator of Pacific art at Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, discuss Havini's first Australian solo exhibition, Reclamation .
Ocula Report Sydney Biennale Connects Here with Everywhere By Soo-Min Shim, Sydney 'This year's Biennale of Sydney seems like a corrective,' writes Soo-Min Shim, 'prioritising autonomy in an international exhibition format that has all too often omitted or sidelined First Nations artists.'
Ocula Insight Hell is a Place on Earth: P·P·O·W Looks to History in Context of Covid-19 By Stephanie Bailey, London In the United States, parallels have been drawn between the HIV/AIDS crisis and what is unfolding with Covid-19. These connections feed into P·P·O·W's online exhibition, Hell is a Place on Earth. Heaven is a Place in Your Head .
Established in Hong Kong by Chang Tsong-zung (Johnson Chang) in 1983, Hanart TZ Gallery is a pioneering gallery in the field of Chinese contemporary art. Chang—an active curator since the 1980s, co-founder of the Asia Art Archive, and guest professor of China Academy of Art in Hangzhou—is regarded as an influential figure of the Hong Kong art scene. Under Chang’s directorship, the gallery has sought to foster and introduce contemporary art from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the region’s diaspora to the broader Asian and international art scene.
Read MoreFrom its main space in the historic Pedder Building in Central, Hong Kong, Hanart TZ Gallery has developed as a key point of connection with the international art world. Numerous artists that the gallery has supported, such as Zhang Xiaogang and Zeng Fanzhi, have become internationally prominent. It has also played a role in several iconic milestone exhibitions, including The Stars: 10 Years—a major retrospective held in 1989 of the famous Chinese contemporary art group, the Stars. In 1993, Chang co-organised the landmark exhibition, China’s New Art Post-1989, which brought over 200 works by avantgarde Chinese artists to the Hong Kong City Hall. The subsequent tour of China’s New Art Post-1989 brought Political Pop artists Wang Ziwei, Li Shan, Yu Youhan, and Wang Guangyi to the Venice Biennale that same year, making them the first Chinese artists to participate in the prestigious international art event.
Hanart TZ Gallery also organised the European touring exhibition, A Strange Heaven: Contemporary Chinese Photography (2003), a landmark survey of photography by 42 Chinese contemporary artists. In China, the gallery was responsible for the solo exhibition of famed Taiwanese artist Liu Guosong at Beijing’s Palace Museum in 2007. In 2010, the gallery opened a second exhibition space, Hanart Square, in the Mai On Industrial Building in the Kwai Chung area of Hong Kong. The former industrial space provides greater room for experimental art and larger installations.
Hanart TZ Gallery’s roster incorporates a variety of established and emerging artists working in a diverse range of practices. Each artist draws elements from their own Chinese or broader Asian cultural context in contrast to Western visions of contemporary art. Over the years, the gallery has come to represent prominent, highly respected Hong Kong artists, such as Gaylord Chan, Chu Hing Wah, and Luis Chan, as well as key Taiwanese names such as Cheng Tsai-Tung, Liu Guosong, Yeh Shih-Chiang, and Yuan Goang-Ming; and prominent artists from the Chinese mainland, such as Chen Beixin, Lin Haizhong, Mao Xuhui, and Fang Lijun. First- and second-generation Chinese artists overseas, such as Chinese-American Emily Cheng, have also been incorporated in the gallery’s programme.
In its mission to bring Chinese contemporary art to the broader Asia region and the world, Hanart TZ Gallery participates in several major art fairs. These include Hong Kong’s Fine Art Asia and Ink Asia; Art Basel in Hong Kong, Miami Beach, and Basel; Taipei Dangdai; Abu Dhabi Art; The Armory Show, New York; and West Bund Art & Design, Shanghai. The gallery also fosters the spread of knowledge and dialogue around contemporary Asian art through pan-Asian talks and discussions hosted by the gallery, and the production of a variety of literature (producing over 100 publications in the last 30 years). In 2015, the gallery published a seminal study of Chinese art from the past century, 3 Parallel Artworlds: 100 Art Things from Chinese Modern History, featuring writing by 14 international scholars examining 100 works by Chinese artists.
Ocula Insight On Sediment and Seepage: Ho Sin Tung at Hanart TZ Gallery By Emily Verla Bovino, Hong Kong Ho Sin Tung's Swampland at Hong Kong's Hanart TZ Gallery 'quietly alludes to the city's concrete-surfaced wetlands amidst references to the boggy political slough that recent social unrest has struggled against', writes Emily Verla Bovino.
Ocula Photolog Art Basel Miami Beach 2019 'In Art Basel's American show, leading galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia show significant work from the masters of Modern and contemporary art, as well as the new generation of emerging stars. Paintings, sculptures, installations, photographs, films, and editioned works of the highest quality are on display in the main...
Ocula Report China’s Post-Intranet Artists Get Personal By Sam Gaskin, Auckland China's post-80s artists are no longer all that 'young', nor do they much need that moniker. With the oldest of that generation fast approaching 40, to call them young would be misleading given how rapidly many of them rose to prominence during the tail-end of China's foreign collector-powered art boom and subsequent influx of domestic collectors....
Ocula Conversation Johnson Chang By Tessa Moldan, Hong Kong Johnson Chang, gallerist and curator, is a pioneer of the Hong Kong art scene. Through the establishment of Hanart TZ Gallery in 1983, Chang created a platform for new art from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, redefining the market with his organisation of China's New Art, Post-1989 , held at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in 1993. Over 200 works...
Related Press Legacy of colonialism: Singapore artist’s show on Malayan Emergency and its resonance for Hong Kong 22 June 2019, South China Morning Post Singaporean artist Sim Chi Yin has brought her exhibition about Chinese communists to Hong Kong just when anti-Chinese Communist sentiment is running high in the semi-autonomous city. One Day We'll Understand is about the Malayan Emergency, the 1948-60 communist guerilla war fought in the Federation of Malaya before and after independence from...
Related Press Beer with a Painter: Emily Cheng 8 February 2019, Hyperallergic I feel quieted in Emily Cheng's studio — to the point where I wondered, afterwards, if I'd even posed questions. A fountain is gurgling, and she has set out beer and snacks. The paintings invite reflection more than commentary. I had visited her studio more than 10 years ago, and at the time felt that she was a painter whose work fell...
Related Press Art Insider: Johnson Chang 27 September 2018, Hong Kong Tatler With his thick-rimmed glasses, Mandarin-collar jacket and broad smile, Johnson Chang is an instantly recognisable figure at many of Hong Kong's art events—but he's famous for far more than his fashion sense.
Related Press Chinese artist fears ink painting tradition is being tarnished by need to stay relevant 17 July 2018, South China Morning Post Luo Ying is a purist. The professor of traditional Chinese painting practises what she teaches: her classical ink landscape paintings borrow techniques and styles of brushwork used as far back as the Song dynasty (960 – 1279AD).
Related Video & Audio Illuminated Presence: Yeh Shih-Chiang + Yeh Wei-li 22 October 2015, Hong Kong Art Centre In Illuminated Presence , Hong Kong Arts Centre presents a powerful and moving exhibition of works by the late Taiwan master painter and calligrapher YEH Shih-Chiang (1926-2012). The exhibition is accompanied by a new series of interpretative works by photography-based artist YEH Wei-Li from Taiwan, created in response to Yeh Shih-chiang’s...
Related Video & Audio Johnson Tsong-zung Chang, Curator, Director of Hanart TZ Gallery 25 August 2015, Artshare In this video Artshare.com talks with leading expert and Chinese contemporary art pioneer, Johnson Chang Tsong-zung. We discuss his gallery, Hanart TZ, his views on the market, on the Hong Kong art scene and much more.
