The Sun Teaches Us That History is not Everything
OPENING: Sunday March 25th from 6:00 - 8:00 pm
OSAGE ART FOUNDATION / 4/F UNION HING YIP FACTORY BUILDING, 20 HING YIP ST. KWUN TONG, KOWLOON, HONG KONG.
curated by Raphael Fonseca
Artists: Esvin Alarcón Lam, Jonas Arrabal、André Terayama、Chang Chi Chai、Daniel Lie、Juliana Kase、Shima、Yudi Rafael、Sandra Nakamura、David Zink Yi、Mimian Hsu、Shinpei Takeda、Miho Hagino & Taro Zorrilla、Fx Harsono、Tromarama、Melati Suryodarmo、Mella Jaarsma、Kent Chan、Mark Salvatus、Norberto Roldan、Nguyen Trinh Thi、Linda Lai、Tang Kwok Hin、Eric Fok、João Ó
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This exhibition is a part of the Osage Art Foundation's "Regional Perspectives" platform that puts the production of art in Asia into a critical perspective in relation to other geographies. The first iteration of this initiative was the exhibition "South by Southeast" curated by Patrick Flores and Anca Verona Mihulet and presented by the Osage Art Foundation in 2015, and the extension of the project "South by Southeast: A Further Surface" presented by Guangdong Times Museum in 2016.
Of this initiative, Patrick Flores says " The South by Southeast project was conceived out of the anxiety to move beyond the burdened categories of nation and region. It was prompted by the desire to exceed the limits of how localities are almost by reflex and default integrated into nations, which in turn are integrated into regions."
Inspired by the direction set by Flores and Mihulet and the South by Southeast, the present exhibition curated by Brazilian curator Raphael Fonseca, seeks to find a dialogue between Southeast Asia, South and Central America and Mexico.
This project will bring together 26 artists – 14 from South and Central America and Mexico, 8 from Southeast Asia and 4 from Hong Kong and Macau and generate new perspectives around contemporary art.
For this exhibition curator Raphael Fonseca looked for artists with an interest in a critical articulation between the past and the present. He says, "All of the artists in this project are interested in raising questions about the relations between the historical past and the present. How can the past affect the present and how can contemporary art practice transform historical documents in very different kinds of narratives? What are the relations between macro and micro history?"
"The artists here have interests in important topics like immigration and refuge, the relation between documents and historical truth, the borders between historical and fictional writings and the tension between national histories and familial anecdotes."
The title of the exhibition is based on a quote from “Betwixt and Between” by the Nobel Prize winning writer Albert Camus. Recalling the difficulties of his early life in Algeria Camus wrote "I was placed halfway between the misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history isn't everything."
Fonseca notes that "The topics of migration, diaspora, memory, oblivion and identity are all essential to each of the invited artists and to the historical narrative of their countries. Even with the geographical distance between Asia and Latin America, there are many artistic, environmental and historical points of dialogue."
Looking forward, the second iteration of the "South by Southeast" initiative will be curated by Patrick Flores and will set its sights on the ties between Southeast Asia and the Caribbean, which is southeast of the hegemonic North American mainland. Flores notes that "this South by Southeast option leads us to revisit how we reflect on the place of region in the contemporary. It does not only broaden the sympathies of Southeast Asia, which is the main node of this network; it gestures towards a theory of the global, the worldly, the hemispheric through not only the south but through the southeast: not the center twice, the better for it to slide across the scales and registers of the geopoetic spheres of exciting mingling."
The exhibition is hosted by Osage Hong Kong, 4/F, 20 Hing Yip Street, Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Enquiries Belle Leung (Osage Art Foundation) by email belleleung@oaf.cc or telephone +852 2172 1607.
Presented by
Osage Art Foundation
Supported by
Consulate General of Mexico in Hong Kong
AMEXCID Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation
Consulate General of the Philippines in Hong Kong
Philippines National Commission for Culture and the Arts
Edouard Malingue Gallery Hong Kong
Henrique Faria New York
Karin Weber Gallery Hong Kong
Silverlens Gallery Manila
'Silk Route', 2017. Courtesy of the artist and Henrique Faria New York & Buenos Aires.