Contemporary Chinese art was the undisputed belle of the ball at this year’s Armory Show. The largest art fair in New York hosted 205 galleries from around the world, including 17 from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. The Armory’s “Focus” section, now in its fifth year, highlighted three decades of contemporary Chinese art, under the discerning eye of curator Philip Tinari, the Director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Clustered along the corridor connecting the modern section of the fair to the contemporary one, fairgoers could not transition between the two periods without encountering the many facets of the Chinese art scene—which, as Tinari emphasized, is making its own inroads too often overlooked by Western audiences. The following are some of the fair’s highlights from ArtAsiaPacific.

When Michael Chow enters a room, he commands an audience. With his sweeping gestures and boisterous tones, he speaks in overtures; it doesn’t matter what he is about to present so much as the presentation itself. This performative nature has served him well throughout the years—Chow has managed a successful restaurant business, which currently boasts six locations worldwide, and has brushed elbows with the cultural elite—he counts the late Jean-Michel Basquiat as having been one of his closest friends. Now, at the age of 75, the notorious Mr. Chow has turned his attention to art. How will his expertise in fine dining translate onto the canvas?

The best part of “Our Best Intentions,” Einat Amir’s experimental performance piece, was the anticipation of engaging as both an audience member and an actor. Staged as part of Performa 13, by the Israeli arts non-profit organization Artis, “Our Best Intentions” utilized 20 participants to conduct an intimate performance with each other. Gathering on a chilly November evening, the group I took part in were invited to create an “introspective experience of therapy” contrasting with the “dramatic devices of performance.” Unfortunately, the dramatic, therapeutic, and experiential claims of the piece failed to materialize, and I left the space feeling that the performance’s intentions had been far from realized.  As each version is unique to the particular participants and moderators, I cannot claim to speak for the piece as a whole, but while intriguing in premise, this iteration failed to provoke as promised.

In late October, artists, activists, community organizers, politicians, and architects converged in New York City for the  2013 Creative Time Summit. Between panels, conversations, lectures and presentations—bookended with dinners and cocktail receptions—the experience was chaotic, frenetic and, depending one’s ability to process massive amounts of information in a short amount of time, awe-inspiring. Aiming to be a catalyst for collaboration and reflexivity, the Summit facilitated the sharing of ideas and insights and inspired lively debate on issues of capitalism, place-making and belonging—all of which played out with mutual respect and admiration. 

At the Brentwood Arts Exchange at the Gateway Arts Center in Brentwood, Maryland—less than a mile from the United State’s capital—the sounds of Katakhali, a small community on Barobaishdia Island in South-western Bangladesh, can be heard. Following the sounds, and turning a corner, one is led to Bangladeshi-American artist-activist, Monica Jahan Bose’s exhibition “Layer By Layer: Storytelling with Saris,” which is part of an ongoing conversation about literacy and eco-empowerment for the women of her home village of Katakhali.

The New York-based artist Patty Chang has been making daring forays in performance art since the late 1990s. She once captivated viewers onscreen, appearing to be somewhere between throws of ecstasy and pain—but irreducible to neither—later attributing this to the live eels that filled her blouse and wriggled uncontrollably against her skin. In another work, Chang came uncomfortably close to incest by making chewing movements against the lips of her own parents which, at first glance, looked like awkward make-out sessions. Teetering precariously between humor and embarrassment, Chang’s early works push the body to its limits, alluding to the fluidity of identity by confounding any attempt at characterization. 

Gyun Hur is most known for her compositions of shredded silk flowers, meticulously arranged to mimic the patterns on her mother’s wedding blanket. In recent years, the Korean-born, Atlanta-based artist has moved away from this distinct motif, employing a new palate and turning the flowers—believed in Korea to drive out bad luck—into colorful mounds with objects, such as broken pottery, stone and plants, buried within each. The narrative quality of her installations extends into performance as well. While on residency at Artadia in Dumbo, New York, Hur staged a one day event, in which she and her father set up an optical store modeled after the actual store of the her childhood and invited audiences to peruse and interact with dozens of vintage glasses frames. Hur sat down with ArtAsiaPacific to discuss memories, process and the importance of family.

For over two decades, Thai artist Pinaree Sanpitak has been creating art that interprets the human form. Her latest installation was inspired by the severe floods that swept through Thailand in 2011, ravaging more than two thirds of the country and during which Ms. Sanpitak herself was forced to swiftly relocate from her studio and home in Bangkok to just outside the city. Induced by a feeling of uncertainty, and with the limited materials she had access to, the work consists of 18 dangling handmade hammocks expressing the human desire for comfort and the triumph of creativity in the midst of disaster. ArtAsiaPacific sat down with the artist to discuss her projects and the latest iteration of Hanging by a Thread (2012) currently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which seems to have found a balance, now that the proverbial dust, or water, has settled.

A traveling show of the largest collection of Andy Warhol’s works opened at the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMA) in December. “Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal,” organized by The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to mark the 25th anniversary of the artist’s death, hit Singapore’s Art Science Museum (ASM) in March before coming to Hong Kong and continuing onto Shanghai, Beijing and Tokyo. Having visited the exhibition in both Singapore and Hong Kong, I found suggestive differences between the two editions.