Aug 25–Oct 28

Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China 

Under its “New Directions” series highlighting emerging talent, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art presents a solo exhibition of Taiwanese multidisciplinary artist Musquiqui Chihying. Spanning installation, film and photography among other media, Chihying’s works examine how economic reform can effect cultural shifts, and explore the traces of colonial and migratory history that appear in East Asian contemporary popular culture. Using wooden sculptures that were shipped from Africa to Beijing’s National Museum of China during the 2000s as a starting point, Chihying’s latest film and installation work will look at the ways in which the first large-scale Afro-Asian conference in 1955, also known as the Bandung Conference, has informed the changing cultural and economic relationship between the two continents. 

Sep 1, 2018–Jan 6, 2019

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, US

Paris-based, Lebanese-American artist Etel Adnan has had a long and fruitful career as a poet, essayist, artist and educator. As an artist, she is most celebrated for her quasi-abstract landscape paintings of California’s Mount Tamalpais—a place that has been central to her writings and paintings for many decades. Following her largest retrospective at documenta 13 in Kassel in 2012, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s first solo exhibition of Adnan will showcase her most recent works, comprising paintings and tapestries where large fields of color hint at the beauty of nature. 

Sep 7–Nov 11

Various locations, Gwangju, South Korea

The 12th Gwangju Biennale, “Imagined Borders,” will revisit the theme of its inaugural edition, tackling the concept of borders. Over two months, the biennale will feature 165 artists from 43 countries, presenting both local and regional perspectives across seven individually curated exhibitions. Highlights include an installation by Yongju Kwon that underscores growing economic disparity in contemporary societies, and Tiffany Chung’s textiles project tracing Vietnam’s refugee resettlements post-1975. An exhibition dedicated to contemporary North Korean art will showcase Joseonhwa (a form of traditional ink and brush painting), while the new GB Commission program will invite Adrián Villar Rojas, Mike Nelson, Kader Attia and Apichatpong Weerasethakul to create site-specific works that examine the history of the city and engage with notions of peace, human rights and democracy.

Sep 12, 2018–Jan 6, 2019

Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Hong Kong

Born in Yangzhou in 1895, Pan Yu-Lin was one of the most revered female artists and modern art educators in 20th-century China. Having studied painting and sculpture in Paris during the 1920s, she taught at several notable universities in China upon her return and co-founded the National Art Society in 1937. Pan traveled to France that same year for what was meant to be a two-year sojourn but found her plans disrupted by the Second World War, and spent the rest of her life in Paris. In the first major presentation of Pan in Hong Kong, Asia Society will exhibit over 60 works, focusing on the artist’s second period in the French capital. Spanning portraiture, nude and landscape paintings, as well as sculptures, the exhibition will showcase Pan’s diverse attempts to fuse Eastern and Western styles. 

Sep 14, 2018–Feb 17, 2019

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia 

Influential sculptor, installation and performance artist Ken Unsworth has probed universal fears, ambitions and desires through his bold, sometimes humorous and collaborative mixed-media works. His artistic practice spans more than five decades, encompassing a diverse range of mediums including sculpture, installation, land art, theater, dance and mechanical relief work. “Truly, Madly” will be the first major survey of Unsworth’s oeuvre in Melbourne, the artist’s hometown. Some 12 works will aim to trace his artistic trajectory and development of sculptural forms, from his early kinetic compositions to his new sculptural work based on his paintings and drawings. A new site-specific installation, commissioned by the museum, will also be presented in the gallery foyer.

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