Innholdsfortegnelse for Almanac 2020 i ArtAsiaPacific

ArtAsiaPacific|Almanac 2020

artasiapacific foundation

ArtAsiaPacific Foundation is an educational platform committed to spreading awareness and understanding of modern and contemporary art through publishing projects and public activities. Art plays a vital role in creating and maintaining a tolerant and inclusive society, and for that reason we are dedicated to embracing the diverse ideas and points-of-view that are intricately woven into the art of today in Asia. A sibling organization to the 27-year-old bimonthly magazine, ArtAsiaPacific Foundation is a nonprofit that offers a unique platform and voice in the fast-expanding field of contemporary art. At the heart of our mission is the advancement of knowledge about contemporary visual art from Hong Kong, Asia and beyond, through research, scholarship and the dissemination of information about culture today to the wider public. The Foundation initiates its own…

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ArtAsiaPacific|Almanac 2020

STRANGELY TOGETHER

It was a year of gatherings. Not only mass civic gatherings—in parks, in squares, in the streets—but a year when occasions of people coming together took on renewed significance, as it becomes increasingly difficult for many to cross borders, or even to cross town. Earlier in the year, the word “gathering” had been on my mind because it is the title of a book of essays by Marian Pastor Roces co-published by the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila with ArtAsiaPacific Foundation. The volume’s title comes from Pastor Roces’s co-authored 1991 essay “Gathering (A Conversation).” She begins the text by defining “gathering” as a “summoning up, of energy, of thoughts, of ‘wits,’ with meditativeness but also urgency.” She notes the word’s valence: “A storm gathers, like an ominous…

4 min

ArtAsiaPacific|Almanac 2020

AGE OF AQUARIUS

There were few corners of the globe that didn’t see the eruption of large-scale social movements against failures of local and national governments to address corruption, economic stagnation, promised political reforms, and climate change. Inevitably, these movements impacted arts activities and the lives of cultural practitioners. In Kazakhstan, after Nursultan Nazarbayev ended his 29-year authoritarian rule on March 29, he hand-picked his successor, prompting pro-democracy campaigners to launch guerilla-style actions. Painter Roman Zakharov was arrested for unfurling a banner over a highway that read “The people shall be the only source of governmental power,” a quote from Kazakhstan’s constitution. He was sentenced to five days in prison but appealed for a fine instead, which was granted. As India geared up for general elections, held between April and May, over 700…

Islanders, of which I am one, are used to spending time considering horizons. Where others look inward for self-realization, islanders tend to look out, their eyes and thoughts drawn to the horizon. This is certainly true of Tavares Strachan, who grew up in the Bahamas, and for whom the question of what lies beyond has informed a range of projects and investigations that have led him to the Arctic, the desert, and even outer space. Strachan’s artistic practice activates the intersections of art, science, and politics, offering uniquely synthesized points of view on the cultural dynamics of systematized knowledge. He is perhaps best known for his work The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project) (2004–06), for which he shipped a four-and-a-half-ton block of arctic…

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ArtAsiaPacific|Almanac 2020

RAISING THE BAR

The roles of artist, curator, and cultural worker inevitably intersect with the responsibilities of citizenship. In 2019, these positions converged more tightly than before, as the inadequacies of sociopolitical systems were the targets of expressions of anguish, outrage, and even protests around the globe. Artists scrutinized these same systems, which impact the production and dissemination of art, and initiated urgent calls for action in their capacities as citizens or artists, or both. Some rallied against censorship. In Bishkek, 40 participants of the first Feminnale exhibition delivered an open letter to the president of Kyrgyzstan condemning the removal of works including Zoya Falkova’s installation on the abuse of women—a punching bag shaped like a female torso—and the blocking of Julie Savery’s nude performance about the lack of rights for sex workers,…

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