05.16.2014 – 06.30.2014, Au Hoi Lam, Tang Kwok Hin, Yu Ji, Zhao Zhao, Ian Woo, Milenko Prvacki, Ng Joon Kiat, Jeremy Sharma, Grace Tan, Nilo Ilarde, Ringo Bunoan, Bernardo Pacquing, Maria Taniguchi, Masanori Handa, Kishio Suga, Young Rim Lee, Shin Il Kim, Mee Ai Om, Tintin Wulia, FX Harsono, Nipan Oranniwesna,
It is worth visiting Osage only for the otherworldly experience of walking through Kwun Tong streets full of noise and dirt, between trucks, containers and sweaty workers unloading goods, and then entering the spotless white air-conditioned space of the gallery hidden on the 4th floor of a warehouse.
To commemorate the Art Basel Hong Kong art fair, the show did not only occupy Osage’s Kwun Tong space, but it also extended to another temporary gallery space located on the top floor of one of City University of Hong Kong’s buildings (Kowloon Tong). The show is a survey show of artists from the region which Osage focuses on: Greater China, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. The works are bound together by the “From conceptualism to abstraction” idea put forward by curator Charles Merewether. Just by looking as the work selection, I can identify a certain taste for minimal, material-based works, with some conceptual works thrown in for a change. This mix works well, and the show is pleasant. The focus on material means that visiting the show is as much about looking as about thinking. There is no need to “understand” some complicated concepts, looking, and looking again, is the most important in this show. I believe that this lightness, which should be seen as something positive, has been chosen strategically to counter-act the art fair noise overload. It is a pleasant show to visit both in the Kwun Tong as well as in the Kowloong Tong location.
I have enjoyed the show as it was. If I want to find some blemish on the show, I need to turn to the handout text written by the curator. He presents the selected artists as some “whose practice is ignored” due to the “increasingly pervasive conflation of aesthetic value with market price”. Put in common words, it means that the artists on show are young and emerging artists, which is largely true (even though someone like established Indonesian artist Fx Harsono or long-time Singapore resident and art school dean Milenko Prvacki can hardly be included in this category). The curator continues, saying “The work of these artists appears as the consequence of a self-driven interest that is neither driven by the market nor the State”. Now this is a very dubious statement, playing on the self-inspired, art for art’s sake proclaiming artists of the European romantic tradition. This can hardly be applied to any artist today, even less in the Asian cut-throat competition. Even the curator himself concedes a few sentences earlier that the market has “provided a tremendous impetus for many to take the risk” to become artists. The only way to reconcile these statements is to acknowledge that the self-driven interest invoked in the previous sentence is not some noble aesthetic cause but is in fact a simple self-driven interest to enter a market that is booming and succeed in it financially. In this case, the “self-driven interest” can hardly be taken as a distinguishing sign for selecting participating artists, as it can be seen as a common denominator of all artists, even all ambitious people in general. In this light, the following sentences of the article cannot be taken seriously anymore: “By and large the artists who are presented in this exhibition are exceptions to the rule of the market. There is little expectation of either gallery interest or sales.” This passes only as a shallow marketing material copy. More than two thirds of the works are perfect objects, very sellable. The rooster of artists includes many of Osage’s new bets, e.g. Ringo Bunoan, Young Rim Lee, Ng Yoon Kiat and Yu Ji who had a show together earlier this year at Osage or Au Hoi Lam who has a solo show in Osage’s new Shanghai space. It is of course a gallery’s job to promote artists they believe in, but presenting sellable art products as something non-commercial and artists that work hard on their careers as uninterested in the market is quite nonsensical double doublespeak. It took away all credibility from the curatorial text.
The show was complemented by an Art and Values symposium, which I unfortunately could not attend in its full length. It started off with four talks by three mature Caucasian men (Jeffrey Shaw, David Elliott and Charles Merewether), followed by one Caucasian women (Biljana Ciric) who made it over-clear that she is different because the can speak Mandarin Chinese. After that I got a glimpse of Leeza Ahmady’s presentation, probably the most interesting of what was said up to that point, talking about the documenta(13) Afghanistan section and the introducing one of her bets, Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov. Then I unfortunately had to run off, but it was a pity to miss presentations by Indonesian curator Enin Supriyanto, Hong Kong artist Kurt Chan, another mature Caucasian man, curator Lewis Biggs, as well as the concluding discussion, which all looked promising. I also missed the highlight of the symposium which was the beating to unconscious of Singaporean artists Lee Wen in the restroom, a reward probably administered by some Chinese patriots in response to his anti-Party comments during the conference.
“Market Forces: Erasure: From Conceptualism to Abstraction” is well worth a visit. It is a good selection, representing a certain taste for material-based work in South-East Asia, spiced up with some conceptual pieces. The exhibition spaces are large and spacious for Hong Kong circumstances and the installation is clean and neat. The curatorial statement is the only blemish on the show, maybe it was simply put together too hastily. With certainty I can say that it came second the selected works on show. The symposium did not provide insight into the show itself, it was more of a parallel activity, providing a broader context, which was a welcome addition to the exhibition experience package.