Conversation with Larys Frogier on Hugo Boss Asia Art Award 2015
By Denise Tsui
The biennial Hugo Boss Asia Art Award, now in its second edition, was conceived by Shanghai’s Rockbund Art Museum (RAM) in partnership with German luxury fashion house Hugo Boss. The latter's philanthropic art activities also include the much-acclaimed Hugo Boss Prize, produced with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Inaugurated in 2013, the Award is envisaged as a platform for acknowledging and promoting notable contemporary art emerging from China, as well as Asia at large, and grants the winner a stipend of RMB 300,000 (approximately USD 47,300) to further their artistic pursuits.
On October 29, despite incessant rain and a sudden drop in temperature, RAM and Hugo Boss opened the award exhibition in Shanghai with free-flowing champagne and tapas. Earlier that morning, ArtAsiaPacific managed to pry away RAM director Larys Frogier from his teeming schedule to share his visions for Hugo Boss Asia Art and his thoughts on contemporary art being produced in Asia.