Ocula Conversation Pierre Huyghe: The Artist as Director Pierre Huyghe is a producer of spectacular and memorable enigmas, with works that function more like mirages than as objects. Abyssal Plain (2015–ongoing), his contribution to the 2015 Istanbul Biennial, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, was installed on the seabed of the Marmara Sea, some 20 metres below the surface of the water and close to...
Ocula Report MoMA Expansion: Once the Modern, Always the Modern 29 Nov 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula In the early decades of its existence, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), founded in 1929, transformed from a philanthropic project modestly housed in a few rooms of the Heckscher Building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, to an alleged operating node in the United States' cultural struggle during the cold war, and one of the...
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...
Anthony Miler, The Sun Sets On Us All, Masahiro Maki Gallery, Tokyo (23 November–21 December 2019). Courtesy Masahiro Maki Gallery.
MASAHIRO MAKI GALLERY was established in 2003 in Tokyo, Japan, under the name Sakurado Fine Arts, with the aim of promoting the works of Japanese artists who played seminal roles in the avant-garde art scene of the 1950s and 1960s.
While focusing primarily on Japanese masters who shaped post-war and contemporary art, the gallery has gradually developed an ambitious program that introduces contemporary artists from overseas to Japan and brings an international audience to Japanese artists.
The gallery changed its name in early 2019 to reflect this strong desire to engage with domestic and overseas contemporary artists, while continuing to specialize in post-war Japanese art. The program increasingly includes artists of different generations and practices, encouraging dialogue and stimulating discussion around contemporary art.
Located in Omotesando, an area which continues to inspire artists and creatives, the Tokyo gallery holds a variety of solo shows and other curated exhibitions across its two-floor space throughout the year. The gallery opened a second space in the Opéra neighborhood of Paris in 2012.
Ocula Report At Art Taipei, Galleries Adapt to Regional Politics 25 Oct 2019 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula In Taipei, the artwork that said most about the contemporary art market's fraught situation in East Asia was not at the 26th Art Taipei (18–21 October 2019), but across town at the Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab, a publicly funded art park established in Taiwan's former Air Force Command Headquarters in 2018.Chin Cheng-Te's Tender Soul – Cold-War...
Ocula Report Daido Moriyama: The Erotics of Photography 11 Oct 2019 : Tianyuan Deng for Ocula In a documentary video published by Tate Modern to accompany its exhibition William Klein + Daido Moriyama in 2013, Moriyama, one of the most influential avantgarde photographers to emerge out of postwar Japan, roams the urban streets of Shinjuku equipped with a compact digital camera. Dressed in a low-key black jacket, his gait is relaxed but...
Ocula Report Art Basel in Hong Kong 2019: A Post-mortem 6 Apr 2019 : Diana d’Arenberg for Ocula Although Art Basel in Hong Kong is the youngest of the Art Basel fairs, and a relative newcomer to the international art fair circuit, it has now become a major attraction for collectors and galleries from around the world. The seventh edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong saw thousands of art courtesans and benefactors kick off the week with a string...
Ocula Report In Memory of a Free Public: Harbour Arts Sculpture Park 16 Mar 2018 : Hera Chan for Ocula It was at Tamar Park that the initial sit-ins took place around the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, sparking the Umbrella Movement in 2014. Thousands of students advocated for universal suffrage in the response to electoral reforms enacted on Hong Kong by China's Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. It was here, on 26 September...
Related Press Yayoi Kusama’s Mesmerizing, Meditative Garden Hyperallergic : 13 July 2018 My most recent visit to the Rockaways was to experience Yayoi Kusama’s magnificent Narcissus Garden (1966–present) in a still intact if ramshackle former train repair facility, dating to the time when Fort Tilden, now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, was still an active military installation. Kusama, now 89 years old and one of the...
Related Press 1,500 Yayoi Kusama Mirror Balls Beckon Beachgoers to the Rockaways Hyperallergic : 22 June 2018 First presented by the artist as an unofficial project outside the Italian pavilion at the 1966 Venice Biennale, Narcissus Garden (1966) consists of 1,500 reflective orbs spread throughout a space. In the work's first iteration, Kusama wore a golden kimono or red onesie and stood amid the plastic orbs alongside signs that read 'Narcissus Garden,'...
Related Press Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Narcissus Garden’ Is Coming to the Rockaways The New York Times : 18 June 2018 Art lovers and Instagram fanatics will both have a good reason to head to the Rockaways this summer: Yayoi Kusama's shimmering Narcissus Garden will be installed there starting July 1.The work is made up of 1,500 mirrored stainless steel spheres placed in the imposing confines of Fort Tilden, a former Army base on the beach in Queens. The spheres...
Related Press Japanese Gutai in the 1950s: Fast and Fearless The New York Times : 14 June 2018 In the 1950s, the artists of the newly formed Gutai group of Japan worked fast and fearlessly, changing styles and mediums at will, staying abreast of the latest postwar developments abroad. The mood of this band of innovators was eclectic — and electric — as demonstrated by "Gutai: 1953-1959," an ambitious show at Fergus...
