Adeela Suleman, Marion Baruch, and Gimhongsok are among the picks

Art Basel Online Viewing Rooms: Alexie Glass-Kantor shares her favorites

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Art Basel is debuting its digital platform, the <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/viewing-rooms">Online Viewing Rooms</a>, with 235 galleries showing over 2,000 pieces. To help our readers navigate these first virtual aisles, curators have been invited to preview the offering and share what caught their eye. Here,&nbsp;Alexie Glass-Kantor,&nbsp;the curator for the Encounters sector at Art Basel Hong Kong, and executive director, Artspace, Sydney, highlights some of the artists she had selected for Encounters 2020.‘The theme for the 2020 Encounters sector at Art Basel Hong Kong was "While We Are Here", a prompt that sought to present works by artists who use their practice to consider individual and shared social responsibility – artists who work in the contemporary moment to create new forms of understanding and knowledge exchange. In a constantly changing environment, it’s important to be responsive and adaptive to those shifts, and also to have artists and cultural producers who can create space for more expansive ways of thinking about how we live, work, and collaborate in the world. ‘While We Are Here’ was to offer a framework for ideas that can open a vocabulary for who it is we want to be and how we can ensure that empathy, vulnerability, and mutual support persist. Launching this digital platform and online viewing space has been vital, creating an opportunity for the galleries participating in Art Basel Hong Kong to meet the collectors, be present in the networks, and connect with everyone who was planning to be in Hong Kong this week. This is a space where we can come together to consider the output of artists working in these complex times and imagine ways how we might build alternative futures.The sector was to include the works of 12 artists from 12 countries, with nine new commissions. For my selection, I’ve decided to focus on three galleries presenting pieces by women artists who had created new work for Encounters 2020, and an existing work by Korean artist Gimhongsok.’

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Marion Baruch, born in 1929, is a truly remarkable artist who has positioned her extraordinary and long-standing practice at the interface between conceptual and sociopolitical work. Through her work, Baruch often critiques the conflicts of the 20th century and comments on as much about the absence of things as their presence.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/95940/Marion-Baruch-Al-di-l%C3%A0-del-tempo-Il-rosso-e-il-nero" target="_blank">A di là del tempo. Il rosso e il nero</a>, 2017,&nbsp;reuses fabric offcuts from the Italian designer-clothing industry to create sculptural interventions that consider the&nbsp;human labor and waste behind production processes. (<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/10963/Recurrence" target="_blank">Galerie Urs Meile</a>, Lucerne and Beijing)

Adeela Suleman is a powerful advocate for social justice and human rights, particularly in her home country of Pakistan. In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/97020/Adeela-Suleman-After-All-It-s-Always-Somebody-Else-Who-Dies" target="_blank">After all it’s&nbsp;Always Somebody Else Who Dies</a>,&nbsp;2018, she creates a symbolic memorial for victims of violence in Karachi. The installation consists of a stainless-steel screen that initially appears to be chain mail, but when seen up-close, it reveals itself to be a tessellated pattern of birds hanging in lines, juxtaposing the natural with the man-made, beauty with violence (<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/10906/Material-Reality" target="_blank">Sullivan + Strumpf</a>, Sydney/Singapore).

Patricia Perez Eustaquio has a very empathetic, sensitive, and critically expansive way of thinking about how we connect the traumas of history, and resituates them in dialogue with our contemporaneous moment. In her work, she thinks about how the meaning of colonial objects can be altered through time and trans-historical turns.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/98851/Patricia-Perez-Eustaquio-An-Unraveling-Conversation-Among-Ruins-After-Amorsolo" target="_blank">An Unraveling (Conversation Among Ruins, After Amorsolo)</a>, 2019, consists of a digitally woven tapestry, continuing the artist’s investigations into the migration of images as a result of such history, focusing on the Age of Exploration and its repercussions on modern consumerism (<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/11079/Future-Perfect" target="_blank">Silverlens Galleries</a>, Manila).

I would also like to draw attention to the South Korean artist Gimhongsok, whose practice transforms materials to challenge notions of authenticity, appropriation, and humor. For Art Basel Hong Kong 2020, he was to present a new commission for Encounters, and Kukje Gallery is presenting&nbsp;an existing series of his works in the Online Viewing Rooms. In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/98071/Gimhongsok-Untitled-Short-People-6-balloons" target="_blank">Untitled (Short People) – 6 Balloons</a>,&nbsp;2018, the artist invited each member of his family to select a balloon according to their preference for color and then blow it up to the size they wanted, depending on their mood. It’s a moving and irreverent work that translates people’s emotions into physical forms that are stacked on top of one another (<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/events/detail/11096/2020-Art-Basel-Hong-Kong-Online-Viewing-Room" target="_blank">Kukje Gallery, Seoul</a>).

Alexie Glass-Kantor is currently the Executive Director of Artspace, Sydney, supporting the commissioning of contemporary art, publishing initiatives, and research residencies for artists and curators. Since 2015 she has been the curator for Encounters for Art Basel Hong Kong, the sector dedicated to large-scale installations. In 2021, Glass-Kantor will curate artist Marco Fusinato for the Australian Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia (Biennale Arte 2021).Find out more about Art Basel's online viewing rooms and scroll through the participating galleries <a href="https://www.artbasel.com/viewing-rooms">here</a>.The Online Viewing Rooms launched on March 18-19th with a VIP Preview, followed by public days from March 20-25th.Top image:&nbsp;Alexie Glass-Kantor, courtesy Alexie Glass-Kantor.

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Welcome,

Art Basel Online Viewing Rooms: Alexie Glass-Kantor shares her favorites

Adeela Suleman, Marion Baruch, and Gimhongsok are among the picks

Marion Baruch, A di là del tempo. Il rosso e il nero, 2017; Galerie Urs Meile, Lucerne and Beijing

Adeela Suleman, After All It’s Always Somebody Else Who Dies, 2018; Sullivan + Strumpf, Sydney and Singapore.

Patricia Perez Eustaquio, An Unraveling (Conversation Among Ruins, After Amorsolo), 2019; Silverlens Galleries, Manila.

Gimhongsok, Untitled (Short People) – 6 Balloons, 2018; Kukje Gallery, Seoul.

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