Conversations and Salon: Art Basel announces details of its talks program in Hong Kong

Featuring leading artists, gallerists, collectors, museum directors, curators, and critics from across the world, Art Basel’s talk program in Hong Kong will again offer a wide range of discussions between prominent figures of the international art world. Featured artists will include Cao Fei, Clara Cheung, Guan Xiao, Isaac Julien, Jitish Kallat, Leung Po-shan Anthony, Lu Yang, Taus Makhacheva, Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho, Stephanie Sin, Song Kun, Shooshie Sulaiman, Mika Tajima, Frank Vigneron, Wang Jianwei, Ming Wong, Wu Tsang, Haegue Yang and Muhammad 'Ucup' Yusuf.

This year’s Conversations program in Hong Kong will open on Sunday, March 15, with the Premiere Artist Talk, which will feature Chinese artist Cao Fei. The artist will be in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of Serpentine Gallery, London. On Monday morning, a collectors' panel consisting of Alan Lau, Member of Tate’s Asia Pacific Acquisition Committee, Hong Kong; Anurag Khanna, Director, Carbon Edge Industries and winner of the Forbes Young Collector 2014, Gandhidham, and Phillip Keir, Co-Founder of the Keir Foundation and Chairman of the Biennale of Sydney, Sydney will share insights into trans-pacific collecting. The panel discussion will be moderated by William Lim, Collector and Managing Director, CL3 Architects Limited, Hong Kong. On Tuesday, the program will continue with a panel discussion entitled 'Moving Without Moving | How Global Institutions Travel', with Joselina Cruz, Director/ Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila, Philippines; Ute Meta Bauer, Founding Director of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Singapore; Doryun Chong, Chief Curator, M+, Hong Kong and Philip Tinari, Director, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, who will draw on their experiences as directors and curators of leading organizations to debate the importance of the traveling of global art institutions and the impacts this has on the art world. The discussion will be moderated by Ingrid Chu, Public Programmes Curator, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong.

A platform for shorter, often more informal presentations, the afternoon Salon program will feature artist talks and panel discussions with artists, curators, museum directors, professors and researchers. It will cover a wide range of topics, from a panel on the Pakistan and India presentations at the Venice Biennale, a discussion on social engagement by artists in Southeast Asia, to a talk on expanding the impact of archiving to make art history global, and a discussion focusing on the Caucasus region and beyond. Salon will also include talks between artist Isaac Julien and Yung Ma, Associate Curator of Moving Image, M+, Hong Kong, and between Wang Jianwei and Thomas J. Berghuis, The Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Curator of Chinese Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Kurt Chan Yuk Keung, Professor of Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Clara Cheung, Artist and Co-Founder C&G Apartment, Hong Kong with artists Leung Po-shan Anthony and Stephanie Sin will be part of a discussion on the topic: ‘Rebel City: Hong Kong as Site and Situation’. The discussion will be moderated by John Batten, writer, art critic, curator and organizer, Hong Kong.

Conversations takes place daily from Sunday, March 15 to Tuesday, March 17, 10am to 11.30am. Salon talks are held daily in the afternoon from Sunday, March 15 to Tuesday, March 17. Both programs take place in the auditorium on Level 1, at the entrance of Hall 1A of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Talks from the Conversations program are free to the public. Art Basel VIP card or ticket includes admission to all Salon talks. The talks will be accessible in English, Cantonese and Mandarin.

DETAILED SALON PROGRAM
Sunday, March 15, 2015
1pm-2pm | Abstract Space | Parallel Histories in Abstraction Umer Butt, Gallerist, Grey Noise; Dubai, Mika Tajima, Artist, New York; Moderators: Sam Bardaouil & Till Fellrath, Co-Founders, Art Reoriented, Munich/New York

2pm-3pm | Venice Biennale: Focus Pakistan and India
Natasha Ginwala, Curatorial Advisor and Public Programmes Curator for the Gujral Foundation’s project My East is Your West at the 56th Venice Biennale, Berlin; Jitish Kallat, Artist, Artist and Curator of the 2014 Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Mumbai Moderator: Hammad Nasar, Head of Research and Programmes, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong

3pm-4pm | Sharjah Art Foundation
Salah M. Hassan, Goldwin Smith Professor and Director, Africana Studies and Research Center and History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca NY; Further participants to be announced. For the latest information, please visit artbasel.com/hongkong/salon. Moderator: Stephanie Bailey, Writer and Editor, Hong Kong/London

4pm-5pm | News From Nowhere | Moon Kyungwon & Jeon Joonho
Moon Kyungwon, Artist, Seoul; Jeon Joonho, Artist, Seoul Moderators: Sook-Kyung Lee, Research Curator, Tate Research Centre: Asia-Pacific and Curator, Asia-Pacific Acquisitions Committee, Tate Collection, London; Gregor Muir, Executive Director, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London

5pm-6pm | Reaching out: (Beyond) the Caucasus
Suad Garayeva, Curatorial Director Exhibitions and Permanent Collection, Yarat, Baku; Dina Nasser-Khadivi, Curator and Founder of DNK Art Consulting, Geneva/Dubai; Taus Makhacheva, Artist, Makhachkala; Mila Askarova, founder and Director of Gazelli Art House, London/Baku Moderator: Princess Alia Al-Senussi, London