osage

osage art foundation

PRESS RELEASE
12th May, 2014

Osage Art Foundation & City University of Hong Kong
co-present:

MARKET FORCES
Exhibition | ERASURE: FROM CONCEPTUALISM TO ABSTRACTION
Curated by Charles Merewether
Symposium | ART AND VALUES
Moderated by David Elliott, with respondent Lewis Biggs

Curated by veteran curator, Charles Merewether, ‘Market Forces: Erasure: From
Conceptualism to Abstraction’ sets out to question the increasingly overdetermined economic interpretation of the value of art and its consequences,which include the reinforcement of the dominance of certain media, styles and‘brands’. In the words of curator Charles Merewether, “the subject matter of art
becomes more important than its concept or materiality and it becomes
reduced to a vehicle for representation rather than a basis for exploring ideas
and issues or a way of engaging with the world through the senses”. The
exhibition will be spread over two locations including Osage Hong Kong and City
University of Hong Kong.
Accompanying the exhibition is this year’s Market Forces symposium event, ‘Art
and Values’, moderated by David Elliott, featuring esteemed speakers Charles
Merewether, Biljana Ciric, Leeza Ahmady, Enin Supriyanto and Kurt Chan, as well
as respondent Lewis Biggs. As moderator David Elliott states, “little
acknowledgement has been given to the object-based and conceptual work
being made by artists in Asia, with the effect that current work tends to beperceived as purely a response to Western art rather than as a way of looking
and thinking that is firmly rooted in the region”. The panel of curators and arts
educators will each address the current situation of art production in Asia with aparticular focus on the conflation of aesthetic values and market values andhow artists in Asia have reacted to the market.
The series, ‘Market Forces’ aims to question ‘value’; the 2012 ‘Market Forces,
Whither Contemporary Art?’ asked whether we could find new paradigms forintellectual and artistic inquiry and debate, and for 2013, ‘Market Forces: The
Friction of Opposites’ emphasized value in terms of moral or societal notions.

Market Forces is a part of Osage’s non-profit initiative, held annually during theart fair period by Osage Art Foundation to provide an alternative to the market
driven art activities in Hong Kong.

ERASURE: FROM CONCEPTUALISM TO ABSTRACTION
Curated by Charles Merewether

Osage Hong Kong
(Venue One)

City University of Hong Kong
(Venue Two)

Event Dates

16 May 2014 to 30 June 201416 May 2014 to 15 July 2014

Opening Hours

Mon – Sat: 10.30 am – 6.30 pm Sun:
2:30 – 6:30 pm
Closed on public holidays.
Open to special appointments
outside of these times.

Mon – Sat: 10: 30 am – 7:00 pm
Sun: 2:30 – 7:00 pm
Closed on public holidays.
Open to special appointments outsideof these times.

Addresses

4/F, 20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong,
Kowloon, Hong Kong

18/F, Academic Three (AC3) Building,City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon
Tong, Hong Kong

Preview Receptions

5 – 7 pm
Friday, 16 May 2014

7 – 9 pm
Friday, 16 May 2014

Artists Featured

Au Hoi Lam (Hong Kong)
Tang Kwok Hin (Hong Kong)Song Dong (Beijing)
Jeremy Sharma (Singapore)
Ian Woo (Singapore)
Nilo Ilarde (Manila)
Maria Taniguchi (Manila)
Kishio Suga (Ito City)
Shinil Kim (Seoul)Young Rim Lee (Seoul)
Mee Ai Om (Seoul/Hong Kong)
Tintin Wulia (Brisbane/Jakarta)

Tang Kwok Hin (Hong Kong)
Yu JI (Shanghai)
Zhao Zhao (Beijing)
Ng Joon Kiat (Singapore)
Milenko Pvacki (Singapore)
Grace Tan (Singapore)
Ringo Bunoan (Manila)
Bernardo Pacquing (Manila)
Masanori Handa (Tokyo)
FX Harsono (Jakarta)
Nipan Oranniwesna (Bangkok)

The exhibition features the concept and object-based works of twenty-two artists
working in the broader Asian region. Song Dong’s Cream Screen Wall, forexample, is inspired by the childhood memories of the artist, as well as themateriality of yingbi (walls that stand between the entrance and innercourtyards of traditional Chinese courtyard houses). The artist has reinterpreted
yingbi by constructing his own with the unusual material of cream, thus
commenting on the desires and excess of contemporary society. FX Harsono’s
Purification, on the other hand, takes as its inspiration the Indonesian city named
Cirebon and features several artifacts from the city. The piece is a commentaryon religion and the acts of purification in the context of industrialization andcapitalism. In addition, Nilo Ilarde’s Zero, consists of a palette board embedded
within a wall. The palette board becomes the negative space as it fits andblends into the wall itself; it is thus stripped of its practical purpose and istransformed into an abstract and conceptual form. The ‘disappearance’ or
erasure of the object speaks to the possibilities of the void and the object’s
liminality as it straddles the border between spatial void and physical object,absence and presence. These works, among the other works also presented, are,according to Charles Merewether, “exceptions to the rule of the market”.
For docent-guided visits, please contact Ms Grace Lam at gracelam@osagegallery.com
or (852) 2389 8332.

ART AND VALUES
Moderated by David Elliott, with respondent Lewis Biggs
Date
Time
Venue

Saturday, 17 May 2014
2 – 6 pm
Wong Cheung Lo Hui Yuet Hall, 5/F, Academic Three (AC3) Building,City University of Hong Kong

Speakers

Topic Descriptions

Charles Merewether is an art historian, curator

Charles Merewether, curator of theexhibition ‘Erasure: From Conceptualism to
Abstraction’, will further elaborate on thethesis of the show, focusing on objectbased work and conceptualism and how
this reflects the arts and culture scene
within Asia.

and writer on modernism and has curated a numberof exhibitions of major artists from across SouthAmerica and Asia, including Central Asia. Merewether
has been the Collections Curator at the Getty
Research Institute, Artistic Director for the Sydney
Biennale, Deputy Director for the Cultural District,
Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi and the Director at theInstitute of Contemporary Arts Singapore.

Kurt Chan is an artist and art educator; currently
the director of the Master of Arts (Fine Arts) programat the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His researchinterests are in Hong Kong art, mixed media andpublic art. He is at present an adviser to the Asian Art
Archive and the Yale-China association.

Biljana Ciric is an independent curator based in

Kurt Chan’s presentation will examine thecurrent situation of art production and theart market in Hong Kong, relating this to thewider, global situation.

Shanghai and has presented numerous criticallyacclaimed projects. Her ongoing researchencompasses institutional critique and artist
institutions. She has been nominated for an ICI
Independent Vision Curatorial Award and was on theJury for the recently established Hugo Boss Asia Art
Award.

Biljana Ciric will present her observations on
the current situation of art production in
China and the reactions of younger artists
against the distortions of the market andthe careerism that this has engendered.

Enin Supriyanto is an independent curator andEnin Supriyanto will be focusing on thedevelopment of art in Southeast Asia, inparticular Indonesia, under the dominationof market and prices of artwork, and therise of a new market form in the last
decade.

writer based in Jakarta – Jogja, Indonesia. He has
curated numerous exhibitions and contributed essays
for various publications on contemporary Indonesianart in Indonesia and abroad. He is now the Project
Officer of the Equator International Symposium, aparallel event of the Jogja Biennale.

Leeza Ahmady is a noted specialist on Central
Asian art and has pioneered the development ofartists and works from the region. Ahmady is Directorof Asian Conemporary Art Week at Asia Society andthe Director of AhmadyArts. Ahmady also serves on
the advisory board for the Center for Contemporary
Art Afghanistan.

Leeza Ahmady will share her experiencesof working and promoting artists fromCentral Asia as well as South and Southeast
Asia, tracing the trajectory of developmentof the art scenes in the region.

The symposium is open to the public. Simultaneous interpretation (English-Mandarin) will
be provided. For registration, please contact Ms Grace Lam at
gracelam@osagegallery.com or (852) 2389 8332.

PLEASE SEE ANNEX I FOR DETAILED SPEAKER ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES.

ABOUT THE ORGANISERS
Osage Art Foundation
The Osage Art Foundation was established in 2004 with three main goals - Creative
Communities, Cultural Cooperation and Creative Capacity and has since played an
active role in developing education and training of young people, broadening culturalawareness and participation in artistic endeavours, nurturing creativity and criticalthinking and fostering international cultural exchange. The Osage Art Foundation is now

widely recognised by the local community and internationally as having initiated many
pioneering projects of international calibre.
The current focus of the Osage Art Foundation is on developing deeper discourse in andaround the arts in the wider community. We believe that research, analysis, examinationand promulgation of issues pertaining to society, contemporary culture and value byartists, writers, critics, curators and commentators will build better understanding ofregional perspectives throughout Asia and beyond.
In order to better contextualize the work of the current generation of Asian
contemporary artists, the Osage Art Foundation has helped to introduce a number ofseminal contemporary Asian masters to the wider international art world. For example,
Roberto Chabet (1937 - 2013) made an unparalleled contribution to Philippine
contemporary art as an educator, mentor, visionary, conceptualist, innovator, alchemist,
poet and tireless promoter of younger talents, but until recently was not as well known
internationally.
In 2013, Osage Art Foundation presented It’s Me, Goodbye: Andy Warhol’s Cinema,
jointly presented by The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums ofPittsburgh. Osage also presented the second in its series of non-profit Market Forces
exhibitions that draw attention to the non-commercial intrinsic values of art: The Frictionof Opposites, which opened in Hong Kong in May 2013, coinciding with the commercial
art fair Art Basel Hong Kong. In May 2013, The Osage Art Foundation was honoured at theHong Kong Arts Development Awards with an Award for Arts Sponsorship. In 2014, The
Osage Art Foundation will be presenting three projects, Market Forces, Sigma Square in
July and South by Southeast from September to November, continuing to present
innovative and critical works.

For more information, please visit the website www.oaf.cc.
School Of Creative Media, City University Of Hong Kong is the region’s first institution
founded to nurture a new generation of interdisciplinary artists and creative media
professionals, as well as dedicated to developing new ideas and technologies for thecreative industries in Hong Kong, mainland China, and worldwide. Website:www.cityu.edu.hk/scm

PLEASE SEE ANNEX II FOR ARTIST BIOGRAPHIESMEDIA ENQUIRIESPLEASE CONTACT CHLOE CHU
chloechu@osagegallery.com| +852 2389 8322 | +852 2172 1693

Please download highres images from the following links:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4fmw1cnpzhwp8a9/AAAqF_zRC82G2fJvOngU7wlTa

Zhao Zhao
Repetition 07
2013
Digital Print
150 x 120 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

Masanori Handa
nakakiyo no entakukei (exhibition view at Ota Fine Arts, Singapore)2013
Mixed media
Dimensions variable
Image courtesy of Ota Fine Arts
photographed by Wong Jing Wei

Nipan Oranniwesna
Untitled (Flood) (one of a triptych)
2011 – 2014
digital print
160 x 120 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

Song Dong
Cream Wall (detailed installation view at the National Museum of Poznan, Poland)
2007
Mixed media
Dimensions variable
Image courtesy of the artist

Ian Woo
While They Slept
2013
acrylic on Linen
230 x 180 cm
Image courtesy of the artist

Ringo Bunoan
Endings (detailed installation view)
2013
books and book pages
dimensions variable
Image courtesy of the artist

Young Rim Lee
Four Gray Boxes
2013
acrylic and wood stain, wall paint on fibreboard
65 x 66 cm
Image courtesy of the artist and Space Cottonseed, Singapore

ANNEX I | ART AND VALUES: SPEAKER ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIESCharles Merewether will be addressing the issue of the art market in Asia, which
in recent years, has come to dominate the arts scene in terms of what is seen
and discussed. At the same time, there is an increasingly pervasive conflation ofaesthetic value with market price – a practice that has been under researchedand been paid little attention to. He will be looking at the historicaldevelopments of the art scenes and markets in Japan from the 1960s to 70s,
China since the mid 80s and Singapore in the last few years, evaluating the rolesof the market in the development of these ecologies.
Charles Merewether was born in Scotland and earned his Ph.D in Art History from the University ofSydney. He is an art historian and writer on modernism and contemporary art who has taught atuniversities in the United States, Mexico and South America, Australia and Singapore. He was
Collections Curator at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles from 1994 to 2004, Artistic Director
and Curator for the 2006 Sydney Biennale, Deputy Director for the Cultural District, Saadiyat
Island, Abu Dhabi from 2007 to 2008, and Director at Institute of Contemporary Arts
Singapore (ICAS), LASALLE College of the Arts from 2010 to 2013. Since 1991 and at the ICAS, he
has curated a number of major exhibitions of major artists from across South America and Asia,
including Central Asia. He has published extensively articles and books including Ai Weiwei: Under
Construction (2008) and Ai Weiwei: Beijing, Venice, London, Herzog & de Meuron (2008) and After
Memory: The Art of Milenko Prvački – 40 Years (2013). He has also co-edited After the Event: New
Perspectives on Art History (2010), Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations in the public sphere inpostwar Japan 1950-1970, (2007). He is currently Visiting Professor of the School of Art, Design andMedia, Nanyang Technological University.

Biljana Ciric will be addressing the structure of the art system in China, wherein
the art market is on top. This changes both the focus and the inner dynamics ofthe field, including the protocols and relationships within the system where
emerging artists’ first solo exhibitions occur in the commercial galleries, and all
networks of the system: writing, museum exhibitions and media, and thestandardization of the value of the works, which is very much in keeping with thedemand of the market. Questions raised include what the artists strategies
working within the system described above are, what role the curator plays in thisand what exhibition making means.
Biljana Ciric is an independent curator based in Shanghai. Her exhibitions in 2013 include Tino
Sehgal solo exhibition at UCCA Beijing, exhibition hosted by Times Museum titled One Step Forward,
Two Steps Back- Us and Institution, Us as Institution and Alternatives to Ritual presented by Goethe
Open Space and OCAT in Shenzhen. In 2013, Ciric initiated From History of Exhibitions towards
Future of Exhibitions Making, an ongoing seminar platform that proposes to revisit the importanceof exhibition making. The seminar platform will be looking specifically at the history of exhibitions in
China, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In 2011, Ciric initiated the project Taking theStage OVER, a year long, ongoing investigation related to performative aspects of art, She was cocurator of Asia Triennale Manchester 2011 and presented the exhibition Institution for the Future.
Upcoming publications include Active Withdrawal - Weak Institutionalism and theInstitutionalization of Art Practice co-edited with Nikita Yingqian Cai and to be published by Times
Museum and Black Dog Publishing, History in Making- Shanghai 1979-2006 . Ciric is a regularcontributor to Broadsheet and Yi Shu Journal. She has been nominated for an ICI Independent
Vision Curatorial Award and was on Jury for the recently established Hugo Boss Asia Art Award.

Enin Supriyanto will be looking into the history of the arts ecology of Indonesia,
tracing the development and relationship between two major “market forces”,
or market forms, namely auction or market driven prices and large art events
such as biennials and triennials and the impact of such forces on art and value.
He argues that these two forces cannot be the sole factors that impact thedevelopment of art, and although they must be taken into account, theycannot be merely polarized as hazards or blessings. In fact, there are many
examples of activities conducted by a “new wave” of artists, artspace/galleries,
collectors, curators and art activists with new ways of collecting, creating andthinking that are creating various opportunities and activities that change such
perceptions of art and value.
Enin Supriyanto is an independent curator and writer, living and working in Jakarta, Indonesia. He
has been curating exhibitions and contributing essays for various publications in Indonesia andabroad. His publications include, among others, Indonesian Contemporary Art Now, edited by
Marc Bollansee and Enin Supriyanto (Singapore: SNP Editions, 2007), Agus Suwage: Still Crazy After
All These Years, edited by Enin Supriyanto, Adeline Ooi, Beverly Yong (Yogyakarta: Studio Biru, 2010)
and Sip! Indonesian Art Today (Berlin, 2013). He has curated many projects and shows involving
Indonesian contemporary artists, including, among others, Agus Suwage: Still Crazy After All These
Years (Jogja National Museum and Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung, 2009), Beyond The Dutch(co-curated with Meta Knol, Utrecht Centraal Museum, The Netherlands, 2009), Handiwirman
Saputra: No Roots, No Shoots (co-curated with Agung Hujatnikajennong, National Gallery, Jakarta,2011) and Sip! Indonesian Art Today (ARNDT, Berlin, Singapore 2013). He is now the Project Officerof the Equator International Symposium, a parallel event of the Jogja Biennale. Enin Supriyanto lives
and works in Jakarta and Jogjakarta, Indonesia.

Kurt Chan argues that the value of art can be defined from multiple perspectives,
between which there maybe discrepancies. Looking at the discrepancies fromthe perspectives of Artists and collectors, in particular, may shed light on thesystem and our understandings of the topic. Of particular interest is also what theart market really means to local art practitioners in Hong Kong and how it
influences art practice; it is also therefore important to identify the strength andidentity of Hong Kong art, paying particular attention to how it defines itself
under the influence of mainland China and East Asia under current
circumstances. The art market is also constantly shifting and evolving; making it
key to identify new supporters from different sectors in Hong Kong that have ahand in further redefining such an art market.
Professor Chan Yuk Keung graduated from the Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University ofHong Kong. He then obtained his M.F.A. from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, USA.
Chan joined The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1989, teaching studio courses on Western
media, and acts as the program director of Master of Arts (Fine Arts). He has participated in over
80 exhibitions, among which are The 51st Venice Biennale and The 2nd Asia Pacific Art Triennial. He
was awarded First Prize in the Public Art Scheme Competition (Taipo Central Town Square) and
Second Prize in theArt for Expo Competition in Hannover, Germany. Chan was the chief editor forHong Kong Visual Art Yearbook for several years, the Art director of City Art Square, and he is atpresent the advisor of the Asian Art Archive and the Yale-China Association. His research interest isin Hong Kong Art, Mixed Media and Public Art.

Leeza Ahmady argues that beyond colonialism, world and regional wars,
multiple political and economic events of the twentieth-century have either
isolated or fractured our knowledge about artistic contributions from a worldlyperspective. Yet, there is an increasing number of transnational art centers thathave brought to the surface art from areas of the world that were once
considered remote. Such unprecedented access to artists, coupled with thesheer diversity of practices worldwide, has prompted art-historical reevaluations
that are examining contemporary art from a much broader perspective, seeing
it as an art that is of and for the world. Such reconsiderations are likely to inspire
fresh methodologies for deciphering art history that would also mark a shift awayfrom the categorical summation of countries, regions, and movements to thestudy of individual artists, active in different parts of the world at various points intime, in the light of their own significance. As such, my presentation willcontextualize a number of individual noteworthy artists from Central Asia, Southand South East Asia, and the Middle East, inquiring also if the art market has
been or should be an influential factor in such art historical reconsiderations.
Does or should the art market influence curatorial and art-historical
works/framings? How do curators and art-historians navigate through theparadoxes of aesthetic value versus market value? Furthermore, how havemigrations of artists alongside their exemplary diasporic successes contribute to
the vibrancy of their local scenes, while fueling the emerging art markets
phenomena?
Leeza Ahmady is an independent curator and educator noted for her foundational work
concerning art practices in Central Asia. She directs the educational platforms AhmadyArts andAsian Contemporary Art Week (ACAW), which partner with multiple institutions in New York andelsewhere to contextualize the works of artists from all regions of Asia, including the Middle
East. Ahmady was member of the Agents/Curatorial Team for dOCUMENTA (13) exhibitions andseminars in Kassel, Germany and Kabul, Afghanistan (2010-2012). She has presented numerous
artists at notable events and venues such as the Venice Biennale, Istanbul Biennial, Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, Independent Curators International, (ICI), Asia Society Museum, Museum ofModern Art, (MoMA), and Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, among others. Other past exhibitions
include The Taste of Others at Apexart (2005); The Paradox of Polarity: Contemporary Art fromCentral Asia at Bose Pacia (2007); Parable of the Garden: New Media Art from Iran and Central
Asia at The College of New Jersey Art Gallery (2008); I Dream of the Stans at Winkleman Gallery
and MARTE Museo de Arte de El Salvador (2008); Tarjama/Translation at the Queens Museum of Art(2009) and Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University (2010); No-Mad-Ness in No Man's
Land, at Eslite Gallery Taipei, Taiwan (2013); and Arahmaiani: Fertility of the Mind at Tyler Rollins
Fine Art, New York (2014).

ABOUT THE MODERATORDavid Elliott is a curator and writer who has directed contemporary art museums andinstitutions in Oxford, Stockholm, Tokyo, Istanbul, Sydney and Kiev. A specialist in Soviet
and Russian avant-garde, as well as in modern and contemporary Asian art, he has
published widely in these fields as well as on many other aspects of contemporary art. He
is currently Artistic Director of A Time for Dreams, the IV International Biennale of Young
Art, to open in Moscow in June 2014, co-curator of PANDAMONIUM: New Media Art from
Shanghai (on show in Berlin at present), and associate curator of the Hors Piste Film
Festival in Tokyo. He was President of CIMAM (the International Committee of ICOM for
museums of modern and contemporary art) from 1998 to 2004, and is currently Presidentof the Board of Triangle Art Network/Gasworks in London, Chairman of MOMENTUM in
Berlin, a member of the Asia Advisory Board of the Guggenheim Museum, New York, andGuest Lecturer in Curatorship at the Chinese University in Hong Kong. In 2008-10 he was
Artistic Director of the 17th Biennale of Sydney and in 2011-12 directed the inaugural
International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Kiev, Ukraine. He has also advised theHong Kong Jockey Club Charitable Trust on the development of the Central Police
Station heritage site into a centre for contemporary art.

ABOUT THE RESPONDENT

Lewis Biggs is a freelance curator, writer and cultural consultant. Previously, he was Chief
Executive and Artistic Director of Liverpool Biennial for a decade, before this, he was the
Director of Tate Liverpool, also for a decade. He was the curator of Folkestone Triennial,
2014 and co-curator of the Aichi Trienniale 2013. He is international advisor to the Schoolof Fine Arts, Shanghai University. He has also been a member of the Art Panel of the Arts
Council of England, and of the Visual Art Advisory Committee of the British Council (19912002). In June 2011 he was awarded an OBE for services to the arts.

ANNEX II | Artist Biographies
Au Hoi Lam graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (MFA 2004 & MPhil in Philosophy2009). She works and lives in Hong Kong. Recent exhibitions include Au Hoi Lam: My Father is Over
the Ocean. Shanghai Postscript. (Osage Shanghai, 2014), Time Traveller, Au Hoi Lam and Sara Tse(Espace Louis Vuitton, Hong Kong, 2014), Painting On and On 5. Taciturn (HKICC Lee Shau Kee
School of Creativity Gallery, Hong Kong, 2013), Au Hoi Lam: My Father is Over the Ocean (Osage
Open, Hong Kong, 2013), Open 15: International Exhibition of Sculptures and Installations (Lido,
Venice 2012), Definitions of Time: Paintings by Au Hoi Lam (Edge Gallery, Hong Kong, 2010), Lui
Chun Kwong. You Are Here, I am Not. (Osage Kwun Tong, Hong Kong, 2010), Reversing Horizons:
Artist Reflections of the Hong Kong Handover 10th Anniversary (MOCA Shanghai, 2007), Artists in
the Neighbourhood Scheme III: When Words are Sweet…Paintings by Au Hoi-lam (Hong Kong
Central Library and Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2006) and the Hong Kong Art Biennial 2003 (Hong Kong
Museum of Art, 2003) etc. Her works are collected by the Hong Kong Museum of Art and private
collectors.
Tang Kwok Hin, mixed media artist, independent curator and writer, was born in 1983 and raised in
Hong Kong. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2008
and Bachelor of Arts (major in Fine Arts) in 2006. His art focuses on occasion, space, time and waysof encountering symbols to explore hidden rules in every day societal contexts and our daily
routines, often depicted through techniques such as collage. He has previously participated in the
15th WRO Media Art Biennale, Hong Kong Contemporary Biennial Award 2009, 1st Hong Kong Art
Basel (Discoveries sector) with a solo presentation. He has also exhibited in the Ice Palace, Miami,
U.S.A.; Esplanade, Singapore; Singapore Art Museum; Venice Arsenale, Italy; Vargas Museum,
Manila, Philippines; Hong Kong Museum of Art; Kuandu Museum, Taipei, etc. He was awarded thefirst prize at Hong Kong Biennale 2009, selected by the Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2010 and 2011,
awarded Special Award Personal Exhibition by the 5th International Arte Laguna Prize, awarded
Young Artist Award 2010 by the Hong Kong Arts Development Awards and is a 2013 Asian Cultural
Council grantee. Collectors of his art include Hong Kong Museum of Art, Deutsche Bank, Amelia
Johnson Contemporary and private collections over the United States, United Kingdom, Australia,
Singapore and Hong Kong.
Song Dong (b. 1966, Beijing, China) graduated from the fine arts department of Capital Normal
University in Beijing in 1989. Song was the focus of many solo and group exhibitions around theworld. He presented his solo shows at MoMA, New York, and was included in various prestigious
international shows, such as The 5th Moscow Biennale in 2013, dOCUMENTA 13 in 2012, The 54th

Venice Biennale in 2011, The 6th Liverpool Biennial in 2010, Gwangju Biennale in 2006 , 2002 and1995, The 26th Sao Paolo Biennale in 2004, The 8th Instanbul Biennale in 2003, The 4th Asia-Pacific
Triennial of Contemporary Art in 2002, the first Guangzhou Triennial in 2002 and the 2002 Taipei
Biennale. His most representative works include Water Diary (1995- ), Breathing (1996), Stamping theWater (1996), Touching My Father (1997), Broken Mirror (1999), Crumpling Shanghai (2000), Eating
the City (2003- ), Waste not (2005) and Intelligence of the Poor (2005-2013 ). He curated various
experimental events such as Wildlife Starting from 1997 Jing Zhe (1997) and Next Wave News (2001).
Song Dong and Yin Xiuzhen together created a new way of collaboration: THE WAY OF
CHOPSTICKS in 2001. He is also the co-founder of an artist collective “Polit-Sheer-Form Office”,
which was initiated by Hong Hao, Xiao Yu, Liu Jianhua, Song Dong, and Leng Lin in 2005.
Song Dong is represented by Pace Beijing. He currently lives and works in Beijing.
Yu Ji was born in Shanghai and graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Fine Arts Collegeof Shanghai University in 2011 with a MFA degree. She now lives and works in Shanghai. Her works
consist mainly of sculptures and installations ,and also include performance and videos. Paying
particular attention to nature and the movement reflection of the human body, her works
endeavor to explore the relationship between time and nature, looking at the vital yet mysterious
connection between body, spirit and the world. To Yu Ji, work and acts of creation are important
everyday life practices. Being an artist is more of a spiritual journey of transforming things into life
experience rather than a mere career title. Apart from her role as an artist, in 2008 Yu Ji cofounded “AM Art Space”, one of the few active non-profit experimental art spaces in Shanghai.
Zhao Zhao (b. 1982, Xinjiang, China) obtained a BFA from the Department of Oil Painting, Xinjiang
Institute of Arts. He works with a number of media, including painting, sculpture, installation andperformance. He has been internationally exhibited in solo exhibitions including How (Platform
China, Hong Kong, 2014), Constellations (Art Basel, Hong Kong, 2013), Constellations (Chambers
Fine Art, New York, 2013), According to Zhao Zhao (Chambers Fine Art, Beijing, 2011), Naked
Walking (Alexander Ochs Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2011) and Da Quan Gou (China Arts Archives
and Warehouse, Beijing, China, 2008). He has also participated in group exhibitions such as The
Armory Show 2014, China: Focus (2014, New York), ON/OFF (UCCA, Beijing, China, 2013), CAFAM –Future Exhibition (CAFA, Beijing, China, 2012), 1+1: A Cross-strait-four regions Artistic Exchange
Project (He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen, China; Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong; Kuandu
Museum of Fine Art, Taipei, 2011) and Interposition 366 (Zendai MOMA, Shanghai, China, 2008).
Zhao Zhao currently lives and works in Beijing.
Ng Joon Kiat graduated from Singapore’s LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Ng Joon Kiat completed
his master degree of Fine Arts at the University of Kent in England. Ng lives and works in Singapore
where he is heavily involved in the art community. In 2012 he was selected as one of twenty-five
Asian artists to exhibit work with Britain’s Royal Academicians at the Institute of Contemporary Art,LASALLE. He currently also serves on a panel at the National Arts Council of Singapore.
The artist exhibits his work on international platforms as well as within Singapore. His work has beenshown abroad in galleries such as Osage Gallery in Hong Kong and the Cultural Centre of thePhilippines. His solo exhibitions include those at the National Museum of Singapore in 2007 and at
the Esplanade in 2010. Collectors of his art include The National Art Gallery of Singapore andprivate collectors from across Europe and Asia. He was awarded the SIA Excellence in the Arts
award, Singapore’s National Arts Council scholarship, Singapore’s Georgette Chen Scholarshipand the Ericsson Scholarship for art.
Milenko Prvacki, born in 1951 in Yugoslavia, acquired a Master of Fine Arts (Painting) from theInstitute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Romania. From 1994 to 2011 he was the Dean of the Faculty ofFine Arts at LASALLE College of Arts Singapore and has since become a Senior Fellow at the Officeof the President at the college.
Some of his solo exhibitions include, Methods & Materials at the Plastique Kinetic Worms Art Space
Singapore (2002), Construction Site at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney (2006) and works
at the Bergamont Station Art Center in Santa Monica California, USA (2014).
Prvacki has also been involved in various group exhibitions such as the Youth Biennale at theModern Gallery in Rijeka, Zagreb Croatia (1983), and ASEAN Art Today at Earl Lu Gallery in
Singapore (2002). Some of his recent group exhibitions include, Loveletter to a Surrogate at theTorrance Art Museum Los Angeles (2010), Decode/Recode at Media City in the University of Salford
Manchester (2012) and We do, we do Art at One Eat Asia Gallery Singapore (2014).
Prvacki has participated in numerous symposiums around the world, the latest being an Art
Residency at the 18th Street Art Center in Santa Monica, California USA, in 2013. He is also arespected curator and has received copious awards throughout his career.
Permanent collections of Prvacki’s art can be found at the National Museum in Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, the Museum of Contemporary Drawing in Nurnberg, Germany and at the Singapore
Art Museum, to name just a few.

Jeremy Sharma (b. 1977, Singapore) obtained his Master of Art (Fine Art) at the LASALLE-SIA
College of the Arts / Open University, United Kingdom in 2006, and his Bachelor of Art (Fine Art) withHigh Distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia in 2003. Over the
past nine years, he has had a number of solo exhibitions in Singapore, that includes Apropos (2012)at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, Variations (2011) at Art Forum Gallery, The
Protection Paintings – Of Sensations and Superscriptions (2008) at Jendela, Esplanade and End of A
Decade (2007) at The Substation Gallery. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions in
Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Italy, England and the United States.
Sharma has had overseas residency programmes, and received several awards, including Royal
Overseas Travel Scholarship Award (2007) JCCI Arts award with art collective KYTV (2005), Studio
106 residency award (2004 Singapore), Finalist in the Philip Morris Singapore Arts Awards (2003), The
Lee Foundation Study Grant (2002) and the Della Butcher Award (1999). His work has been thesubject of critical discussion in catalogues of exhibitions in which he has participated and has been
widely reviewed by the local press. His work is part of a number of public and private collections,notably the Singapore Art Museum, National Library Board Singapore, Ngee Ann Kongsi Singapore
and Societe Generale. His work has been collected by the Singapore Art Museum, the National
Library Board Singapore, Ngee Ann Kongsi Singapore, Societe Generale, and The Westin Singapore.
He currently teaches in the Faculty of Fine Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts.
Grace Tan is formally trained in fashion design and began her practice in 2003 under the kwodrent
series to explore the design and production of clothing based on the study of rectangle, material,and construction method. The progressive series is defined and shaped by an intuitive andmethodological working process where each individually handcrafted piece is numbered anddated to form a chronological record of the series' development. Tan’s wearable works eventually
evolved organically into sculptural objects, digital compositions and more recently, large-scalespatial installations. Despite the array of media, the works are intrinsically connected and resonate
with Tan’s fundamental methodology and approach.
Tan has exhibited at the Singapore Biennale 2013, Fukutake House / Setouchi Triennale 2013 [incollaboration with The Substation], Aichi World Expo 2005, Venice Architecture Biennale 2008,
London Design Week 2006 and State of Design Melbourne from 2008 to 2010. Her works have beencollected and commissioned by art institutions, corporate organisations and private collectors. Tan
was awarded the distinguished President's Design Award for Building as a Body in 2012 and theYoung Artist Award in 2013.

Ian Woo was born in Singapore in 1967, and began his studies at the Nanyang Academy of Fine
Arts (Singapore) in 1991. Between 1995 and 2006, he received a Masters in European Fine Art at theWinchester School of Art (UK) and a research practice DFA with RMIT University (Australia).
Woo’s works are characterised by an interest in painting’s inherent ability to suggest modes ofrepresentation. Painting and drawing as a reflexive language, ideas pertaining to the incidental
and that of spatial change are pivotal influences to his practice.
Recent solo exhibitions include How I Forgot to be Happy at Tomio Koyama Gallery Singapore(2013) and Ian Woo: A Review 1995 – 2011 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2011).
Recent group shows include Panorama: Recent Art From Contemporary Asia at the Singapore Art
Museum (2012), Encounter: The Royal Academy in Asia at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
Singapore (2012), and Sovereign Asian Art Prize Exhibition at The Rotunda, Exchange Square, Hong
Kong (2010).
His works are in the collection of major institutions such as ABN AMRO, Singapore Art Museum, The
Istana Singapore, The National Art Gallery Singapore, UBS, and the Mint Museum of Craft & Design,
USA.
Woo’s paintings were recently featured in the publication Art of the New Cities: 21st Century AvantGardes, a publication by Phaidon 2013.
Nilo Ilarde (b. 1960, Philippines) has held over numerous one-man exhibitions since 1987. He started
out as an artist-curator in the early 1980s, after being commended in the 1980 Young Arts in Asia
Now exhibition at the Hong Kong Art Center and winning the Art Association of the Philippinescompetition (Painting category) a year later. His work is strongly influenced by both Conceptualand Minimalist art practice. Ilarde also served as the Exhibition Director of Pinaglabanan Galleries
from 1984-1985 and has curated numerous shows of Philippine art. He currently lives and works in
Makati City, Manila.
Ringo Bunoan is an artist, curator and researcher based in Manila, Philippines.
She received her BFA in Art History from the University of the Philippines in 1997.
Her work explores readymades, histories and given situations. Emphasizing the physical andmetaphorical dimensions of the material, she responds to personal and collective everyday
experiences in the context of larger social, cultural and historical issues.
She taught at the UP College of Fine Arts from 1997 – 1998. From 1999 – 2004, she led an
independent artist-run space, Big Sky Mind. From 2007 to 2013, she worked as the researcher for thePhilippines for Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong and initiated special research projects on artist-run
spaces and Filipino artist Roberto Chabet. In 2010, she co-founded King Kong Art Projects Unlimited
in Manila, and was of the lead curator of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in Singapore,
Hong Kong and Manila from 2011 – 2012.
In 2003, she received the Thirteen Artist Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines and in2007 the Silverlens Foundation Completion Grant.
Maria Taniguchi (b. 1981, the Philippines) was born and raised in Dumaguete City. After a BFA in
Sculpture at the University of the Philippines, she completed an MFA in Art Practice at Goldsmiths in
London in 2009. In the same year she joined the LUX Associates Artists Program, a post-academic
program based in London for artists working with the moving image.
She currently lives and works in Manila, where she received the Ateneo Art Award for her solo
exhibition Echo Studies (2011) at the Jorge Vargas Museum, where she showed the first of several

large-scale ‘brick’ paintings, a video installation, drawings, and photographic work. The following
year, she again received the Ateneo Art Award for the video Untitled (Celestial Motors) (2012)
shown at Silverlens Manila.
Taniguchi was recently selected for Art Statements (2013), a section of solo presentations by
emerging artists at Art Basel 44. Selected recent projects include HIWAR: Conversations in Amman(2013), a residency and exhibition program curated by Adriano Pedrosa at the Khalid Shoman
Foundation in Amman; and Without a Murmur (2012), a group exhibition curated by Joselina Cruzat the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) in Manila; and The Philippine
Contemporary: To Scale the Past and the Possible, an exhibition curated by Patrick D. Flores at theMetropolitan Museum of Manila.
Forthcoming group exhibitions include Material Memory, Fluxia Gallery Milan, and Don’t You Know
Who I Am? Art After Identity Politics, Museum of Contemporary Art (MHKA), Antwerp. She will also
be in residency at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute in 2015.
Kishio Suga (b. 1944, Morioka, Japan) graduated in painting from Tama Art University in 1968. In acareer spanning more than 40 years, he has participated in many historical and international
exhibitions, including Kishio Suga – Stance (1999, Yokohama Museum of Art), Kishio Suga (1997,
Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and other venues) the 38th Venice Biennale(Japanese commissioner, Yusuke Nakahara); Japon des avant-gardes – 1910-1970s (1986, Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris) and Scream Against the Sky: Postwar Japanese Art (1994, YokohamaMuseum of Art and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York). Suga’s work is included in
major public collections including the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and the Tate Modern.
Masanori Handa (b. 1979 in Kanagawa, Japan) holds a BA in Fine Arts from the Tokyo University of
the Arts where he continues to work today. His works have been previously shown at the EchigoTsumari Art Triennale (2006) and the Art Tower Mito (2007). In 2009, Handa was selected to be apart of the prestigious Rolex Art Initiative Mentor and Protégé program where he was mentored by
Rebecca Horn, an accomplished German installation artist and film director. Subsequently, heparticipated in notable group exhibition, workshops and site-specific projects at the National
Museum of Art, Osaka (2011), the Hara Museum, Tokyo (2009) the Edoardo Chiossone Museum,
Genoa (2009) and the TATE Modern, London, (2009). His works are in public collections such as at
the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, the Edoardo Chiossone Museum, Genoa, theDaiwa Radiator Factory, Hiroshima and the Japan Foundation.
Shin il Kim is a Korean artist, born in 1971, graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in
Sculpture from the Seoul National University in 1999 and acquired his Masters in Fine Arts at the
School of Visual Arts in New York, USA in 2001. A few of his solo exhibitions include Invisible
Masterpiece at the Pei Ling Chan Gallery in SCAD Georgia USA (2007), Into at the Riccardo Crespi
Gallery in Milan Italy (2010) and Object, Seeing at Gallery Simon in Seoul Korea (2012). His
involvement in group exhibitions has been extensive and includes works at the Singapore Biennale
in 2006, the fifth Seoul International Media Art Biennale in 2008, the fordProject at Summer Affair in
New York (2011) and in the Korean Art from the Museum Collection: Grand Narrative Part II at the
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Korea (2013). Shin il Kim has received
numerous awards and grants throughout his career, the Kim Se Joong Young Sculptor Award in2012 being the latest. His works are housed in several collections, some of which include theGyeonggi Museum of Modern Art in Korea, the Queens Museum of Art New York, the National
Museum of Contemporary Art and the Kim Chong Yung Museum in Korea.
Young Rim Lee is a mixed media artist born in Seoul, Korea. Lee completed the coursework of her
Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology at Ewha Women’s University in 2004 and went on to study Furniture
Design at Raffles Design Institutes in Singapore, obtaining her BFA from LASALLE College of the Arts
in 2012. She has participated in group exhibitions in Singapore since 2009 and has exhibited inPoetics of Materiality (Osage Hong Kong, 2014) Painting in Singapore & A Star In The Overcast(Equator Art Projects, 2013), Icream Project (Merely Ice Cream Shop, 2012), LASALLE Show (Lasalle
College of the Arts, 2012) and Raw Art Competition Finalist Show (The Gallery, 2011).
Mee Ai Om was born in Korea and now lives and works between Hong Kong and Singapore.
Om obtained a Master of Fine Art from The Open University in UK after graduating with a Bachelorof Fine Art from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University and a Diploma in Fine Art
from LASALLE College of the Arts.
Since then she has participated in several group and solo exhibitions and been awarded several
recognitions. Om has won the prestigious UOB Painting of the Year Competition three times in the
Abstract category and received Platinum Award in 2009. Om was one of the 30 finalists of theSovereign Asian Art Prize in 2007 and 2008.
Her artworks are held in important collections such as the Singapore Art Museum, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs Singapore, Ministry of Manpower Singapore, United Overseas Bank, Philip Morris Singapore,
European Financial Group, INSEAD Business School and Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Singapore andJakarta, Indonesia.
Tintin Wulia was born in 1972, and is an Indonesian artist, initially trained in Film Scoring with a
Bachelor of Music from the Berklee College of Music USA (1995-97), she then obtained a Bachelor
of Engineering in Architecture degree from the Universitas Katolik Parahyangan Indonesia (1991-98).
She also holds a PhD in Fine Art from the RMIT University, Australia (2007-2012). She now lives andworks in Melbourne, Australia.
A selection of Wulia’s solo exhibitions are Invasion at the Motive Gallery in the Netherlands (2008),
Deconstruction of a Wall at the Ark Galerie Indonesia (2010) and Subjektive Projektionen: Tintin
Wulia at the Bielefelder Kunstverein in Germany (2011). Her work has been exhibited internationallyin events such as the 9th International Film Festival in South Korea (2004), the Istabul Biennale (2005),
the Jakarta Biennial XIII: Arena (2008), the 4th Moscow Biennale: Rewriting Worlds in Russia (2011),
the Gwangju Biennale (2012), the Sharjah Biennale Re:emerge (2013) and the Jogja Biennale(2013).
Wulia’s work is a part of private and public collections including the Van Abbemuseum, Singapore
Art Museum, Gallery of Modern Art Queensland and Hexiangning Art Museum. In the past 8 years,
she has also received various residencies and commissions internationally.
FX Harsono was born in 1949, and is a Jakarta-based artist and teacher who studied painting from1969-1991 at STSRI ‘ASRI’, Jogyakarta (Indonesia) and the IKJ (Jakarta Art Institute). Since 2005, hehas been a lecturer at the Faculty of Art and Design in Pelita Harapan University, Tangerang (WestJava).
Harsono’s solo exhibition career started in 1994 with Suara (Voice) in the National Gallery ofIndonesia in Jakarta. Some of his recent solo exhibitions include Surviving Memories at the Vanessa
Art Link Beijing (2009), Writing In The Rain at Tyler Rollins Fine Art New York (2010) and “what wehave perceived as truth/ we shall someday encounter as beauty” at Jogja National Museum in
Jogyakarta (2013).
Harsono has been involved in group exhibitions since 1973, at first nationally in events such as
establishing the Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement) with 10 young artists in Jakarta(1975) and the Jakarta Biennial Contemporary Art at the Taman Ismail Marzuki (1994). His art
reaches across Asia and the Pacific early on in his career, quickly extending to Europe and the US,
to include a variety of group exhibitions such as, Allegorical Bodies at A-Art Contemporary Space
Taipei (2008), Pleasures of Chaos, Inside New Indonesian Art at the Primo Marella Gallery in Milan

(2010) and Concept Context Contestation, Art and the Collective in Southeast Asia at the Bangkok
Art and Cultural Center (2013).
Harsono’s work in is various collections around Asia and the Pacific region, these include the
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), National Gallery of Singapore, the Gallery of Modern Art inQueensland (Australia) and The National Gallery of Indonesia.

Nipan Oranniwesna (b. 1962, Bangkok, Thailand) has been widely exhibited around the world inexhibitions such as Paper Matter (2010, BACC, Bangkok), NIPAN ORANNIWESNA (2009, Osage
Singapore, Singapore), Reminiscence of Earth (1996, Yokohama Museum of Art, Art Gallery,
Yokohama, Japan), the 52nd Venice Biennale, Thai Pavilion (2007, Venice, Italy), Show me Thai
(2007, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan), 35 x 30 cm, (1995, Gallery Kinter, Germany),
and The 11th Norweigian International Print Triennale (1995, Fredrikstad, Norway). The artist currently
lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand.