Out Now
For this 20th anniversary of ArtAsiaPacific, the editorial and design teams have concocted a rejuvenating injection of Special Features. In early March, AAP gathered together in Hong Kong a small group of museum directors, curators, writers, collectors and gallerists from around the region to discuss the changes that have taken place in Asian cultural infrastructure over the past two decades, while ruminating on present challenges and how to solve them. Excerpts from their lively exchange are reprinted in the new issue, and a full version will be posted on our website.
In another effort to look back and peer forward, for a section titled Time Capsule we invited four past contributors to offer commentary, follow-ups and addendums to articles they had previously published in AAP. In three Photo Essays, we travel back in time to the art scenes of the 1990s and 2000s in Istanbul, Karachi & Lahore and Yogyakarta, presenting the artists, curators and movers-and-shakers through the lenses of those who lived there and then. Additionally, in Influential & Emerging, we’ve asked eight past and current editors at AAP to draw connections between artists’ practices otherwise divided by time and place.
We are also launching a special yearlong feature called 20/20, in which our contributors pinpoint important art projects made or mounted during each year of the magazine’s history, 1993 to the present. These projects mark larger moments of beginning or ending, discovery or maturity—moments that altered how we look at an artist’s practice, or at our artistic communities. Additionally, our long-running column Where I Work gets the VIP treatment. In Beijing, cinematographer Christopher Doyle and writer Andrew Cohen visited the closely watched Caochangdi residence and studio compound of China’s best-humored artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei. From Tokyo, journalist Edan Corkill and photographer Yuriko Nakao peeked into the vibrant mind and studio of Yayoi Kusama.
In Profiles, we look at three artists who will be featured at the Venice Biennale in late May, as well as the dynamic collector-cum-patron Monique Burger. Assistant editor Noelle Bodick visited Mohammed Kazim in Dubai as he was preparing works for the UAE Pavilion at Venice. Reviews editor Hanae Ko sat down with Kimsooja in her studio in New York to discuss her proposed transformation of the Korea Pavilion, while editor-at-large HG Masters caught up with video artist Ali Kazma in Istanbul as he was in the middle of producing new works for the Turkey Pavilion.
In Essays, Doug Hall, former director of the Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, recalls the early years of the Asia Pacific Triennial over two decades ago. From Hong Kong, Para/Site co-founder Leung Chi Wo recounts the “Space Traffic” conference in 2001 that brought together many of the then-fledgling nonprofits around the region. Susan Gibb observes how Australian museums are rethinking the purpose and display of their permanent collections, while Xhingyu Chen looks at the potential of the recently opened, privately run Long Museum in Shanghai.
In the rest of the magazine, we offer glimpses of the upcoming Venice Biennale and its national pavilions in Previews. New-media artist Shilpa Gupta explains her admiration for the paintings of Sudhir Patwardhan in One on One. For our Dispatch column, artist Heman Chong and desk editor Ho Rui An team up to offer criticism of Singapore’s centralized arts policy.
In the expanded Reviews section, we travel from Sydney to Seoul, stopping in Brisbane, Singapore, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Taipei, as well as Istanbul, Kuwait City, Sharjah, London and New York. In this issue’s Book Review, instead of picking apart the latest artist monographs, senior editor Don J. Cohn nominates three books on China and Chinese culture that he considers must-haves for any aspiring or veteran Sinologist.
Select articles now online in Arabic and Chinese: artasiapacific.com.
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