Art Basel announces the return of its ambitious, full-scale program for its Hong Kong show with 177 galleries from 32 countries and territories – its largest in the city since 2019 – including the sector for monumental works and a new site-specific commission by
Pipilotti Rist.
- Encounters, the curated sector dedicated to large-scale works, will return to the show for the first time since 2019 with 13 expansive presentations
- Conversations will feature more than 85 speakers across the fair’s four days, offering a platform for dynamic dialogue among international artists, gallerists, curators, critics, collectors, and more, free and open to the public
- With free public admission, the Film program will feature 29 video works, including ‘MEMORIA’ by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, as well as special screenings curated by Hong Kong-based Videotage and Ghost 2565, Bangkok’s triennial video and performance art series
- 15 galleries will participate in Kabinett, the sector for thematic solo presentations within galleries’ main booths, with a strong Asia focus
- ‘Hand Me Your Trust’, a new, site-specific moving image work by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist, will take over the M+ Facade, commissioned by M+ and supported by Art Basel and UBS
- Art Basel, whose Global Lead Partner is UBS, will take place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC) from March 23 to March 25, 2023, with preview days on March 21 and 22 Marking its largest show since 2019, 2023 edition of Art Basel in Hong Kong will welcome 177 galleries from 32 countries and territories across Asia, Europe, North and South America, and Africa, plus the return of all the fair’s special sectors, including Encounters, Kabinett, Conversations, and Film. Over two-thirds of participating galleries have exhibition spaces in the region – with 33 galleries having exhibition spaces in Hong Kong – reinforcing Art Basel’s commitment to showcasing exceptional art from its host city and across Asia and the Asia Pacific.
Encounters
Curated for the sixth time by Alexie Glass-Kantor – Executive Director of Artspace, Sydney, and the curator for the Australian pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale – Encounters will feature 13 large-scale installations under the theme ‘This present, moment’:
‘After an extended period apart, the opportunity to activate Encounters feels especially important. Every project in this year’s sector considers in some way how we can hold space – how we might be present – individually and collectively in the singularity and precarity of this moment,’ says Glass-Kantor.
Highlights from Encounters include:
- Trevor Yeung’s ‘Mr. Cuddles Under the Eave’ (2021), in which the artist continues his practice of personifying botanic ecology and inanimate objects to articulate the complexities of human emotion and relationships. Presented by Blindspot Gallery.
- ‘Trolley Party’ (2023), a site-specific work by Jaffa Lam consisting of 14 meters of patchwork made from recycled and found everyday fabrics and emerging from six chairs made of industrial trollies. Inspired by Lam’s childhood memory of women workers, the installation invites visitors to enter its serene interior. Presented by Axel Vervoordt Gallery with Zilberman Gallery.
- Masked mannequin sculptures in ‘Solitude of Silences’ (2017-2019) by Gimhongsok, portray laborers who compose the majority of modern urban populations and represent uncertainty over the value of labor. Presented by Kukje Gallery.
- The marble installation ‘The Wine Dark Sea’ (2022, 2023) by Ukrainian artist Stanislava Pinchuk, on migrant journeys and conceptions of hospitality. Presented by Yavuz Gallery.
- Carlos Aires’s ‘Like Tears in the Rain’ (2023), a sculptural installation made with scrupulously shredded decommissioned Euro banknotes: a topography of money, in the form of a bizarre landscape. Presented by Sabrina Amrani.
- Wu Shanzhuan and Inga Svala Thórsdóttir’s ‘Constellation Forest’ (2018), which invites visitors to stroll and dwell on the show floor within a ‘grove’ of arched wooden forms resembling the vaults of a church. Presented by Hanart TZ Gallery.