ART BASEL HONG KONG 2023

Naturally, when elements such as a booth, an exhibition period, five artists, and one curator all come together, an exhibition is born. We all know for a fact that exhibitions are held in this booth, but we rarely confront the question: What is art in this space? As long as there is an exhibition schedule to follow, exhibitions happen, just like that. Intuitively we assume the subject of an exhibition, determined by artists and/or curators, guarantees the existence of the exhibition as a harmonious whole to be read and viewed. This assumption comforts us in knowing that art exists, and exhibitions are organised accordingly. Therefore, another relative assumption is: In a contemporary context, is it through the structuralisation of artworks that art comes into tangible, perceptible existence? We don’t think about, nor do we want to know, the answer to this natural assumption, because in an art fair booth, it is routine to hold exhibitions, a self-evident fact.

The normalcy of the accustomed conditions in life belies the inherent tremendous absurdity. This fictitious order formed by productivity brings the daily and truth further apart, little by little filling in the gaps with self-told lies and nothingness. Just as a so-called art exhibition is presented to us, it never seems to be in a diurnal context. Such unrealness is flawed: Art exists outside our daily life while colliding with the quotidian. This feeling of uncanniness reveals the absurdities cloaked by assumptions we make in our ordinary life. Art is meant to expose the lunacy of the prosaic, not to highlight a daily life consisting of insanities. Perhaps that is the essence of art practice in this art fair daily.