ArtAsiaPacific is the leading magazine periodical covering art and culture from Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East.
POWERLESS
“The light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more,” an excerpt from Samuel Beckett’s 1953 absurdist play Waiting for Godot, perfectly encapsulates the themes of relative permanence and temporal transcendence that are common to all of the works in Hong Kong artist Eason Tsang Ka Wai’s first solo exhibition, “Powerless” at Blindspot Gallery in Hong Kong.
EASON TSANG KA WAI, 52.404705 , -1.497604, 2016, video: 6 min 55 sec. Courtesy the artist and Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong.
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG
Robert Rauschenberg’s approach to artmaking went against the grain of postwar America. The artist first caught attention for his rejection of abstract expressionism, a movement in New York during the 1940s and 1950s popularized by figures such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and for his use of unconventional materials. Rauschenberg once stated, “I think a picture is more like the real world when it’s made out of the real world.” Blending together art and everyday life, he developed his signature “Combines” series that brought together found objects, sourced from his neighborhood in New York, with collage and painting.
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, Roundabout (Scenario), 2005, inkjet pigment transfer on polylaminate, 217 × 306 cm. Copyright Robert Rauschenberg Foundation-
Licensed by VAGA, New York. Courtesy De Sarthe Gallery, Hong Kong.
HO FAN (1931–2016)
Iconic Hong Kong photographer and filmmaker Ho Fan passed away on June 19 in San Jose, California. He was 85 years old. Since he began his career in 1956, Ho had received more than 280 photography awards and directed 27 films. He is best known for his street photography of Hong Kong during the 1950s and ’60s, in which he captured quintessential scenes of the city through striking black-and-white image.
An early portrait of the late HO FAN from the 1950s. Courtesy Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong.