Weekly News Roundup: October 18, 2024

2024 Asian Art Biennial Reveals Lineup 

On October 18, the Asian Art Biennial announced the full list of participants for its ninth edition, “How To Hold Your Breath,” which is set to open on November 16. Comprising 35 artists and collectives from more than 20 countries, the lineup includes Palestinian filmmaker Noor Abed; Singaporean installation artist Chu Hao Pei; Berlin-based group Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research; Malaysian artist Sharon Chin; Vietnamese artist duo Trương Quế Chi and Nguyễn Phương Linh; Beijing-born artist and filmmaker Cici Wu; Japanese multidisciplinary artist Maiko Jinushi; Korean painter Woosung Lee; and Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul; among many others. The artists will showcase 83 works and 19 new commissions responding to a theme that subverts the phrase “don’t hold your breath,” proposing strategies of resilience amid global calamities. The Asian Art Biennial will run until March 2, 2025, at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in the city of Taichung. 

Lee Mingwei, Robert Rauschenberg in M+ 2025 Program 

Hong Kong’s M+ announced its program list for the coming year, encompassing exhibition collaborations with international institutions, film screenings, and commissions for the museum’s facade. Upcoming exhibitions include “Picasso for Asia: A Conversation” in March 2025, co-curated with the Musée national Picasso-Paris; “Lee Mingwei: Guernica in Sand,” also in March; “Trevor Yeung: Courtyard of Detachments” in June; and “Robert Rauschenberg and Asia” in November, among others. The museum will also host the third M+ Sigg Collection showcase in August, titled “Inner Worlds,” the Sigg Prize 2025 exhibition in September 2025, and the annual Asian Avant-Garde Film Festival’s sophomore edition later in the year. The M+ Facade is set to display the video Jade Jadeite (2024) by Chinese artist Zhou Tao during the Winter Edition 2025, a co-commission with Art Basel for the Spring Edition, and the work of Korean multidisciplinary artist Ayoung Kim for the Autumn Edition, marking M+’s first collaboration with Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum.  

Collective Wins Islamic Arts Biennale Design Competition

The AlMusalla Prize, an international architecture competition for the design of a musalla (a space for prayer and contemplation) on the site of the 2025 Islamic Arts Biennale, has named its winner: a collective composed of the Lebanon- and UAE-based EAST Architecture Studio, the United Kingdom-based engineering firm AKT II, and the Beirut- and San Francisco-based artist Rayyane Tabet. The winning team conceived a versatile, modular pavilion built primarily from the waste of date palm trees that will be internally lined with naturally dyed textiles. The design demonstrates the practicality of this regionally abundant, sustainable resource and pays homage to traditional construction methods in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where the second Islamic Arts Biennale will take place. Coinciding with the Biennale, the musalla will open to the public on January 25, 2025, and remain on display throughout the exhibition, until May 25, at the Western Hajj Terminal at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah. After the Biennale concludes, the pavilion will be disassembled and relocated to a new site.

UCCA Beijing Opens Eighth Sculpture Park Project 

Beijing’s UCCA Center for Contemporary Art has opened its eighth edition of the Shanghai Jing’an International Sculpture Project (2024 JISP), titled “Echoes Among Us.” The exhibition showcases 35 sculptures by 31 local and international artists from ten countries alongside 22 commissioned works. The theme draws inspiration from a concerto and uses music as a metaphor to explore the interplay between ecology, architecture, and sculpture. In acknowledgment of the 60th anniversary of Sino-French diplomatic relations, France is presented as a country of honor, with sculptures from notable French artists such as Martial Raysse and Daniel Buren—the latter of whom won the Golden Lion for Best National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1986—also on display. The 2024 JISP is curated by UCCA Lab, while UCCA director Philip Tinari served as curatorial advisor. The exhibition will be on view at the 60,000-square-meter Jing’an Sculpture Park and six additional sites in Shanghai until December 31. 

British Artist to Produce Major Sculpture for MCA Australia Commission 

Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) has named London-born artist Thomas J. Price as the recipient of its inaugural Neil Balnaves Tallawoladah Lawn Commission. Price is known for his large-scale sculptures of ordinary individuals, subverting traditional monuments of aggrandized historical figures to challenge our preconceived notions of representation and power structures. The artist stated that he is “honored to be the first recipient” of the commission and hopes that his works “bring communities closer together and live in the public realm as silent totems for change.” In a press release, MCA Australia director Suzanne Cotter stated: “We are excited for the many visitors to this culturally significant site to access and experience his art at all times of the day.” Named after the late Australian philanthropist Neil Balnaves (1944–2022) and supported by the Balnaves Foundation, the landmark commissioning series will present public sculptural works over the next three years on the museum’s iconic Tallawoladah Lawn. Price’s new artwork is set to be unveiled in late 2025 and will remain on public display until mid-2026.

National Gallery of Australia Teases Massive Commission 

Canberra’s National Gallery of Australia (NGA) is set to unveil its most expensive commission to date, an AUD 14 million (USD 9.4 million) stainless-steel sculpture titled Ouroboros (2024) by Chinese Australian artist Lindy Lee. Commissioned to celebrate the institution’s 40th anniversary, Ouroboros is based on the eponymous ancient symbol of a serpent swallowing its own tail, emblematic of an endless cycle of birth and death. Lee revealed that she worked with 200 artisans for the project, and it took three years to complete the nine-meter-long, almost five-meter-tall sculpture which she hopes will “invok[e] infinity, a sense of inclusiveness, a sense that everything under the heavens is connected.” Some have criticized the big-budget commission as a misuse of public funds, but NGA gallery director Nick Mitzevich justified the cost by pointing to the project’s laborious “craftsmanship,” adding that it could become a famous city landmark. Ouroboros will be installed in the gallery’s revamped Sculpture Garden, which opens to the public on October 25.

Centre Pompidou Adds Chinese Contemporary Works to Permanent Collection

Following the October 9 opening of “目 Chine: A New Generation of Artists” at Paris’s Centre Pompidou, the museum has announced its acquisition of 21 works by 15 of the exhibiting artists, including multidisciplinary artist Hu Xiaoyuan, photographer Chen Wei, new media artist Lu Yang, and painters Alice Chen and Cui Jie, among others. Prior to the purchase, the Parisian museum’s permanent collection comprised 150 works by 58 contemporary Chinese artists, but funding from the French luxury brand Chanel (which also sponsored the exhibition) has allowed the Pompidou to increase this representation by more than 20 percent. “目 Chine” was held in collaboration with Shanghai’s West Bund Museum, an institution with which the Pompidou holds a five-year partnership agreement. The exhibition will be on view throughout Art Basel Paris (Oct 18–20) and run until February 3, 2025. In mid-2025, the Centre Pompidou plans to undergo a major renovation that will shutter the institution until 2030. 

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