ArtAsiaPacific - May - June 2020

In this issue

Issue 118 takes stock of what we may have neglected in the past, just as Covid-19 has forced us to acknowledge overlooked aspects of the world’s social, economic, scientific, and cultural systems. Our cover Feature explores how Sawangwongse Yawnghwe’s paintings and installations preserve the cultural memories of the persecuted Shan people in Myanmar. Carlos Villa (1936–2013), the subject of our second Feature, also understood marginality, advocating for diversity in the United States as an artist, curator, and educator. Up Close includes Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office’s architectural installation In Absence (2019); Wang Tuo’s film Symptomatic Silence of Complicit Forgetting (2019); and Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s installation Free Biographies (2018–19). Inside Burger Collection brings together three takes on artist Brie Ruais’s process-driven ceramic sculptures, written by curators Frauke V. Josenhans and Jodi Throckmorton, and artist Martha Tuttle. For Profiles, Tim Walsh spoke with artist Ruth Buchanan, who investigates representation in cultural institutions, while David Willis visited MAIIAM Museum in Chiang Mai to find out about founder Eric Booth’s aims to “redistribute cultural capital away from the center of power.” Elsewhere, Maria Taniguchi reflects on the influence that both Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Judy Freya Sibayan had on her works. Kadist curator Shona Mei Findlay files a Dispatch from San Francisco, where the vibrant and diverse history of the city is under threat due to gentrification. For Where I Work, Michael Young visited the Shanghai studio of new-media artist Lu Yang, whose video games and animations revolve around the nature of consciousness and the limits of the human body. Finally, for The Point, Beirut desk editor Nadia Christidi looks at how the climate crisis will shift our collective understanding of knowledge production.

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.