The young British artist James Richards, known for his atmospheric collages of grainy analogue video, recently made headlines as one of the four shortlisted nominees for the prestigious Turner Prize, an annual award presented by the Tate gallery in London. Just a few days after the announcement, Richards was in China to attend the opening of his first exhibition in the country, “Of Disturbance,” at Magician Space in Beijing’s 798 art district. His visit to China also included a series of screenings and symposia, co-organized by Magician Space and London-based arts organization Electra, at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, as well as at OCAT Xi’an, OCAT Shenzhen and the Asia Society in Hong Kong. ArtAsiaPacific caught up with Richards to chat about his work, his experiences in China and his thoughts on the 2014 Turner Prize.

For the past 15 years, Swiss artist Mai-Thu Perret has been building on the ongoing project “Crystal Frontier” (1999– ), based on a multidisciplinary narrative featuring a group of women who move away from the mainstream society to create a feminist commune, which they call New Ponderosa Year Zero, in the desert of southwest New Mexico. Inspired by various selections of literature, the fiction behind “Crystal Frontier” has resulted in a multitude of objects—from letters and diary entries to ceramics, textiles and furniture—that chronicle the women’s experiences in their colony. Over a cup of hot water, Perret’s preferred drink of choice, ArtAsiaPacific sat down with the artist before her debut at Simon Lee gallery, Hong Kong, to talk about the notion of utopia, her latest work inspired by Enzo Mari—one of the greatest Italian designers of the late 20th century—and the current state of “Crystal Frontier.”

Curator James Elaine has been seeking out emerging artists for over 25 years—first on behalf of the Drawing Center in New York and then for the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, where he implemented the highly respected Hammer Projects series, focusing on emerging international and local talent.

The year 1989 is considered a pivotal moment in global history; it marked the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War and the birth of the World Wide Web. 

“The time is out of joint.”

Derrida opens Spectres of Marx (1993) with the above line, taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, wherein the troubled prince is communing with the ghost of his father. Derrida invokes the ghost of Hamlet’s father to bear the weight of history as it is deconstructed, to preface disjointedness and pluralism.

If you happen to be in Sharjah and stumble upon a card with a curious rabbit illustration at a café or ATM machine, flip it over and check for the question you get on the other side. 

Looking at the paintings of Indonesian artist Jumaldi Alfi feels like stepping into a stream of his subconscious. One enters a dreamy space with floating images of rocks and horses grounded by a background of text. 

South Asia is described by many in the art world as being “the next big thing.” With more and more artists and museums popping up, increased attention has been focusing on the rapidly emerging Asian art scene. 

Back in 2006, the government of Shanghai ambitiously declared their mission to build 100 new museums by decade’s end. Now, nearly ten years since, it has unsurprisingly not reached this lofty goal; yet the city has nonetheless seen a significant museum boom in recent years, thanks mainly to the proliferation of private institutions. In less than a decade, Shanghai has averaged a new museum per year, with even more to come. 

A conceptual artist that works in a variety of media, Michael Joo has been making artworks that blur the boundaries between art and science, nature and technology, and history and perception for more than 20 years. The subject of two current solo shows—“Transparency Engine” at SCAD Hong Kong and “Drift” at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut—Joo recently took time out of his demanding schedule to discuss these enigmatic exhibitions with ArtAsiaPacific’s New York desk editor Paul Laster.