Ocula Report Sharjah Biennial 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber 15 Mar 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula In Meiro Koizumi's three-channel video installation, The Angels of Testimony (2019), the central frame features an interview with Hajime Kondo about his time as a solider of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The conversation centres on war crimes perpetrated in China, including the beheading of Chinese prisoners for...
Ocula Conversation Diana Campbell Betancourt Diana Campbell Betancourt is a curator working predominantly across South and Southeast Asia. Since 2013 she has been the founding artistic director of the Samdani Art Foundation and chief curator of the Dhaka Art Summit in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a transnational art event that has grown in size and scale ever since its first edition in 2012. Backed by...
Ocula Report Chinternet Ugly at Manchester’s Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art 7 Mar 2019 : Mike Pinnington for Ocula China, home to 802 million internet users, is subject to sophisticated online censorship. This shrouded state of affairs, unsurprisingly perhaps, serves to reinforce stereotypes around conformity elsewhere. Any realm, digital or otherwise, subject to such strict scrutiny must necessarily be bland and uncritical, right? I was mulling over such...
Ocula Photolog West Bund Art & Design 2018 9 November 2018 'With a strong selection of returning exhibitors, the 2018 edition welcomes 87 galleries in the Galleries section, among which 39 are participating for the first time.'– West Bund Art & Design (8–11 November 2018).
Ocula Conversation Park Seo-Bo Artist Park Seo-Bo is widely recognised as the godfather of modern Korean art. The artist played an instrumental role in nurturing the careers of emerging artists and for his own contribution to the formation of Dansaekhwa—the Korean monochromatic painting movement that emerged in the mid-1970s. In the spring of 2018, Park was recognised with the...
Ocula Report Top 5 booths at Art Busan 2016 31 May 2016 : Angela Suh for Ocula Located a stones throw from the famed Haeundae Beach, popularised in Korean cinema and countless K-dramas, Art Busan 2016 conveyed a leisurely air brought on by the first warm days of spring. Now in its fifth edition, the fair has grown into a sizeable event showcasing some of the best works in the region. With over 190 participating galleries...
Ocula Conversation Michelle Yun Senior Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, Asia Society Museum, New York Michelle Yun, who specialises in Chinese contemporary art and diaspora artists, is the Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Asia Society Museum. As such, Yun is tasked with managing the museum’s considerable initiatives in modern and contemporary visual art by Asian and Asian American artists at an institution that is...
Related Press There's No Stopping Christo—Who Thinks He's More Urban Planner Than Artist Architectural Digest : 8 May 2018 Since arriving in New York City in 1964, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have always compared their work to that of urban planners. The very fact that their larger-than-life projects are subject to approval by local authorities makes them resemble public construction projects more than works of art. This is what the new monograph Christo and...
Related Press Gavin Turk and Patrick Eakin Young talk tulips, electro-folk opera and Brexit Wallpaper* : 28 April 2017 Wisdom, wit and the right amount of weirdness are three things that come naturally to moustacheod artist Gavin Turk. The original YBA is known for his radical approach to contemporary sculpture, his vocal politics, and his talent for mimicry—in the halcyon days of the early 90s he impersonated everyone from punks to Pollock.
Related Press 8 highlights from the inaugural Honolulu Biennial 2017 Art Radar Journal : 5 April 2017 Held over nine sites and including 33 artists, the first edition of the Honolulu Biennial takes place between 8 March and 8 May 2017. Entitled Middle of Now | Here, the Biennial challenges the idea that Hawaiʻi is in 'the middle of nowhere'. Covering more than 30 percent of the Earth's surface, the Pacific is the largest unified living space on...
Related Press Public art invades Anyang The Korea Times : 27 October 2016 Among commercials screened at Anyang Station on Seoul Metro Line 1 is a video featuring Anyang citizens playing American rock band Guns N' Roses' Paradise City. This is video artist Park Bo-na's Paradise City, which aims to connect the past and present of Anyang with its future as a part of the city's efforts to encourage public...
