Contemporary Asian Art At TEFAF 2015

Branded as the world’s greatest art and antiques fair, The European Fine Art Fair—aka TEFAF Maastricht—launched its 28th edition on March 12 to a lively crowd of museum directors, curators, critics, collectors and sophisticated spectators.

This year’s fair, which runs through March 22, features various goods—from antiques, rare books, maps and jewelry to Old Masters works, modern and contemporary art—all offered by 275 dealers from some 20 countries, including China, Korea and Japan.

One of the highlights of TEFAF 2015 is “Night Fishing,” a special exhibition of contemporary sculpture guest-curated by author and collector Sydney Picasso, the celebrated artist’s daughter-in-law. Included in her exhibition of eight international artists who work in three dimensions are two major multimedia pieces by the late Korean artist Nam June Paik (1932–2006), represented in the show by Düsseldorf-based Galerie Hans Mayer.

“Most of the artists in ‘Night Fishing’ are searching for the mystery of the origin of art,” Picasso told ArtAsiaPacific. “This mystery of creation is a pursuit shared by many artists overtime, which are represented at the fair.”

Contemporary highlights in the “Antiques” section include coveted abstractions by Gutai artists Kazuo Shiraga, Tsuyoshi Maekawa, Takesada Matsutani, Saburo Murakami and Yuko Nasaka (who attended the preview) at Axel Vervoordt (Antwerp/Hong Kong); playful, figurative bronzes from the series “Treetop Memories” by Chinese artist Xie Aige at Michael Goedhuis of London; sublime Japanese ceramists and glass artists reinventing traditional forms at Adrian Sassoon also from London; and Tibetan visual-whiz-kids Tenzing Rigdol and Tsherin Sherpa, who are in much demand because of the way they make spiritual art look fresh, at Rossi & Rossi (London/Hong Kong).