Her 2019 edition ‘Still We Rise’ gathers ambitious works addressing the now

‘Vulnerability is a political act’: curator Alexie Glass-Kantor on Art Basel Hong Kong’s Encounters sector

‘Vulnerability is a political act in the 21st century,’ says Alexie Glass-Kantor. The executive director of Sydney’s Artspace and curator of Art Basel Hong Kong’s ever-popular&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/hong-kong/exhibitors#25473" target="_blank">Encounters</a> sector, which is dedicated to large-scale artworks, has chosen to title this year’s edition ‘Still We Rise’. ‘We live in a Trumpian era, a Brexit era, a time of social, cultural, and political change across Asia,’ she says. ‘How do artists think about the ways in which artworks or ideas can be constructed to create a space of renewal, or alteration, or transformation?’

Some answers can be found in the 12 works she selected for Encounters, eight of which are premiering at Art Basel Hong Kong. Installed along the show floor’s four meridians (walkways), this year’s edition gathers artists hailing from Madagascar to Thailand, and from different generations: the youngest was born in 1986, the oldest in 1960. The selection of works includes a fleet of thread boats by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9824/Chiharu-Shiota" target="_blank"> Chiharu Shiota</a>, a paper labyrinth by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9902/Pinaree-Sanpitak" target="_blank">Pinaree Sanpitak</a>, and a floating garden courtesy of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/6977/Simon-Starling" target="_blank">Simon Starling</a>.


	‘There is a strong sense of collapse, but there’s also a beautiful sense of the capacity to use the things around us to create something extraordinary,’ says Glass-Kantor.’ ‘“Still We Rise” is about thinking through futures and the kind of world in which we want to live.’

In the first meridian, a giant silver zeppelin looms overhead, at once quiet and vaguely threatening. The hovering juggernaut, Seoul-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7419/Lee-Bul" target="_blank"> Lee Bul</a>’s Willing To Be Vulnerable II (2019), is a new edition of her work Willing To Be Vulnerable – Metalized Balloon (2015-16), which featured in her acclaimed solo show at Gropius Bau in Berlin and the Hayward Gallery in London.&nbsp;City in the Sky&nbsp;(2019), by London- and Berlin-based Nordic duo&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/11710/Elmgreen-Dragset" target="_blank">Elmgreen &amp; Dragset</a>, is an inverted cityscape hanging from the ceiling. Visitors are invited to walk under this architectural canopy, gaze up, and get a bird’s-eye view of their fictional metropolis in an uncanny game of mirrors with Hong Kong’s soaring buildings just outside.The city has also inspired&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9591/Zhao-Zhao" target="_blank">Zhao Zhao</a>’s In Extremis (2018), found on the fourth meridian, although in his case the inspiration came not from the buildings but the creatures that haunt them. The Beijing-based artist has turned chalk outlines of dead cats he found in the streets into precious floor mosaics. No life is too insignificant to be memorialized, he seems to suggest.&nbsp;

Non-conventional approaches to painting are the focus on the second meridian.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/7779/Latifa-Echakhch" target="_blank">Latifa Echakhch</a>’s La dépossession (2014) is a large canvas depicting a light blue sky with white clouds, hung at a haphazard angle and spilling onto the floor, as if the heavens have come crashing down. Her oversized, free-flowing composition is echoed by The cartographies of Desire, the space between us (2019), a monumental tapestry of black silk paper by Paris- and Madagascar-based Joël Andrianomearisoa. In the work of Thai artist Mit Jai Inn – presented on the fourth meridian – paintings become&nbsp;sculptures, found in free-standing rolls, hanging from the ceiling, and covering the floor in a mesmerizing abstract rug that the audience is invited to pace over.&nbsp;

The third meridian opens with Shiota’s hypnotic flotilla of floating canoes that appear to sail through the space. The Japanese artist has gained critical acclaim in recent years for her immersive installations made with colored threads, and in this work, Where Are We Going? (2017), the thousands of delicate strands that make up the vessels stand in stark contrast to their overwhelming physical presence.Native Home (2019) by Sydney-based&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/15476/Tony-Albert" target="_blank">Tony Albert</a>, who is of Girramay, Yidinji, and Kuku Yalanji descent, features the frame of a house bearing the words ‘exotic other’ made from a collection of mass-produced kitsch souvenir objects misrepresenting Indigenous cultures. Clichés, preconceptions – and the outright racism that often comes with it – are at the core of Albert’s work, subtending it like the beams of his makeshift house, located on the fourth meridian.

Discover more artists featured in Art Basel Hong Kong’s Encounters sector&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/hong-kong/exhibitors#25473" target="_blank">here</a>.Top image:&nbsp;Chiharu Shiota, Where Are We Going? (detail), 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Templon, Paris.