Blue-chip Gallery Shows
March is the time for Hong Kong’s international blue-chip galleries to shine. Don’t miss these top gallery shows
The city’s top galleries are opening ambitious, boundary-breaking shows
LEHMANN MAUPIN Erwin Wurm
Austrian artist Erwin Wurm is the contemporary art world’s court jester. Whether he’s making sculptures, taking photographs, directing videos or devising performances, Wurm approaches everything with the same cheeky sense of humour and, where possible, encourages viewers to take part in artmaking. Wurm may be best known for his one-minute sculptures, where he leaves a pile of props in a public space and encourages passers-by to choose an object, strike a pose and hold it for a full minute.
March 25 to May 11. 4/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, 2530 0025. lehmannmaupin.com
PACE GALLERY Mary Corse
One of the few women associated with the West Coast light and space movement that emerged in California in the 1960s, Mary Corse is most famous for her geometic paintings and abstract light boxes. This exhibition at Pace’s gallery in H Queen’s—corse’s first show in Hong Kong— follows a hugely successful retrospective of her work hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York last year.
March 25 to May 11. 12/F H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central, 2608 5065. pacegallery.com
PERROTIN Xu Zhen and Julio Le Parc
Two solo exhibitions are taking place concurrently at Perrotin: one showcases the work of provocative Chinese artist Xu Zhen, while the other features the bold work of Argentinian op art pioneer Julio Le Parc.
March 25 to May 11. 17/F 50 Connaught Road, Central, 3758 2183. perrotin.com
WHITESTONE GALLERY Miwa Komatsu
Japanese artist Miwa Komatsu has dedicated her career to drawing, painting, engraving and sculpting the many mythical creatures that can often be seen in the art adorning Shinto shrines. Komatsu’s interest in these animals stems from her childhood, when she remembers a wolf materialising out of thin air to lead her home after she lost her way during a walk in a forest.
March 25 to April 28. 7-8/F H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central, 2523 8001. whitestone-gallery.com
HAUSER & WIRTH Louise Bourgeois
A titan of 20th-century art, Louise Bourgeois explored themes of birth, death and sexuality in her poetic and provocative art, which straddles the movements of surrealism, abstract expressionism and feminism. Since Bourgeois died at the age of 98 in 2010, her work has been exhibited in cities from London to Shanghai, though this show will be her first in Hong Kong.
March 26 to May 11. 15-16/F H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central, 3958 7188. hauserwirth.com
SIMON LEE GALLERY Heimo Zobernig
In his genre-defining work—which spans everything from paintings to room-sized installations—austrian artist Heimo Zobernig reflects on multiple artistic movements and academic theories, including minimalism, constructivism and colour theory. This is his first exhibition in Hong Kong.
March 26 to May 10. 3/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, 2801 6252. simonleegallery.com
DAVID ZWIRNER Neo Rauch
The story of German painter Neo Rauch’s life reads like a dark fairy tale. His parents, two young art students, were killed in a train crash a month after his birth, leaving him to be raised by his grandparents in a mountain village in East Germany far behind the Iron Curtain. Rauch turned to art as an escape and, when the Berlin Wall fell, shot to global fame as the most promising of the New Leipzig School of painters. With this backstory, it’s perhaps no surprise that Rauch’s large paintings have a quasimythic feel to them.
March 26 to May 4. 5-6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central, 2119 5900. davidzwirner.com
GAGOSIAN Cézanne, Morandi, and Sanyu
Leading Mainland Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi has curated this show at Gagosian, which brings together the works of three leading figures of the modernist movement for the first time ever.
March 25 to May. 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, 2151 0555. gagosian.com
ROSSI & ROSSI Oltre alla Pittura
Gallerist Fabio Rossi has partnered with dealer Giovanni Martino to present this show, which features the works of five Italian artists who shook up the art world in the 1950s and ’60s: Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Carol Rama.
March 23 to May 11. 3/F Yally Industrial Building, 6 Yip Fat Street, Wong Chuk Hang, 3575 9417. rossirossi.com
MASSIMO DE CARLO Elmgreen & Dragset
For 20-plus years, Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset have been making gallerygoers squirm with their clever, thought-provoking sculptures and installations that ask uncomfortable questions about everything from capitalism and the Aids crisis to architecture and public space. Their work is on show at the Massimo de Carlo gallery in the Pedder Building and, at Art Basel, one of their installations is featured in the Encounters sector. March 26 to April 28. 3/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, 2613 8062. massimodecarlo.com
SPRÜTH MAGERS Eau de Cologne
Gallery Sprüth Magers, which has spaces in Berlin and Los Angeles, is temporarily taking over the ground floor of the H Queen’s building this month to host the latest installment of its series of Eau de Cologne exhibitions, which were devised to showcase the works of pioneering female artists. At this show, works by Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and more will be on display. To read our interview with Kruger, turn to page 58.
March 27 to April 12. G/F H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central. spruethmagers.com
WHITE CUBE David Altmejd
Decay is the theme that runs through all of Canadian sculptor David Altmejd’s art, much of which explores the human body in grotesque and gruesome detail. But, as Altmejd is keen to show, sometimes there’s beauty to be found in subjects we normally shy away from. In one of his sculptures, viewers peer inside a caved-in skull to glimpse hundreds of glistening, jewel-coloured crystals. March 26 to May 18. 50 Connaught Road, Central, 2592 2000. whitecube.com