Ocula Conversation Kim Tschang-Yeul: Art Without Ego Kim Tschang-Yeul turns 90 this December, following an illustrious career that played a crucial role in bringing post-war Korean painting into the modern and contemporary art canon. Long celebrated for pensive depictions of water drops, the esteemed artist uses dual languages of abstraction and hyperrealism to articulate the psychological traumas...
Ocula Conversation Melati Suryodarmo: Performance Art as Trigger In 2012, Melati Suryodarmo opened Studio Plesungan in her native Surakarta, also known as Solo, the historic royal capital of the Mataram Empire of Java in Indonesia. Suryodarmo had returned to Indonesia from Germany, where she studied Butoh and choreography with Butoh dancer and choreographer Anzu Furukawa, time-based media with avantgarde...
Ocula Report In a Year of No Future: Cyberpunk at Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun 22 Nov 2019 : Emily Verla Bovino for Ocula In what was reportedly Tokyo's cloudiest summer in over a century this July, Yoshiji Kigami, key animator of the cyberpunk classic Akira (1988), died in an arson attack that killed 35 people at Kyoto Animation. The attacker lit the fire with a lighter after dousing the studio with gasoline. 'They are always stealing', he explained in the belief 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...
Ocula Conversation RoseLee Goldberg: Performance Then and Now RoseLee Goldberg had long been invested in contemporary performance art before her founding of the inter-disciplinary arts organisation Performa in New York in 2004. Born in Durban, South Africa, Goldberg studied political science and fine arts at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and then art history at the Courtauld Institute...
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Hong Kong 2018 29 March 2018 'The sixth edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong brought together a uniquely global mix of galleries spanning six continents, outstanding artworks by established and new artists from across theworld and a singular gathering of international collectors and institutions.' –Art Basel in Hong Kong (29–31 March 2018).
Ocula Conversation Sean Scully Artist, USA Already recognised in the Western art historical canon, 71-year-old Irish-born, American-based artist Sean Scully’s oil paintings are characterised by their geometric constructions and painterly expression. These two disparate modes marry in the artist’s canvases and act as a retort to the rigidity of last century’s hard...
Ocula Conversation Lee Kang-So and Choi Byung-So Artists, Korea Korean artists Choi Byung-So and Lee Kang-So are holding simultaneous solo exhibitions at the Musée d'art moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole, on view through to 16 October 2016. Though their names are most commonly associated with Dansaekhwa, the artists maintain distinct styles that situate their practices outside of the...
Ocula Report All Hail Xu Zhen: Report From Art021, Shanghai 2014 1 Dec 2014 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula ART021 takes its name from the Shanghai dialing code. The numbers serve as a synonym for the city, but only for people calling from within China—from outside the country, you’d call +8621. Still, 021 make more sense for this fair. Founded in 2013 by local PR director Bao Yifeng and former gallery director Kelly Ying, ART021’s...
Ocula Conversation Jannis Kounellis Artist, Greece & Italy Born in Greece, but living in Italy since 1956, Kounellis has been a major figure in contemporary art for over fifty years. The artist is often referred to as one of the forefathers of the Arte Povera movement – a movement that arose in the 1960s and played a central role in redefining artistic practice with radical and highly original...
