Impressions of Art Basel

Japanese installation artist Chiharu Shiota's Where Are We Going?

March is such a busy month with the Hong Kong Arts Festival, Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Art Basel Hong Kong and Art Central. Oh and did you know the artist Kaws' Companion is out floating in Victoria Harbour? Wish I could be like him and just relax but there's too much to see!

Photographer Liu Heung Shing

Today was the start of Art Basel and I took a taxi to get there. The drive decided to take the Central-Wan Chai bypass and before we got out of the exit for Wan Chai North, there was a traffic jam with cars going to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The first day is usually reserved for the media and VVIP, but by the time I got there around 3.30pm (it had started around 2pm), the bottom floor of the massive art show was already crawling with people.

And there were lots of beautiful people or people trying to dress arty farty. And lots of Mandarin was being spoken by lots of young women wearing Chanel boucle jackets and dresses, and men in Louis Vuitton shirts and even a crazy white vest with lots of pockets embossed with the LV logo. Do people actually wear this stuff?

Detail of pink swirls of Park Seo-Bo's Ecriture No. 160208

We didn't spot many celebrities, or wasn't paying enough attention, but saw Uli Sigg, the art buyer and philanthropist who is a big supporter of Ai Weiwei. We also saw Hong Kong-born photographer Liu Heung Shing who has come out with a new book comparing and contrasting the Soviet Union and Communist China.

The man himself embodies history, having seen China become a Communist country and watched it transform into a capitalist country with Chinese characteristics. I heard him speak about 10 years ago in Beijing and he has so many anecdotes he can still produce even more books.

But on with the art. My colleague noticed there were fewer large art pieces on show this year, perhaps galleries were worried about having big price tags that would scare off potential buyers and only brought out smaller ones instead.

What is she doing? Dan Colen's Rabbit and the Moon

For example some Francis Bacon prints were going for US$40,000. Wonder if they were snapped up right away.

As usual there was a lot of strange art that wasn't executed very well, and some that were visually arresting, which is what you need at an art fair where it can get mind numbing going by every stall. I did see a few pieces that I had seen at previous Art Basel shows. Perhaps they were hoping to catch buyers who were first timers at the art fair?

One of the large installation pieces was beautiful and airy. It's called Where Are We Going? by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. It's actually composed of lots of strings to make up a series of boats that seem to be floating in the air, making it very dreamy and light.

Rivane Neuenschwander's detail of garlic peel on fabric

A pretty piece in shades of pink is called Ecriture No. 160208 by Korean artist Park Seo-Bo. It's a series of acrylic swirls of paint that seem to be applied with a piping bag and different shaped nozzles. It's so pretty and pastel-y, like a giant vertical cake with tons of pink icing on top.

There were also some sculptures that made us do a double-take. One had a naked woman playing with a rabbit on her chest. New York-based artist Dan Colen created Rabbit and the Moon and it's a weird piece. Who would put that in their living room?

Another has a woman wearing a T-shirt and shorts, reading the paper with miscellaneous goods around her. And then we read the caption and it says: Flea Market Lady by Duane Hanson. A security guard had to be posted next to this statue in case people would touch her!

Chinese artist Zhang Yu performing Tea Feeding

Meanwhile Vietnamese artist Dinh Q. Le presented some quietly strong pieces featuring embroidery on cloth. And the embroidery is white thread on white cloth. One is called Texture of Memory #7 2000-1 and it's a portrait of three people together in a line drawing by embroidery. The lines look simple, but up close involve a lot of work and skill to execute well. Utterly beautiful to me.

This other work was white too. It's three-dimensional and at first it looked like bulbs from flowers, but up close they are actually garlic skins. How did the artist, Rivane Neuenschwander extract these thin skins off of the garlic in one piece? She had to do several hundred for this untitled piece.

Vic Muniz's Letter Rack Hong Kong (Yellow)

I find Brazilian artist Vic Muniz's work fun to look at and so I purposely made sure I swung by Ben Brown to take a look. This time it's more like a random collection of items one might find in someone's memory box or time capsule of Hong Kong. There's postcards and ticket stubs, name cards, coins, maps and stamps. I miss his visually-arresting collages. Or maybe he didn't have much time because Ruinart champagne had recruited him to do a special collection creating collages using the actual bark and leaves from the vineyards. Yawn.

The Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija had some pieces shown this year that are new, but using 2014 copies of the South China Morning Post as his canvas. One was untitled and strangely featured two giant circles on newsprint. Usually he has a message written on them. Another exhibited by another gallery had Chinese characters written in red on top of the paper, saying something like, "We are together under one sky making dreams". I prefer his previous piece that said: "Freedom cannot be simulated".

Oh and one final performance art piece. We saw Chinese artist Zhang Yu pouring red tea in giant bowls that were sitting on top of paper. He kept pouring the tea until it slightly overflowed. Then we could see why -- on the walls were uniform circular blotches from previous pourings. We don't know the significance of it, but they kind of looked like fuzzy ancient Chinese coins. The performance art is called Tea Feeding...

SCMP newspaper used by Rirkrit Tivavanija

After about two and a half hours of going through pretty much the entire fair, it was time to call it a day. I like seeing what's out there, the artistic zeitgeist. It was more whimsical pieces than serious political statements. Another Art Basel done and dusted!

Shock and Outrage... Over Sex

Conservatives were outraged the adult-only show was held in Central

This weekend there was the first ever adult-only carnival held in Hong Kong, featuring male strippers, pole dancers, Japanese porn actresses, and even an artist who paints with his penis.

Hong Kong has trade shows for the sex industry, but this was the debut of an event that targeted consumers and local lawmakers freaked out.

Pole dancing performances were on

City officials received about 70 complaints about 18+ Central, which was held this weekend in two big white tents in Central's harbourfront. The objections were mainly because this sex-themed event was held in a public space that is meant for families.

The organizer, Vertical Expo Services, estimated some 35,000 visitors passed through the gates from Friday to Sunday. Kenny Lo, chief executive of VES said they had received an entertainment license and complied with the Control of Obscene and Indecent Articles Ordinance.

"The lack of such an event in the past simply showed Hong Kong was very backward, compared to major cities in mainland China and overseas," Lo said.

One of the more vocal opponents was Executive Council member Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee.

"We don't really want any sleazy... activity to take place in the most prestigious and beautiful parts of our city, which is the harbourfront," she said.

Ip, who questioned whether the show was compatible with public morals and Hong Kong's image as a "sophisticated and clean city", was not entirely against the concept, but felt Mongkok might have been a more appropriate setting.

There was even an artist who used his body part to paint...

Now that's stereotyping! And what's wrong with an event that's being held in big tents? They are not disturbing anyone, let alone anyone's view. Last week Art Central was held in similar tents with art showing naked bodies. Is that considered obscene compared to a sex show?

Her other line of argument was that having such an event near the government and legislative headquarters was not in good taste. But that's where the harbourfront happens to be!

Obviously the staff who approved the license will be raked over the coals for this event, but as long as children cannot get into the venue, what's the big deal?

And besides, with Hong Kong's birth rate so low, this adult-only show may inspire some couples to inject a bit more excitement in their lives and have more sex, or at least learn a few tips. Not only may it lead to some babies, but also stress relief for many...

Subdivided Flat = Art

Wander inside and hear an artist talk about what it's like to live in 130sq ft

This week has been quite hectic with the big event, Art Basel on, where the big name galleries presenting big name artists from Picasso and Alexander Calder (very popular this year), to Takashi Murakami (always a favourite) and Cindy Sherman. It's quite pretentious with collectors wearing lots of bling and very deep pockets dropping tens of thousands of US dollars to even millions on art pieces for investment.

Meanwhile an interesting counterpoint is Art Central, a much smaller and accessible show, of which 75 percent are artists from Asia, some very young, others quite established. Many of the works are experimental, and not as polished when it comes to execution.

I literally whipped through Art Central and didn't have much time to slowly walk through it, but managed to see an interesting piece called Pavilion for our living, by Samson Wong and Lam Chi-fai.

It's a socio-political statement about subdivided flats and what it's like to live in 130 square feet. Visitors, one at a time, put on head phones and wander around the rectangular box space as the narrator, an artist, explains where all their furniture is situated and how cramped it is, how difficult it is to fit everything in and how little natural sunlight there is.

However, it's hard to imagine what the room looks like when there are only red laser dots pointing at places like the refrigerator, the bed, bathroom and so on, but little details the artist I listened to, were memorable; she talked about a mouse in her flat and seeing its paw prints, or how her father was dismayed she was living in such a small space and tried to rearrange the furniture when she was at work which irritated her.

My colleague who also listened to the same story felt the installation would have been more powerful, if pictures of the artist's flat were projected on the walls so that we could have a better idea of how it looked inside. The speech the artist made could also have benefited from some editing as some anecdotes were tedious or unnecessary.

Nevertheless, the idea was definitely there and is worth exploring further. In this case, life = art = social statement.

A Big Dose of Art

Tang Jie's Stone Story at Art Central this year

The two biggest art fairs are back in Hong Kong again -- Art Central and Art Basel.

I got a quick peek of both and will give a few highlights here.

Art Central located at Central Harbourfront is a neat venue, featuring over 100 galleries, 75 percent of which are from Asia Pacific, though ironically, not many Hong Kong artists are featured.

Performance Art at Art Central

Nevertheless, it's a good place to check out emerging artists from the region. On the whole on a few things grabbed me. One Indonesian artist partnering with a Hong Kong gallery, produced a large canvas of graffiti-like art, very colourful and cartoonish.

But get this -- the work is carved up literally into squares and for HK$300, a person can buy a piece of the art. You can buy more than one square of course, but there's another interesting part -- you can consign the piece(s) that you have bought back to the gallery to resell to another person. And if it's sold you give a 10 percent commission back to the gallery.

That is the commercialism of art at its purest.

Already there were a few squares cut out of the far left hand side of the piece... what would you do with a square piece of art? Is it still art if it's a section of it?

One piece that is particularly impressive is called Stone Story by Tang Jie. It features rocks that are suspended from wires that lightly "fall" onto a large drum below. They fall rhythmically one after the other and then come back up again. It's a combination of old -- the rocks and the traditional Chinese drum, to the new of technology manipulating the rocks.

Does he look like Mao Zedong? Like the body in Beijing?

We also saw a performance artist, Anida Yoeu Ali with The Red Chador: Ban Me! She wore a red sequinned chador, or fabric that is a full-body robe covering her body, and carried the sign "Ban Me".

Over at Art Basel at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, it's overwhelming to try to take in all the art on two floors, but definitely one of the most provocative is Summit by Shen Shaomin.

There are five "corpses" of Communist leaders in history -- Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro. They are all apparently life size, and quite life like. Oh my mistake -- Castro is not encased in a glass coffin, but on his death bed apparently faintly breathing! I missed that clarification.

In any event one must wonder what mainlanders think of their great leader as a piece of art!

Murakami's Tan Tan Bo aka Gerotan... is one of his new works

Another provoking piece is Not a Shield, but a Weapon by Philippine artist Pio Abad. There are 180 handbags that are copies of late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Asprey handbag.

These ones were all made in Marikina in the Philippines, which used to be a thriving area for leather manufacturing. But because of trade liberalization policies introduced by Thatcher, Marikina has been in decline ever since.

There's also a colourful ovid shaped object sitting on a mirrored surface. Entitled Deductive Object by Kimsooja, the piece is inspired by the Indian tradition of Brahmanda stones that are polished into an ovid shape.

Here it's a large one painted in traditional Korean colours called obangsaek.

Deductive Object by Kimsooja

And for those looking for big names, Takashi Murakami is here with a large piece, and we spotted a few Picassos for sale.

So this is a critique of only the fraction of the things that can be seen at Art Central and Art Basel... if I have time I'll go check out Art Basel further...