IF YOU HAVEN’T seen Brooklyn-based artist Zak Prekop’s paintings, asking for a visual description won’t help you much. Figure-ground reversal, color theory, patterns, and collage—all of these might make you groan, “Not another Digital Age abstract painter with an MFA!” But although the above characteristics might seem generic, Prekop does them differently. He collages the…

NIETZSCHE’S RALLYING CRY presages postmodernism. Many believe that, with the advent of postmodernism, we are finally freed from the weight of history to pursue a more relaxed, freer, pluralistic life of pleasure. Everything will flow, and burdensome realities will dissipate as laughter rings out. Not so long ago, when Stephen Chow’s A Chinese Odyssey became…

GUANGDONG TIMES MUSEUM 2014.08.23~2014.10.26 Times Museum projects are often accompanied by discussions about localization. This project was first disputed two years ago, when curators tried to question the definition of an art museum through the exhibition “A Museum That is Not,” particularly around the notion of a community art museum. How can a museum dropped…

WHEN I ARRIVED in Hong Kong in 2011 I promptly settled into a flat at the meeting of Rutter Street and Pound Lane in Sheung Wan. Para Site was just down the hill, about 45 seconds by foot. It had been there already for 17 years. Coincidentally, we are both leaving at the same time:…

LIN KE’S STUDIO is his 2008 MacBook Pro, preloaded with the Mac OS X 10.6.8 operating system and standard software including the Safari web browser, Preview image viewer, and QuickTime 7.0 Pro for vid…

I first met Kai Kawus on the internet. That was his username, but I’ve continued calling him Kai even after meeting face-to-face, which makes me realize that I have never asked for this old friend’s real name. This could be because my English still isn’t up to scratch. Truthfully, much of the time silence relieves…

THE LOS ANGELES PROJECT ULLENS CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART 2014.09.13~2014.11.09 Due to the structure of the Chinese art world, most of the international art that comes to Beijing arrives in the form of group exhibitions at the behest of private dealers and collectors. As a result, the works included in these exhibitions often seem to…

Founded in 1995, the Gwangju Biennale has an international reputation based partly on its status as a public memorial to the Gwangju Massacre, and partly on the usual elements of a biennial: the choice of curator, theme, and quality of work. The ten shows have spanned 20 years, the first 10 of which coincided with…