Arario Gallery at Art Basel in Hong Kong 2017

ARARIO GALLERY is delighted to announce its participation in the 2017 edition of Art Basel Hong Kong. Highlighting the works of leading contemporary artists including Subodh Gupta (b.1964, India), Nalini Malani (b.1946, India), Kim Taeho (b.1948, Korea), Eko Nugroho (b.1977, Indonesia), and Chen Yujun (b.1976, China). We will wave the cross-cultural connections between each artist’s visual languages which are shaped by their cultural and historical contexts. The India’s most widely recognized contemporary artist, Subodh Gupta combines formalism with a wry, incisive understanding of symbols and forms used in contemporary India. He will present sculpture and installation works including “Love” (2014), “Drawing” (2014), and “Jar” (2010). While a large sculpture of brilliantly glittering golden heart, “Love,” drawing the artist’s inspiration from the cosmic nature of existence – the macro to the micro, “Drawing” not only continues to focus on emblems of everyday objects in India, but also thematically shapes a particular space by exaggerating a usual size of thread and needle. As ropes are one of the most significant materials in the artist’s oeuvre – he used to coiling the tiffins or bicycles and packing some objects – it turns into a more vivid subject to maximize his artistic practice. Nalini Malani is also a prominent feminist artist from India; she has expanded her creative research and contexts that are drawn upon history, literature, gender, mythology, and mixed with her personal influences and experiences. ARARIO’s selection of “Anna Karenina” (2017) is the artist’s ongoing series of imaginary portraits of characters from literature. Though this series, Malani focuses on her special interest as they are well-known but often misunderstood – both are fitted in her society and crave to find a sense of agency and fulfilment. Korean artist Kim Taeho is best known for his monochromatic painting. In his recent series “Internal Rhythm,” Kim creates a fixed rhythm in grid formation from scrapes away the dense layers of paint and colors so that coming alive with the structure. Embracing the weightiness, permanence, and dignity through the repeated gestures, “Internal Rhythm” delivers the exquisite balance and vitality. Other highlights from the booth include the sculptures of Indonesian young artist Eko Nugroho’s “Dance Corps Series” (2016). It is a serial of sculptural figures that are the personification of the confusion we experience when facing the crises of today. With his careful attention to the social tendencies around him, Nugroho captures all this awkwardness, strangeness and chaos and then represents it to us, as a mirror with which to look at how and we are in the face of, and in the midst of, all these social phenomena. ARARIO GALLERY will also present the paintings of Chen Yujun, who has been considered as one of the most important mid-career artists in China. Chen has always been interested in the issue of identity shift of the contemporary individuals. His memories of his father’s generations, who have immigrated to Nanyang, resonate with his contemporaries’ experience of geographical shift and being away from the homeland. Chen’s works attempt to interpret the self-consciousness of individuals in the ever-changing environments and cultures.