Chitralekha Basu
ItWasaCinema. as well as the experienced connoisseurs, can gather.”
The idea of incorporating curated shows within a fair where people primarily come to shop and have a good time rather than delve into the nitty-gritty of an artist’s journey might sound slightly unusual. ABHK director Adeline Ooi, however, insists “there is far more” to the fair she manages than “sales and deals”. “We are always looking for ways to give the Hong Kong show greater historical depth, and provide an even stronger education layer, allowing our audiences to see, discover and learn about the artists, time periods, and movements. Kabinett provides the platform for galleries to create a more focused presentation and showcase particular aspects of their program that audiences may not be familiar with.”
Indeed, ABHK’s Kabinett debut features relatively unknown facets of widely familiar names. Take the cluster of black-andwhite photographs of derelict snow-covered landscapes shot by the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami on show at Rossi & Rossi, for instance. Gallery owner Fabio Rossi, who brought these images to ABHK, says “Kiarostami was a photographer even before he started making films. He used these images to express what he thought he was unable to do through his films.”
On the slightly quirkier side, there is Keiichi Tanaami’s 1975 short film, Crayon Angel, playing on a loop. The mod-psychedelic images in the film resonate with the commercial illustration and animation video created by the artist, which are very generic to the post-war art from Japan.
Kabinett also features Kwon Young-woo, a pioneer of South Korea’s Dansaekhwa art movement of the 1970s, which was about artists manipulating the tools they used in a big way. Ripped canvas and paint seeping and spilling beyond the frame are among some of the generic features of this school of art.
“Kwon passed away in 2013 and was not able to see Dansaekhwa acknowledged internationally the way his colleagues, like Park Seo-Bo and Ha ChongHyun, have,” says Lee Hyunsook, chairwoman, Kukje Gallery, who is representing the artist. “Through Kwon’s archive of catalogues, leaflets, and articles, as well as handwritten letters and photographs, audiences will have the chance to better understand the artist’s background. These materials give insight into Kwon’s values, thoughts, and reasoning that led him to make his innovative artistic decisions.”
Qiu Xiaofei combines painted canvas with recycled paper, fabric, knitted material and designed lighting to brilliant effect, presenting the trashy and the covetable in a single frame. “The works are meant to blur the boundaries of material, painting and space,” he says.
His three artworks, put up by Hong Kong’s Pace Gallery, are not exactly from antiquity though. Qiu created them only last year. Then his career graph has been spiral rather than linear, says the artist. Like the recycled raw material he uses to paint, Qiu keeps re-visiting his earlier creations and “the already used elements in them will possibly be used again in new work”.
In other words, each of Qiu’s installation-paintings contains the history of the artist’s evolution. Each is a Kabinett unto itself.