JINGART 2023: 4 Artworks to Seek Out

Beijing‘s leading art fair, JINGART (1–4 June 2023), concludes a busy Gallery Weekend Beijing (26 May–4 June 2023).

Led by the team at ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, the fair brings 54 exhibitors to Beijing Exhibition Centre, with just over half exhibiting for the first time.

Among returning galleries are Lin & Lin Gallery, HdM GALLERY, ShanghART, along with Whitestone Gallery, who this week announced their inaugural Beijing space in the bustling 798 Art District.

New to the fair is London and Stockholm-based gallery Carl Kostyál, debuting with a solo presentation of paintings by Camilla Engström—one of four artists Ocula Advisors have scouted out ahead of the fair’s opening.

1. John Akomfrah at Lisson Gallery

It’s been a momentous year for John Akomfrah as the British Council revealed in January that the Ghana-born filmmaker will represent Great Britain at the 60th Venice Biennale (20 April–24 November 2024).

Known for his collaboratively produced films and multi-screen video installations, Akomfrah’s work examines personal and collective memories, while establishing dialogues between disparate images and narratives throughout history.

In conversation with Ocula Magazine in 2018, Akomfrah explained, ‘I try to persuade things to move into other spaces in which they can acquire a new garment of identity.’

At Lisson Gallery Beijing, Akomfrah presents his first solo exhibition in China with a three-channel film installation, The Airport (2016), conceived as a meditation on the history of Greece, the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, and its aftermath.

2. Camilla Engström at Carl Kostyál

For their JINGART debut, Carl Kostyál brings a solo presentation of works by Swedish-Chinese artist Camilla Engström.

Engström’s five large-scale, sorbet-coloured paintings are a great introduction to the artist who has predominantly exhibited in the U.S., aside from a show at Over the Influence in Bangkok last year.

Of a loose, meandering style, Engström’s imaginary landscapes take on the undulating forms and female energy of fellow Swede Hilma af Klint and Georgia O’Keeffe.

A busy year lies ahead for Engström, with a solo exhibition at Over the Influence in Paris, while Carl Kostyál will bring her work to The Armory Show, New York (8–10 September 2023) and Kiaf SEOUL (7–10 September 2023).

3. Yu Hong at Lisson Gallery

A monkey clambers over a sounder of pigs in Chinese painter Yu Hong’s work at Lisson Gallery’s booth.

The painting was first shown in the 2016 exhibition Yu Hong: Garden of Dreams at CAFA Art Museum, Beijing. The exhibition’s paintings incorporated characters, events, and landscapes from historic fables into a traditional Chinese garden.

Married to Liu Xiaodong—also represented by Lisson Gallery with a current solo show, Shaanbei (4 May–10 June 2023), at their New York location—the couple are considered forerunners in China’s ‘New Generation’ of artists.

At this year’s edition of Art Basel ‘Unlimited’ (15–18 June 2023), Lisson Gallery will present Yu Hong’s colossal, three-panel painting, The Ship of Fools (2021), inspired by Early Renaissance Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch’s eponymous painting. Get ahead on the other artists and artworks showing at Art Basel ‘Unlimited’ in Ocula Magazine.

4. Marcel Dzama at David Zwirner

After a knockout solo show, Child of Midnight, in London at the end of 2022, it’s a joy to see three new Dzama drawings in Beijing.

Channelling a universe of childhood and otherworldly fantasies, they demonstrate the Canadian artist’s playfulness and boundless imagination.

In his usual eccentric frames, a minotaur emerges from the waters in the mixed media on paper A paradise lost (2022), while what appears to be a dragon rises in glory from behind the central dancing figure.

Bewitching and surreal, these beautifully framed works will be hung alongside a photograph, painting, and drawing by Wolfgang Tillmans, Raoul De Keyser, and Rose Wylie respectively, in Beijing.

Selected Artworks

Main image: Yu Hong, Decision (2016) (detail). Acrylic on canvas. 76 x 97 cm. © Yu Hong. Courtesy Lisson Gallery.