• Market
  • Mar 31, 2018

Highlights From Art Basel Hong Kong 2018

Every half an hour at Art Basel Hong Kong 2018, a woman diligently scrubbed a towering pile of dishes, chopsticks and plates, the objects scaled to a size fit for a giant. Using only a worn rag and a bucket of water, she washed and polished these monstrous utensils, her labor magnified by their exaggerated dimensions. Once she finished her task and stepped off the stage, a suited man would enter the platform and read from a Dyson instruction manual next to oversized replicas of the British appliance company’s famous oval-shaped air cleaner.

The work, comprising of an installation activated by regular performances, was Refresh, Sacrifice, New Hygiene, Infection, Clean, Robot, Air, Housekeeping, www.agentbong.com, Cigarette, Dyson, Modern People (2017) by Taiwanese artist Chou Yu-Cheng, one of the 12 large-scale Encounters that anchored the presentations at the port city’s premier art fair this year. Chou’s work was about extremities of sanitation, whether through automated machines or through repetitive actions of cleansing, and also seemed to touch upon the traditional roles of men and women in domestic settings. 

Installation view of CHOU YU CHENG’s


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