ArtAsiaPacific Magazine - July - August 2021

In this issue

Whether adopting pseudonyms, exaggerating personas, or inventing alter-egos, artists have been leading imagined existences throughout time in order to examine the fine lines that divide fiction and reality. Beginning in 1967, the Los Angeles-based artist Carl Cheng began branding his creations under the name John Doe Co., a wryly generic corporate moniker for his “Nature Machines,” which deputy editor HG Masters explores in this issue’s cover Feature. Hendrik Folkerts considers Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s allusions to a host of artistic and literary figures in her paintings and videos in our second Feature. Up Close highlights new works by Jes Fan; Deniz Gül, and Zhao Zhao. For Inside Burger Collection, Kimberly Bradley traces the arc of artist Bianca Kennedy’s practice, from her films on bathing to her speculative animations.

Profiled in this issue are multimedia artist Aki Inomata and photographers Pao Houa Her Miti Ruangkritya. This issue’s Essay, by Berlin desk editor Clara Tang, is focused on the project “Owned by Others,” which sought to create conversations around the colonial histories behind the artifacts held on Berlin’s Museum Island.

In Dispatch, curator Raphael Fonseca describes the recent shifts in the arts landscape of São Paulo. For the Point, artist, curator, and incoming Asia Art Archive director Christopher K. Ho probes how transnational communities of the many Asian diasporas might find new forms of solidarity. Artist Trevor Shimizu pens the latest One on One column, paying tribute to Dan Graham.

Lastly, for Where I Work, contributor Frances Arnold visited aaajiao’s Berlin studio, where the new-media artist creates large-scale installations, websites, and interactive games reflecting on humanity’s relationship with virtual environments.

ArtAsiaPacific Magazine Description:

For 20 years, ArtAsiaPacific Magazine has been at the forefront of the powerful creative forces that shape contemporary art from Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East. Covering the latest in contemporary visual culture, ArtAsiaPacific is published 6 times a year in Hong Kong, with editorial desks in 25 countries around the world. Our special annual issue, the ArtAsiaPacific Almanac, published in January, covers the major art events of the past year and forecasts the key trends of the year to come.
The dominant artistic influence in the world today - and for many years to come emanates from the vast territory that lies between Turkey and the Pacific island of Tonga that we call the Asia-Pacific. This territory includes India, China, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Pakistan, New Zealand, Korea and Indonesia, whose combined populations make up an amazing half of the world's total population. Also included are Burma, Cambodia, Kiribati and Uzbekistan - places hitherto overlooked, but which like their gigantic neighbors, are producing cutting-edge art of stunning and unexpected quality.
ArtAsiaPacific is authoritative, accurate, even-handed, exact and essential. Included in each issue is an up-to-date directory of the major galleries, not-for-profit organizations and museums with a focus on contemporary art from our geographical footprint. ArtAsiaPacific offers thoughtful reportage, analysis, comment and criticism to its readers made up of collectors, gallerists, curators, artists and those who want and who need to know the latest developments in the fastest-growing and most astonishing region of the contemporary art world.