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ALVARO RODRIGUEZ-FOMINAYA
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Alvaro Rodríguez Fominaya is executive director/curator at Para/Site Art Space (Hong Kong), where he has organized projects with Shahzia Sikander, Surasi Kusolwong, Tsang Kin-Wah and Gao Brothers, and Ai Weiwei/Acconci Studio, among others. He is also consultant lecturer at Sotheby’s Art Institute Singapore and part-time lecturer at City University of Hong Kong-School of Creative Media. His professional career has been developed around the world, including London and Spain. He was previously chief curator at Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) in Spain. |
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Mark Siemons, Ai Weiwei and Mathieu Wellner. Ai Weiwei: So Sorry. Prestel Publishing, 2009. Prestel sent me a copy of this magazine style exhibition catalogue as we were preparing the Ai Weiwei show at Para/Site Art Space. It was published for Ai Weiwei’s show at Haus der Kunst (Munich). Well, things have changed now, as former Haus der Kunst boy Chris Dercon is the newly appointed boss of Tate Modern. The catalogue is a small treasure that recounts Ai Weiwei’s career, including a good selection of his great photographs from his years in New York. For this exhibition he prepared the installation Remembering, an outdoor installation with schoolchildren’s backpacks, inspired by the tragic deaths in 2008’s Sichuan earthquake. Ai Weiwei launched a research group shortly after the earthquake to find out how many children had died. The Chinese government didn’t like this endeavor and subsequently closed down his blog in an act of political censorship. Today, he is a resident of Beijing and I believe he is a brave man, so I am now preparing another catalogue of his works. The original catalogue was in magazine format because Ai Weiwei likes to reach out to everyone. Our tribute will be slightly different but will maintain the original goal: to honor this amazing artist.
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Hans Ulrich Obrist, Philip Tinari and Angie Baecker. Hans Ulrich Obrist: The China Interviews. Santa Monica: Ram Publications, 2009. We had organized a breakfast with Hans Ulrich Obrist on occasion of the Hong Kong Art Fair last May. Then critic Philip Tinari appeared like a delivery boy with a box full of books. He informed me Hans himself had asked Philip to bring them over, and that is how I got this book. I waited for Obrist to sign my book, but he was surrounded by groupies— even in Hong Kong, he is a star! It was like a pop singer signing his CDs. So my copy remains unsigned. Maybe I will be luckier next time. The book itself is a compilation of some of the interviews that Obrist had conducted during his trips to China over the years. It includes interviews with many of my all-time favourites, like Chen Zhen, Yan Fudong, Cao Fei, Wang Jianwei, and Ai Weiwei, and also friends like Gu Dexin. One piece of gossip that we learn from the book: Obrist’s Chinese nickname is “Little Hans;” it might come handy to know.
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I’m Not There: New Art from Asia. A Sourcebook. The Gwangju Biennale Foundation, 2010. Yesterday, I received this goody, the long-awaited sourcebook for this year’s Gwangju Biennale, edited by Massimiliano Gioni and Cecilia Alemani, in the mail. They invited 60 critics, writers, and curators from Asia to select two artists each to feature in this publication. The result is a handbook that lists almost two hundred of the best artists in the region. The layout is simple, just basic biographical information and plenty of images from each artist. I am glad to have contributed to the presence of Tsang Kin-wah and Amy Cheung in this book, as they are two of my all-time favorite artists from Hong Kong. The goal of this piece is to increase the visibility of the region globally. If you want to know more about the current visual arts discourse in Asia, this is a good way to get started.
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