Ocula Report ‘An Opera for Animals’ at Rockbund Art Museum 19 Jul 2019 : Penny Liu for Ocula An Opera for Animals was first staged at Para Site in Hong Kong between 23 March and 2 June 2019, with works by over 48 artists and collectives that use opera as a metaphor for modes of contemporary, cross-disciplinary art-making. The exhibition's second iteration takes up a large portion of the Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in Shanghai (22 June–25...
Ocula Conversation Zoe Butt on the Challenges and Rewards of Curating Zoe Butt is the artistic director of The Factory Contemporary Arts Centre in Ho Chi Minh City, the first purpose-built space for contemporary art in Vietnam. Founded in March 2016, the Centre was designed by HTAP Architects in an old steel warehouse, with cargo shipping containers added to its structure. Initiated as a social enterprise...
Ocula Report Ocula 报告｜Condo Shanghai 2019 展览看点 11 Jul 2019 : Penny Liu for Ocula 即将于2019年7月13开幕的第二届 Condo Shanghai，联合上海7座画廊/艺术机构与14 家来自全球11个不同的城市，如东京、首尔、雅加达、巴尔的摩、洛杉矶、伦敦、纽约、危地马拉城、利马和墨西哥城，为实验性展览营造了一个更切实可行的国际环境。以下是Ocula的展览看点。周奥，《景观/对象WA》（2016）。橡木上固化油墨打印，左: 55.88 × 147.32 cm，中: 121.92 × 152.4 cm，右: 55.88 × 147.32 cm，图片提供：马凌画廊，上海。马凌画廊 × 80m2 Livia Benavides × LABOR × Proyectos Ultravioleta马凌画廊 |...
Trained as an architect, Francis Alÿs has constantly teased the political from the poetic gesture, and turned failure into a language. The medium of walking as art practice stems from the Situationist practice of derive, and Alÿs has used this process to draw out larger questions of spatial and ideological boundaries. The Green Line, 2007, saw him walk the boundary between Israel and Palestine, a literal enacting of territorial division. Other works have seen him chasing tornadoes, shifting mountains and pushing a block of ice around until it melted into nothing.
Ocula Report TarraWarra International 2019: Tracing Tangible Shadows 28 Jun 2019 : Natalie King for Ocula Everyone I encounter along my journey asks: 'Where are you based?''On my feet,' I answer.'Where are your feet based then?''Feet are never based,' I say.This haunting voiceover from Hiwa K's video, Pre-Image (Blind as the Mother Tongue) (2017), follows the artist retracing a journey that he made when he was 25 years old, fleeing Iraq and...
Ocula Report Shanghai Art Exhibitions to See: The Lowdown 2 Nov 2018 : Sam Gaskin for Ocula There is no official Shanghai Art Week, but the term has nevertheless entered the lexicon of the city's contemporary art community. It's especially apt this year, with the firmly established West Bund Art Fair (8–11 November 2018) and Art021 (9–11 November 2018) taking place the same week that the 12th Shanghai Biennale opens at the Power Station...
Ocula Report Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders 20 Sep 2018 : Tessa Moldan for Ocula 'I have felt persecuted for weeks by this same asphyxiating dream.' So narrates the forlorn Portuguese speaker in Kiluanji Kia Henda's film, Concrete Affection – Zopo Lady (2014), as city scenes and modernist buildings in Luanda flit past the camera's lens. The narration is pulled from Another Day of Life (1971), Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski's...
Related Press 10 Highlights from the inaugural Kathmandu Triennale 2017 Art Radar Journal : 10 April 2017 The Kathmandu Triennale is an event developed on the back of past success of the Kathmandu International Art Festival, held in 2009 and 2012. The inaugural edition of Kathmandu Triennale (KT 2017) takes ‘The City’ as a thematic starting point – a catalyst to explore the many socio-cultural and political issues embedded in urban settings. Francis...
Related Press Francis Alÿs to create new work inspired by his frontline experiences in Mosul The Art Newspaper : 7 December 2016 The Belgian artist Francis Alÿs will create a new work for the Iraqi pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale next year (13 May-26 November 2017) based on his recent experiences spent on the frontline in Mosul, northern Iraq, as part of the ongoing military offensive against Islamic state (Isil) militants. The piece was commissioned by the Ruya...
Related Press Francis Alÿs at David Zwirner, London Art in America : 1 December 2016 'When the operative system of a society collapses, can art bring about an alternative way of thinking . . . ?' Francis Alÿs wrote this question on a notebook page reproduced in the brochure accompanying Ciudad Juárez Projects, his powerful exhibition at David Zwirner in London. For the works on view, Alÿs brought his poetic sensibility to...
Related Press Here are the artists in the 2016 Taipei Biennial ARTNews : 8 July 2016 The Taipei Fine Arts Museum has announced the artists tapped for their 2016 Taipei Biennial, which takes place from September 10 this year through February 5 of 2017. Now in its tenth edition, the biennial this year takes on themes related to artistic and curatorial practices, and as per press release, 'embraces the catalytic role of museums in...
