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ISSUE 87

MAR/APR 2014

Issue 87
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Online Content
Editor's Letter

Extending Boundaries

Also available in:  Chinese  Arabic

One of the defining qualities of contemporary art is its ability and desire to push boundaries. For some artists, this takes the form of innovating in their chosen practice or medium, while for others it entails challenging the status quo or social taboos—épater le bourgeois. In the March/April issue of ArtAsiaPacific, we look at ways in which artists are stretching perceptions and, by extension, broadening the world around us. 

United Arab Emirates
Reports: Dispatch

Dubai

Also available in:  Chinese  Arabic

In Dubai, anything can happen—certainly when compared with the rest of the stern and strife-weary Middle East. The region’s former grandes dames—Cairo, Tehran, Beirut—may well contest Dubai’s claim to being a cultural beacon, just as the West cynically dismisses it as frivolous and hollow. Yes, Dubai is an upstart, bristling with impatience and impertinence.

Russia
Profiles

Her Dagestan
Taus Makhacheva

Also available in:  Chinese  Arabic

In Taus Makhacheva’s three-minute video Walk (2010), a jagged cliff zigzags across the frame producing a line of perspective. Three points demarcate the division between the ocher earth and a brilliant blue sky, and a figure in black comes into view walking at a steady pace, bisecting the landscape. This same dark figure features in another work, Endeavour (2010), which was filmed on the same day. 

China
Features

Eternal Spring
Ma Desheng

Also available in:  Chinese  Arabic

It was 1978 and change was in the air in China. Mao Zedong had died just two years earlier, and the nation began to reawaken after 30 years of oppression that had claimed over 50 million lives. As the Bamboo Curtain lifted, young, daring voices called out for freedom and reform, heralding in what became known as the Beijing Spring. 

Taiwan
Reviews

No-Mad-Ness in No Man’s Land

Also available in:  Chinese  Arabic

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once proposed “nomadology” as an alternative to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s concept of history, which had held sway since the Enlightenment. For Deleuze, history was not a rational process by which mankind progressed to a more perfect state—it instead followed natural or “nomadic” principles, ebbing and flowing with no fixed destination. 

Iran USA
Reviews

An Ingenious World
Siah Armajani

Also available in:  Chinese  Arabic

The survey of Iranian-born, Minneapolis-based artist Siah Armajani, held at London’s Parasol Unit in late 2013, cleverly represented his sizable oeuvre despite the constraints of a modest gallery space. With a practice that spans more than five decades, and includes many substantial public works, this was a challenging curatorial task. 

India
Where I Work

Subodh Gupta

Also available in:  Chinese  Arabic

After 25 minutes of fruitless trundling around the lanes of Sushant Lok, asking directions and avoiding wildlife, we bump into Subodh Gupta’s car and tailgate into his studio. A bold modernist structure completed five years ago, it’s an imposing sight amid the neoclassical developments infesting this suburb of Gurgaon, a booming but underregulated city just southwest Delhi. 

Fine Print

Fair Use WIthout Paying Homage

Chinese art students are taught to follow the practice of lin mo, imitating the masters out of reverence for the past. As a result, contemporary art in China often pays homage to and closely resembles art created centuries ago.

In-Print Only Content
REPORTS
Haroon Mirza on Alan Kane
Full Steam Ahead!
I Am an Artist!
Helium, Hype and Hubris . . .
No Rest for the Weary
Holding Steady
Looking Inward
Evolving Perspectives
ESSAYS
I’ll Be Your Mirror
Cybercrusaders
The Extraordinary Lives of Ajumma
PROFILES
Vishakha Desai: Navigating Global Waters
Tarek al-Ghoussein: The Panopticon
FEATURES
Dayanita Singh: The Architecture of a Conversation
Entang Wiharso: Force of Nature
Lamia Joreige: Here and Perhaps Elsewhere
John Pule: Kulukakina (After Experiencing Something miraculous, Withdraw)
Christine Ay Tjoe: Lama Sabakhtani Club
Roberto Chabet: To Be Continued
REVIEWS
Singapore Biennale
Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan: Fragments: Another Country
Roppongi Crossing 2013: Out of Doubt
Hugo Boss Asia Art: Award for Emerging Chinese Artists
These Shores
Montien Boonma: Unbuilt / Rare Works
Exposure 2013
Yan Pei-Ming: Help!
Liu Xiaodong: Half Street
Yayoi Kusama: I Who Have Arrived In Heaven
Raqib Shaw: Paradise Lost
Ahmed Alsoudani: Redacted
BOOK REVIEW
Questing for Identity
THE SKETCH
Basmah Felemban

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