March/April 2025
March 12, 2025
As we embark on this year’s Hong Kong Art Week, ArtAsiaPacific’s March/April issue embraces the complexities and nuances that define contemporary artistic practice.
Our cover feature explores the photographic self-portraits of Yasumasa Morimura. His mesmerizing body of work, which began in the mid-1980s, challenges identity through his appropriated historical figures and pop icons, prompting us to interrogate their multiple layers of representation and cultural narrative. AAP associate editor Louis Lu caught up with the legendary Japanese photographer ahead of his exhibition with Cindy Sherman at M+ in Hong Kong. In our second feature, Para Site’s deputy director Junni Chen speaks to conceptual artist and painter Maria Taniguchi on the occasion of her midcareer retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Manila. Together they discuss how Taniguchi’s methodical practice invites one to reconsider materiality in her art, which transforms everyday elements into profound reflections on space and time.
In Up Close, we look at Mark Bradford’s latest painting series, which debuted recently in Hong Kong, and two new museum commissions: one by Angelica Mesiti at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales, the other by Adrián Villar Rojas at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, respectively. This issue’s Inside Burger Collection focuses on the kinetic sculptures and multimedia installations of Jon Kessler, who asks viewers to question the relationship between technology, surveillance, and social critique.
Our two profiles look at figures who have helped initiate art scenes, both past and present. AAP acting managing editor Richard Vine looks back at the trailblazing efforts of Park Myung-ja, the founder of Gallery Hyundai in Seoul, which celebrates its 55th anniversary this year. Another pioneer, but in the non-commercial realm, is Hong Kong’s Alan Lo, who together with his wife Yenn Wong, stands as a testament to the role of collectors in shaping the art landscape, exemplifying how personal passion can foster community and creativity.
In Essays, AAP continues to collaborate with Asia Art Archive to translate Chinese texts about the Hong Kong art scene into English, this time republishing the esoteric writing of the late Cheung King Hung (aka KH) via his alter-ego “Kandinsky” about two shows at Para Site art space in 1997.
Elsewhere, we highlight three young artists whose works will be featured in the Discoveries sector at Art Basel Hong Kong: Wang Yuyu, Dan Zhu, and Leehaiminsun. In the latest Dispatch, AAP Seoul desk editor Andy St. Louis recounts how South Korea’s art scene is weathering the current political turmoil. For The Point, Indonesian curator Mitha Budhyarto delves into the 2024 Jakarta Biennale’s collective approach, or lumbung, questioning whether the curatorial direction serves the wider public. From Tokyo, video artist Maiko Jinushi pens a moving One on One, reflecting on her first encounter with the work of Dumb Type, which pushed the boundaries of performance and technology, exploring how art can transcend physicality to engage with pressing social issues.
Our reviews take us from the midcareer solo exhibition of Julie Mehretu at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney to biennales and major surveys in Busan, Bangkok, and Doha.
Finally, AAP editorial assistant Annette Meier journeyed to Hong Kong’s lively To Kwa Wan neighborhood to visit the studio of Wing Po So, who weaves together her family’s vocation of traditional Chinese medicine with her own contemporary art practices, creating a dialogue between past and present that resonates deeply within the territory’s multifaceted identity. This issue celebrates these artists not merely as creators but as conduits for broader conversations about identity, culture, and the ever-evolving nature of art itself.