Singapore’s artwork honest season took successful when its tentpole occasion Artwork Stage was shuttered in 2019. However as with nature, it didn’t take lengthy for the vacuum to be stuffed, and Artwork SG debuted in 2023, billing itself as Southeast Asia’s largest worldwide artwork honest.
It says one thing about Artwork SG’s ambition that in solely the second 12 months of the occasion, held once more within the cavernous exhibition halls of the Marina Bay Sands, its curators have managed to notch a powerful line-up of each regional and world artists and galleries – there are greater than 110 galleries from 33 nations, not least, Sullivan+Strumpf, Neugerriemschneider, Waddington Custot, DAG and Gagosian.
Wendy Xu, White Dice’s Asia Normal Supervisor, says Artwork SG is a crucial assembly place for each present and new shoppers from Southeast Asia, including that ‘Singapore can be the gateway to reaching many purchasers from North Asia, together with China and Korea, who spend time right here over the Lunar New 12 months interval because of the hotter climate’.
The Artwork SG 2024 programme is a sweeping canvas that gathers ten younger galleries which might be beneath ten years previous (be careful for Lisbon’s Artemis Gallery, and Bangkok’s Warin Lab Up to date), and large-scale, site-specific installations (Gordon Cheung’s ghostly mixed-media set up of bamboo and newspaper, Dwelling, 2024, is a mesmeric pleasure), alongside a movie fest collaboration with the native ArtScience Museum, and talks targeted on Southeast Asian modern tradition within the context of the worldwide artwork panorama.
To be frank, it’s so much to cram into three days, however fortunately, the Wallpaper* staff scoured the honest throughout the vernissage, sorting by way of, and critiquing the very best of the very best earlier than doorways opened to the general public. Herewith, our prime picks.
What to see at Artwork SG 2024
Journey Mercies: A Migration Symphony (2021), by Ken Nwadiogbu
(Picture credit score: Ken Nwadiogbu ‘Converse Much less, See Extra’ (2023))
The World South, which encompasses each Africa and Asia, represents a wealthy tapestry of numerous cultures and inventive expressions, says Dolly Kola-Balogun, explaining how Ken Nwadiogbu’s solo present at Artwork SG is a part of a broader push by her Nigerian-based gallery Retro Africa ‘to bridge cultural gaps, highlighting the shared experiences, narratives, and inventive nuances that join us’. Ablaze with major colors, Nwadiogbu’s summary items are an intense meditation on the dynamism of migration.
Artwork SG Movie
(Picture credit score: Songs for Dying, Co-commissioned by the thirteenth Gwangju Biennale, Han Nefkens Basis and Kunsthall Trondheim. Courtesy Korakrit Arunanondchai, BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY, Bangkok, Carlos/Ishikawa, London, C L E A R I N G New York / Brussels.)
Held on the adjoining ArtScience Museum, this 12 months’s satellite tv for pc occasion examines the physique – human and animal, bodily and non secular – by way of the lens of a coterie of 17 Asian artists and filmmakers. In case you needed to decide one movie to look at, select Korakrit Arunanondchai’s Songs for Dying (2021), a dreamy political elegy that threads collectively Thailand’s youth protests with the therapeutic powers of a Korean shaman.
This Fixed Burning within the Air, by Matthieu Gafsou
Viewing artwork is an exercise that’s at all times made a lot extra pleasing if accompanied by a flute, or two, of champagne. On the Ruinart Artwork Lounge, bubbles kind the figurative backdrop for Swiss photographer Matthieu Gafsou’s enquiry into the nexus between the Arcadian panorama of Champagne, and biodiversity and the surroundings. To drive residence the purpose, some images are stained with crude oil to create the impression of the titular burning air.
Fossil Folly (group of two) II (2023) by Mona Hatoum
(Picture credit score: Mona Hatoum Fossil Folly (group of two) II 2023)
London gallery White Dice exhibits up at this 12 months’s Artwork SG, with works by a heavyweight roster of artists, amongst them, Tracey Emin’s Transfer Me (2015) neon installations, Andreas Gursky’s Dior Homme (2004) {photograph}, and Georg Baselitz’s Walla Walla (2020) bronze diptych. A spotlight of the presentation is Mona Hatoum’s Fossil Folly (2023), a latest piece the place previous oil barrels leaking crops trenchantly questions the ecological affect of our oil dependency.
Amber Aura (2011) by Eng Tow
(Picture credit score: Eng Tow, Amber Aura, 2011, Chinese language ink, acrylic, solid paper collage on washi floor, H155 x W105 cm (body), Picture Courtesy of the Artist and FOST Gallery)
Eng Tow’s look at Artwork SG is a well timed reminder of her significance within the pantheon of Singaporean artists, because the Royal School of Artwork alum got here to prominence within the Nineteen Eighties for her use of textiles as an art-making medium. ‘I’ve at all times been struck by the nuanced lyricism of her works although they span a spread of media from textiles to paper to sculpture,’ says Fost Gallery proprietor Stephanie Fong, who’s presenting two of Tow’s works.
Artwork SG takes place 19 – 21 January 2024
artsg.com
Supply: Wallpaper
