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...
Exhibition view: Patricia Perez Eustaquio, Everywhere West, Everything East, Yavuz Gallery, Sydney (7 November–19 December 2019). Courtesy the artist and Yavuz Gallery.
Founded in Singapore in 2010, Yavuz Gallery showcases riveting examples of contemporary art with a particular focus on artists and art from the Asia-Pacific region. In 2019, the gallery opened its second exhibition space in Sydney, becoming the first gallery of its kind from Southeast Asia to establish a permanent location in Australia.
Also populating the gallery roster are younger generations of artists, born in or after 1980. Yeo Kaa creates vividly coloured paintings and sculptures that depict cartoonish characters trapped in scenes of violence; Alvin Ong’s paintings playfully combine diverse visual vocabularies, culminating in surreal bodily configurations suspended between moments of pleasure and pain; Khairullah Rahim presents assemblages highlighting Singapore’s marginalised communities in overlooked spaces; and Zico Albaiquni’s vibrant figurative and landscape paintings play with aspects of Indonesian art history and notions of painterly representation.
Yavuz Gallery is equally dedicated to representing leading Antipodean artists, among them Abdul Abdullah, known for his embroidered works, photographs, and large-scale paintings that consider marginalised narratives and stories of diaspora, displacement, and migration; and André Hemer, whose characteristically bright, abstract paintings examine the relationship between the digital and painting in the contemporary age.
Yavuz Gallery represents a diverse group of Southeast Asian and Antipodean artists at international art fairs, among them Art Basel in Hong Kong; Art Dubai; Art Fair Philippines; Art Jakarta; S.E.A. Focus, Singapore; Sydney Contemporary; and Taipei Dangdai.
Ocula Photolog Asia Now 2019 21 October 2019 'Asia Now is expanding and this year will welcome over 50 of the most prominent and cutting-edge galleries presenting over 250 established and emerging artists from China, Korea, Japan, Central and Southeast Asia, who push the boundaries of contemporary art.' –Asia Now, Paris (16–20 October 2019).
Ocula Report Art Jakarta Drops Anchor in a Stormy Southeast Asian Art Market 6 Sep 2019 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula Jakarta may be sinking, prompting the announcement last month that Indonesia will create a new capital on the island of Borneo, but the city's longest-running art fair is on the rise. Founded by the license holder of Harper's Bazaar Indonesia, the fair began as Bazaar Art Jakarta in 2008. While it's still owned by the same holding company, MRA...
Ocula Report Singapore Art Week: Exhibitions to See 18 Jan 2019 : Tessa Moldan for Ocula S.E.A. Focus, the new boutique art fair by STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, will take centre stage during this year's Singapore Art Week (19–27 January 2019). Running between 24 and 27 January 2019, 26 galleries will participate in the inaugural edition, showcasing modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art within a pop-up structure in...
Ocula Report Institutional critique in the 8th Asia Pacific Triennial 3 Dec 2015 : Tess Maunder for Ocula Since the late 1980s the major concern for curatorial practice has been the rise of biennale culture; the impact this exhibition format has had upon both the production and reception of contemporary art internationally. Reflecting on this lineage and recent politics from within the Asia-Pacific region, it is apparent that exhibitions such as the...
Related Press Between celebration and commemoration: Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak on the significance of the N-Peace trophies Pinaree Sanpitak : 17 September 2018 Since 2016, I have gifted prints of my Malai collection as trophies for the N-Peace Award winners. Recently I realised how truly fitting these artworks are for the initiative, not to mention the real gravity of the awards' significance.
Related Press 2018 Sydney Contemporary Art Fair: five artists to watch The Australian Financial Review : 13 September 2018 The Sydney Contemporary Art Fair has gone from baby to behemoth in just three editions, generating $40 million in sales and attracting 75,000 local and international visitors since it launched (initially as a biennale) in 2013. "It's a tremendous shot in the arm for artists and galleries," says its director, Barry Keldoulis.
Related Press What to see and expect from Sydney Contemporary 2018 Vogue : 28 August 2018 As Australia's leading art fair, Sydney Contemporary manages to make art critics into art lovers and the unanointed into worshippers, all within the space of three days.
Related Press Jakarta Biennale: A new understanding of contemporary Indonesian art The Jakarta Post : 2 November 2017 This year's Jakarta Biennale will diverge from many of the curatorial practices of its predecessors.The Jakarta Biennale, which is set to open on Saturday at Gudang Sarinah Ekosistem in South Jakarta, will this year adopt Jiwa as its artistic concept.Jiwa is a concept that is almost impossible to translate into English, but for this biennale, it...
Related Video & Audio Collection+: Pinaree Sanpitak Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation : 9 November 2014 Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation presents works by acclaimed Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak, curated by Jasmin Stephens. In this film, Gene Sherman, Executive Director of SCAF, discusses the third iteration of the Collection+ series. SCAF Project 23. Exhibition dates: 17 October - 13 December 2014.
