ArtAsiaPacific - May - June 2021

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Photography is often described as a passive media—a recording of things that happen before the lens. But for many contemporary artists and photojournalists, it is a field of active investigation. In the cover Feature of AAP’s May/June issue, Cleo Roberts-Komireddi examines how a surge in majoritarian politics in South and Southeast Asia is driving photo-activism, archiving initiatives, and collaboration between collectives across the region.

Our second Feature spotlights Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Candice Lin, whose touring solo exhibition “Pigs and Poison” historicizes the Covid-19-heightened scapegoating of Asians during pandemics. Lin has long focused on “non-humans and the dehumanized, creating projects that cross past with present and future, self with other,” writes managing editor Chloe Chu.

In Up Close, the editors examine projects by Sarah Choo Jing, Mika Tajima, and Minouk Lim. For Inside Burger Collection, curator Marie Muracciole interviews Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal. Abdullah M. I. Syed, Agung Kurniawan, and Ayoung Kim appear in Profiles.

Elsewhere, deputy editor HG Masters surveys the nearly 12-year-long run of Beijing’s alternative space Arrow Factory; Chicago artist Aram Han Sifuentes discusses US voter suppression; and Haig Aivazian pens a One on One about 19th-century French painter Eugène Delacroix. In Dispatch, we hear about the intergenerational support between citizens and artists fighting for democracy in Myanmar. For Fine Print, lawyers Juyoun Han and Patrick K. Lin dissect how Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act allows social media platforms the freedom to decide how and what content to ban, and how it impacts artists online.

Lastly, for Where I Work, contributor Daphne Chu visited the Taipei studio of animator Zhang Xu Zhan, who utilizes folded joss paper, customarily burned as offerings to one’s ancestors, in his stop-motion videos.

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.