*CODY CHOI*’s hybrid still life _Noblesse Hybridige #19919A_(2019), *YUN HYONG-KEUN*’s Dansaekhwa painting _Burnt Umber & Ultramarine_ (1993), and *LEE BUL*’s suspended female _Cyborg W10_ (2006) were featured as part of a group exhibition at PKM Gallery (Seoul). All photos by Paul Laster for ArtAsiaPacific.
Returning to the historic Grand Palais in Paris for its 46th edition, FIAC 2019 featured 199 established and emerging galleries from 29 countries, offering a wide selection of modern and contemporary art and design. The adjacent Petit Palais hosted FIAC Projects—co-organized by Palais de Tokyo curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel—where 30 sculptures and installations occupied the rooms of the museum and its surrounding grounds.
Spread across iconic public spaces in the city, FIAC Hors les Murs presented an ensemble of outdoor works, including over 20 pieces in collaboration with the Louvre Museum at the Jardin des Tuileries; a solo exhibition of Glenn Brown’s new works at the Musée National Eugène-Delacroix; Yayoi Kusama’s large, inflatable sculpture of a polka-dotted pumpkin, Life of the Pumpkin Recites, All About the Biggest Love for the People (2019), at Place Vendôme; and a group of architectural projects installed at Place de la Concorde. Additional programming included talks in the Conversation Room as well as film screenings at the fair.
Here are some highlights from FIAC:
Pace Gallery (New York / London / Hong Kong / Palo Alto / Seoul / Geneva) highlighted a selection of YOSHITOMO NARA’s small-scale drawings of expressive young girls from the mid-2000s to present.Vitamin Creative Space (Guangzhou / Beijing) presented a solo show of KOKI TANAKA’s conceptual photographic works from his series Precarious Tasks (2012–17), which document staged collective acts, such as walking with dogs, in cities around the world.PARK SEO-BO’s Dansaekhwa canvas Ecriture No. 161029 (2016) hung next to HAEGUE YANG’s suspended sculpture Sonic Gym Brass-Dripping Odyssey and assembled images from electronics sales brochures Hardware Store Collage – Samsung QLEDs and Floor Lamp #1 (both 2019) at the booth of Kukje Gallery (Busan / Seoul).Magician Space (Beijing) presented photographer SHI GUOWEI’s large-scale, hand-tinted details of landscapes, Painting from Nature C, Painting from Nature D and Painting from Nature A, which blur the boundary between painting and photography.Galerie Nagel Draxler (Berlin / Cologne / Munich) showed ABDULNASSER GHAREM’s simulated highway sign Road to Makkah (2019), which funnels traffic based on religion, above HEIMO ZOBERNIG’s Untitled painted cardboard sculptures (all 1988).Abstract paintings by KAZUMI NAKAMURA and YUKIE ISHIKAWA, respectively titled Ranging Difference—Broken Shelter (Brown and Emerald Green) (1994–95) and The Sky Through a Window Opening Gently 1 (1999), were featured in the exhibition “Parergon: Japanese Art of the 1980s and 1990s” at Blum & Poe (Los Angeles / New York / Tokyo).SCAI the Bathhouse (Tokyo) juxtaposed KOHEI NAWA’s sculptural deer head PixCell-Deer#54 (2018) and TOSHIKATSU ENDO’s conceptual collage Void – Two Coffins (2015) in a small inner room of the gallery’s booth.Green Art Gallery (Dubai) paired HERA BÜYÜKTAŞÇIYAN’s large-scale drawings of imaginary cities, Terrestrial I and II, and a sculptural installation of rolls of carpets, Foundations (all 2019), with SEHER SHAH’s photogravures of Gandharan sculptures from the series Argument from Silence (2019).Sculptor YEESOOKYUNG’s Translated Vase_2019 TVCW 4 and TVCW 3 (both 2019) shared a corner of Massimo De Carlo’s booth (Milan / London / Hong Kong) with MATTHEW MONAHAN’s large monochromatic drawing Body Electric (Hate Crystal) (2012), and YAN PEI-MING’s small canvas Le Dernier Repas Bleu (The Last Supper in Blue) (2019).Tomio Koyama Gallery (Tokyo) included KISHIO SUGA’s wire-mesh wall piece Gathered Space (2007), and wood-and-steel sculpture Supported Space and Enclosed Intervals (1986-87) in a select survey of the artist’s works.Fergus McCaffrey (New York / Tokyo) showed Gutai artist TOSHIO YOSHIDA’s abstract, mixed-media paintings Sakuhin (61-10) (1961), a mix of pulp paper and pigment on board, and Untitled (56-2) (1956), consisting of papier-mâché and pigment on a charred wooden panel.Dvir Gallery (Tel Aviv / Brussels) presented SIMON FUJIWARA’s fantastical architectural model It’s a Small World (Temple) and his bronze wall installation Gilded Tears (both 2019); MIRCEA CANTOR’s lightbox photo of words written in foggy glass, Unpredictable Future (2015); and NAAMA TSABAR’s sculptural instrument Work on Felt (Variation 10) Black (2016).
Paul Laster is a New York desk editor of ArtAsiaPacific.
