“Dynamic, fresh, lively”
Deutsche Bank Once Again Main Sponsor of ART HK
Following
Frieze New York's successful premiere, the international art scene now
sets its sights on Hong Kong, where ART HK has grown to become one
of the most distinguished art fairs in the world. As with Frieze,
Deutsche Bank cooperates with ART HK, where it presents works by Cai
Guo-Qiang in its lounge. A preview by Achim Drucks.
ART HK 11. Photo @ ART HK
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ART HK 11. Photo @ ART HK
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Cai Guo-Qiang, Vortex, 2006. Deutsche Bank Collection, Photo: Hiro Ihara, Courtesy of Cai Studio
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Cai Guo-Qiang, Illusion II: Explosion Project, 2006, Berlin. Photo: Hiro Ihara, Courtesy Cai Studio
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Yayoi Kusama, Flowers that Bloom at Midnight, 2009. Installation view at Jardin des Tuileries, Paris, 2011/12. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery
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Yin Xiuzhen, Black Hole, 2010. installation View. ©Yin Xiuzhen. Courtesy Pace Beijing
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Tatsuo Miyajima, HOTO, 2008.Installation view at ART TOWER MITO, Japan. Courtesy SCAI THE BATHHOUSE
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Cary Kwok, Qipao - Shanghai (1940s), 2011. Courtesy Herald St, London
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Ali Kazim, Untitled, 2011. Photo: Vipul Sangoi. Courtesy Green Cardamon London
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Takashi Murakami, There are Little People Inside Me, 2010. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery
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Marcel Dzama, Song of the Prophets, 2011. Courtesy Sies + Höke, Dusseldorf
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Jean-Michel Othoniel, Untitled (black necklace), 2012. Courtesy Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris
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Kara Tanaka, Bent-Light Night, 2011. Courtesy Simon Preston Gallery, New York
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“A supersonic event”—this is how Time Out Hong Kong announced this year’s ART HK.
Quite rightly, because the young Hong Kong International Art Fair has
grown to become one of the most important art fairs worldwide in an
amazingly short span of time. In 2011, over 63,500 visitors flocked to
the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, an increase of around 38 percent compared to the previous year. Important curators, collectors, and museum people like Hans Ulrich Obrist of the London Serpentine Gallery and Kwok Kian Chow, director of the National Art Gallery Singapore,
were there. Don and Mera Rubell were also very excited: “Hong Kong is a
city on steroids—dynamic, fresh, vibrant,” said the collector pair from
Miami. “There is an explosion of young people at the fair who were
fully engaged with the art on show.”
Deutsche Bank
was already convinced of ART HK’s potential early on. The positive
atmosphere at the first two runs was so overwhelming that it decided to
support the young fair; since 2010, the bank has been its main sponsor.
Additionally, Deutsche Bank once again set up its lounge this year to
present the works of Cai Guo-Qiang. Among other pieces, his large-scale gunpowder drawing Vortex is on view—a silhouette of a pack of wolves forming a huge spiral—as well as his video Illusion II. Both works were made in Berlin in 2006, for Cai’s exhibition project Head On at the Deutsche Guggenheim.
But another thing also becomes clear at the ART HK: Deutsche Bank’s
social commitment. Together with the non-profit organization Council of
Early Childhood Education and Services (CECES), the Deutsche Bank Asia Foundation has started up the educational program MADD
(Music, Art, Drama, Dance). Working on an honorary basis, bank staff
organize creative workshops for children. At the fair, as part of the
project Art4Kids, they acquaint kids with contemporary art in a playful way.
The corporate collection
is also present in Hong Kong: in the fall of 2010, Deutsche Bank moved
into its new quarters in the ICC Tower. Under the motto Urban Utopia,
the works of around 40 well-established and emerging artists from
China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan are on view,
including Cao Fei, Zhao Liang, and the artist couple MAP Office. Now, the art presentation can be discovered in the comfort of your own home using an iPad and the new Art Works Hong Kong app.
Along with portraits of the artists and explanations of their works,
you can also obtain a wide range of information on Deutsche Bank’s
commitment to art around the world.
For the fifth run of the
ART HK, a total of 266 galleries from 39 countries are expected. From Arndt and Gagosian to Gladstone, Goodman, and Zwirner:
a large segment of the most important galleries worldwide are taking
part in the fair. The section ASIA ONE, which was successfully started
last year, does justice to Asia’s rapidly expanding importance as a hub
of artistic production: Asian galleries each present one artist from
their region here. The industrious fair director Magnus Renfrew
expects a balanced mix of Asian and Western, established and newcomer
galleries, which have their own forum in the section ART FUTURES. The
events program of talks and lectures, which includes Okwui Enwezor, Director of the Haus der Kunst
in Munich, and the Chinese video and photo artist Cao Fei, adds
considerably to the fair’s overall profile. In the series ART HK
Projects, 10 large installations can be seen in the fair halls,
selected by Yuko Hasegawa, Head Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. On view, for instance, are huge flower sculptures by Yayoi Kusama, which resemble an LSD trip-like psychedelic ensemble, land Yin Xiuzhen’s gigantic diamond-like object made of containers and accentuated with fluorescent lights.
As with the London Frieze,
which is also supported by Deutsche Bank, ART HK now exerts an enormous
influence on the local art and gallery scene. After Gagosion and White Cube opened affiliates in Hong Kong, Emmanuel Perrotin, Pearl Lam, and Simon Lee are doing the same. Numerous exhibitions and art events are also scheduled. Gagosian presents Andreas Gursky, while Sundaram Tagore is showing Annie Leibovitz. As part of the initiative Mobile M+: Yau Ma Tei,
site-specific installations by native artists can be seen in the
historical, densely populated quarter of Yau Ma Tei. ART HK has played
a significant role in turning Hong Kong into an art metropolis of
increasing importance.
ART HK 12
May 17 – 20, 2012
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC)
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