Coinciding with the return of Art Basel’s physical show, galleries across the city are presenting works by an impressive range of artists

Hong Kong: six must-see exhibitions

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As Hong Kong regains some semblance of normality, including the return of Art Basel’s show in the flesh, the city’s galleries are presenting exhibitions that have the potential to lift spirits while simultaneously maintaining an intellectual rigor. Read on to discover six exhibitions worth visiting.

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8646/Jiang-Pengyi" target="_blank">Jiang Pengyi</a>, ‘Sun! Sun!’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1344/Blindspot-Gallery" target="_blank">Blindspot Gallery</a> May 18 – July 3, 2021For ‘Sun! Sun!’, Beijing-based artist Jiang Pengyi is showing three recent photographic series that interrogate the nature of the medium. To create the work, the artist used a magnifier to direct sunlight through a cardboard contraption onto film, resulting in images that recall the aftermath of staring into the sun. For the series ‘Foresight’ (2017–2018), Jiang placed organic waste atop film negatives and then let time pass to mimic the anticipation that arises between the time an analog photo is taken to when it is developed. In the series ‘Medium’ (2017–2018), he uses instant film to document found images of religious art, then transforms the materials with sculptural techniques. Seen together, the series point to the artist’s ongoing investigations of camera-less photography and the possibilities of images that are freed from film.

Xper.Xr, ‘Tailwhip’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/13611/Empty-Gallery" target="_blank">Empty Gallery</a> Through June 26, 2021‘Tailwhip’ chronicles the history of the cryptically named artist and noise musician Xper.Xr, who came of age during the 1980s in Hong Kong. After a period of BMX biking and drag racing, they turned to experimental music and released their first cassette, Murmur, in 1989. Later, they spent time in London and Paris, where their disregard for copyright law made resulted in releases of unauthorised covers of songs by other recording artists. For the show, albums, books, costumes, wigs, and other object-based ephemera Xper.Xr has produced over the years are illuminated against black walls in an otherwise darkened gallery.

Zhong Wei, ‘phone died’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1354/de-Sarthe" target="_blank">de Sarthe</a> May 15 – July 3, 2021The exhibition ‘phone died’ captures the spirit of contemporary Covid-19 life with wit and a much-needed sense of playfulness through Zhong Wei’s works on canvas and a large-scale installation. This piece, titled Forget (2021), dominates the middle of the gallery; a steel structure is adorned with see-through PVC drapes to showcase a pulsating sculpture with extruding wires, tubes, and cables, at once recalling both a mammal’s circulatory system as well as materials and machines found in hospitals. Works like this, along with the others in the exhibition, reflect the Beijing-based artist’s overarching practice, which often makes use of otherworldly forms as well as the visual language of the internet.

<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/21425/Germaine-Kruip" target="_blank">Germaine Kruip</a>, ‘Screenplay’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/2177/Axel-Vervoordt-Gallery" target="_blank">Axel Vervoordt Gallery</a> May 15 – July 10, 2021In Germaine Kruip’s first exhibition in Hong Kong, the artist presents an installation that investigates the passage of time, a continuation of the preoccupations that have pervaded her work throughout the last 20 years. Across three rooms, Kruip choreographs theater lighting and percussion instruments to underscore the relationship between the viewer and the space where the work is sited. In the first room, two rhombuses – each constructed using the golden ratio and made in collaboration with German instrument-maker Thein Brass – hang from the ceiling, producing a deep sound when activated. A seven-and-a-half-minute light piece, Cinemascope (2021), is on display in the second, while the third acts as a space in which the light and sound from the first two rooms are married.

Christine Ay Tjoe, ‘Spinning in the Desert’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1316/White-Cube" target="_blank">White Cube</a> May 18 – August 28, 2021In ‘Spinning in the Desert’, Indonesian artist Christine Ay Tjoe presents dynamic new paintings created in response to the pandemic. The disruption to her daily routine pushed her to explore the human condition through her works, both philosophically and spiritually. Her early training as a graphic designer is also apparent in these intricate canvases, which juxtapose disciplined line work with seemingly chaotic structures. Blue Crytopbiosis #3 (2021), for example, can be read as a human heart separated from its body, at once powerful and vulnerable. The colors evoke sun-bleached arid landscapes, hinting at post-apocalyptic life

‘Eternal Seasons: Part II’ <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1358/L%C3%A9vy-Gorvy" target="_blank">Lévy Gorvy</a> Through May 29, 2021This group exhibition builds on the success of ‘Eternal Seasons: Part I’ in a series of shows that explore the ways in which artists perceive and portray changing seasons as well as the cyclical nature of life itself. ‘Part II’ features work by Postwar and contemporary artists, such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6732/Alexander-Calder" target="_blank">Alexander Calder</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7427/Alex-Katz" target="_blank">Alex Katz</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6915/Jutta-Koether" target="_blank">Jutta Koether</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7763/Yayoi-Kusama" target="_blank">Yayoi Kusama</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7651/Joan-Mitchell" target="_blank">Joan Mitchell</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8519/Ugo-Rondinone" target="_blank">Ugo Rondinone</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7097/Amy-Sillman" target="_blank">Amy Sillman</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7004/Pat-Steir" target="_blank">Pat Steir</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/28315/Hongtao-Tu" target="_blank">Tu Hongtao</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6751/Andy-Warhol" target="_blank">Andy Warhol</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/8049/Christopher-Wool" target="_blank">Christopher Wool</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11672/Wou-Ki-Zao" target="_blank">Zao Wou-Ki</a>. Inspired by Claude Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ (1892–1926), Katz’s painting Azalea on Lilac (2020) depicts fuchsia flowers, its stark simplicity offering a moment of pause to take in the beauty. Contrasting Katz’s work is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7651/Joan-Mitchell" target="_blank">Joan Mitchell’s</a> painting 12 Hawks at 3 O’Clock (ca. 1962), which plays with the light of the afternoon sun to spotlight jade, azure, and scarlet hues in pure abstraction. Elsewhere in the gallery are newly created paintings by Lau, whose bold floral still lifes act as a reminder that nature continues to flourish despite global calamity. Doretta Lau is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia. Top image:&nbsp;Aki Inomata, detail of a work&nbsp;from the series 'Memory of Currency', 2018–ongoing. Courtesy of Maho Kubota Gallery, Tokyo. &copy;︎ Aki Inomata.

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Hong Kong: six must-see exhibitions

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