AAP Monthly Picks: February–March 2019

Installation view of *BABI BADALOV*'s For The Wall, For The World, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 8 x 5 m, at “For The Wall, For The World,” Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2016. Courtesy artist and Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris.

Mar 2–Jun 16

Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku’s Yarat Contemporary Art Centre will stage a solo exhibition of the Paris-based, Azerbaijani visual artist and poet Babi Badalov, curated by Suad Garayeva-Maleki and Anna Fech. Titled “ZARAtustra”—referencing both the contemporary fast-fashion brand Zara and the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra—the exhibition will examine the cultural clashes arising from Azerbaijan’s rapid economic development, as well as the artist’s personal experiences of migration. The centerpiece of the show will be a large-scale, hanging installation composed of around 250 existing and newly commissioned textile works overlaid with Badalov’s poetry. This will be complemented by the artist’s wall-based interventions, involving handwritten texts that explore the notion of borders and the limits of language.

Installation view of BARTHÉLÉMY TOGUO's Road to Exile, 2018, wooden boat, fabric bags, glass bottles and plastic containers, approx. 120 x 60 x 45 in, at Barthélémy Toguo's "The Beauty of Our Voice,” Parrish Art Museum, New York, 2018. Photo by Jenny Gorm. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong & Co, Paris / New York.

Mar 5–May 11

Ford Foundation Gallery, New York, United States

The Ford Foundation Center for Social Justice will inaugurate its new gallery with “Perilous Bodies,” the first group exhibition in a yearlong series under the theme of “Utopian Imagination.” Co-curated by multidisciplinary artist Jaishri Abichandani and curator Natasha Becker, “Perilous Bodies” will feature a diverse group of 19 international artists whose works investigate societal violence and oppression. Spanning photography, sculpture, video, installation and performance, the exhibition will confront viewers with contemporary issues such as xenophobia, racism, and class and gender inequality in the hopes of paving the way for a better, fairer world.

ZHONG MING, He is Himself - Sartre, 1980, oil on canvas, 110 x 170 cm. Courtesy Guan Yi.

Mar 27–Apr 22

Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Arts Centre’s (HKAC) Pao Galleries will host the fifth exhibition in the institution’s annual Collectors’ Contemporary Collaboration series. Guest curated by Ling Min, this year’s iteration will spotlight the intergenerational and diverse collecting practices of Beijing-based collector Guan Yi; Lu Xun, the real-estate developer behind Nanjing’s Sifang Art Museum; and Shanghai-based hotelier and How Art Museum founder Zheng Hao. Highlights will include pieces from Guan’s sizeable collection of 1980s Chinese avant-garde art; works by Western modern artists, such as Joseph Beuys; and contemporary projects by the likes of Xu Zhen and Lee Kit.

*AY-O*, Pastoral, 1956, oil on panel, 183 × 370 cm. Courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.

Mar 29–Jun 16

Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan

After being closed for nearly three years to undergo extensive renovation, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo will celebrate its grand reopening with a comprehensive survey of Japanese art from 1910 to the present. Drawing primarily from the museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition will explore key movements and techniques in Japanese 20th and 21st century art history. “Weavers of Worlds” will pay particular attention to the ways in which Japanese artists have melded artistic traditions with radically novel methods, creating fresh, hybrid perspectives for considering societal issues and responding to tumultuous moments in Japan’s recent history. Additionally, the exhibition will offer a glimpse into the country’s wider cultural landscape through archival materials, such as pre-war Sosaku-hanga ("creative prints") magazines.

*ROBERT ANDREW*, Transitional Text – Buru, 2016, aluminum, ochers, oxides, water and electromechanical controllers, 270 x 240 x 60 cm. Copyright and courtesy the artist.

Mar 29–Jul 21

Various Locations, Sydney, Australia

Spread across three Sydney cultural powerhouses—the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA)—the second edition of The National: New Australian Art will feature recent and specially commissioned works by 65 emerging, mid-career and established artists from the antipodean country and its diaspora. The National 2019 will be split into three distinct exhibitions helmed by the institution’s curatorial teams. AGNSW curator of photographs Isobel Parker Philip will probe political and personal experiences of precarity; Carriageworks curator of visual arts and director of programs Daniel Mudie Cunningham will contemplate the future through fiction and memory; and the MCA's Clothilde Bullen, curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander exhibitions and collections, and curator Anna Davis will interrogate hierarchical power and new rituals that challenge it.

To read more of ArtAsiaPacific’s articles, visit our Digital Library.