March 23–25, 2023
Encounters returns to Art Basel in Hong Kong for the sixth time, once again curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor—Executive Director of Artspace, Sydney and the curator for the Australian pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. Featuring 14 artworks by Carlos Aires, David Altmejd, Siah Armajani, Awol Erizku, Gimhongsok, Mella Jaarsma, Jaffa Lam, Nabuqi, Stanislava Pinchuk, Shubigi Rao, Inga Svala Thórsdóttir & Wu Shanzhuan, Danh Võ, Trevor Yeung, and Hsu Yunghsu, Encounters is a unique platform that transcends the traditional art fair stand presenting large-scale sculptural installations.
For this year’s show, Alexie Glass-Kantor explores the theme “This present, moment.” Activating site-specificity and the opportunity for expanded presentation, Encounters will explore how we can come together to nurture connection and presence within each instant.
“After an extended period apart, the opportunity to activate Encounters feels especially important. Every project in this year’s sector considers in some way how we can hold space—how we might be present—individually and collectively in the singularity and precarity of this moment,” says Glass-Kantor.
Highlights from Encounters include:
Trevor Yeung’s Mr. Cuddles Under the Eave (2021), in which the artist continues his practice of personifying botanic ecology and inanimate objects to articulate the complexities of human emotion and relationships. Presented by Blindspot Gallery.
Trolley Party (2023), a site-specific work by Jaffa Lam consisting of 14 meters of patchwork made from recycled and found everyday fabrics and emerging from six chairs made of industrial trollies. Inspired by Lam’s childhood memory of women workers, the installation invites visitors to enter its serene interior. Presented by Axel Vervoordt Gallery with Zilberman Gallery.
Masked mannequin sculptures in Solitude of Silences (2017–2019) by Gimhongsok, portraying laborers who compose the majority of modern urban populations and represent an uncertainty over the value of labor. Presented by Kukje Gallery.
The marble installation The Wine Dark Sea (2022-2023) by Ukrainian artist Stanislava Pinchuk, on migrant journeys and conceptions of hospitality. Presented by Yavuz Gallery.
Carlos Aires’s Like Tears in the Rain (2023), a sculptural installation made with scrupulously shredded decommissioned Euro banknotes: a topography of money, in the form of an uncanny and ambiguous landscape. Presented by Sabrina Amrani.
Inga Svala Thórsdóttir and Wu Shanzhuan’s Constellation Forest (2018), which invites visitors to stroll and dwell on the show floor within a “grove” of arched wooden forms that offer a public site for personal contemplation and introspection. Presented by Hanart TZ Gallery.
For the first time, Encounters will also present a project offsite beyond the fair, with the premiere of a monumental installation by Los Angeles-based conceptual artist Awol Erizku in Hong Kong’s Pacific Place. Presented by Ben Brown Fine Arts and supported by Swire Properties, Official Partner of off-site Encounters.
Art Basel, whose Global Lead Partner is UBS, will take place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from March 23–25, 2023, with preview days on March 21 and 22.
