Asia premier art fair, Art Basel is an annual contemporary art showcasing at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. This year marks the fifth edition and has featured 242 premier galleries, from 34 countries including a new sector, Kabinett. Kabinett participates in curatorial concepts exhibited in architecturally delineated space within its booths. UBS, a continuous global lead partner of Art Basel, has supported the organisation for more than 20 years, including substantial engagement in all 3 shows in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong.

A new collaboration between Art Basel and Goggle Arts & Culture this year is that five international artists experimented virtual reality with Goggle Tilt Brush in which they created artworks using Google’s 3D drawing and painting applications. These type of artworks tend to have brighter pigments, vibrant contents and cartoonish linings. Renowned international artists include Boychild, Cao Fei, Robin Rhode, Sun Xun, and Yang Yongliang have stepped into the innovative space for modern art.

Revolutionary Artech aspect of Art Basel this year is incorporating cutting edge technologies: virtual reality devices to tell stories that create visual, physical engagement from the viewers. Nonny de la Pena recreated the environment of Guangzhou in the 1990s through an immersive virtual reality experience where participants take on “Safely Manoeuvring Across Lin He Road ( 1995) by New York and Beijing based artist Lin Yilin. Each participant can sign up at the booth outside of Hall 3 for a 10 mins VR experience and take on Lin’s role as road side artist. In the setting, Lin has built a wall of bricks in the middle of a busy roadway in Guangzhou. As the artist moved across, he gradually brought the wall along and forcing vehicles to detour around him and the wall. Lin’s work often features installation, photography and moving image media which characterize outdoor and urban construction motifs.

One of the Hong Kong artists, Kingsley Ng has debuted “Twenty-Five Minutes Older” at this year’s show and it’s drawing attention from all angles. Known for capturing moving images of Hong Kong’s passing street life, the scenes would display street signs and scenery familiar to Hong Kong residents and inviting audience to re-experience the city in a new light by using a popular mode of transport: trams, aka. “ding dings”. “Twenty-Five Minutes Older” is commissioned by Art Basel and supported by MGM Resorts Art & Culture. Trams will run daily between Causeway Bay and Western Market, Sheung Wan for free of charge from Mar 20-28, 2017. For more information about the schedules and ticket reservations, please visit artbasel.com/25mins.

One of the eye catching artworks are the chubby ladies and gentlemen by Galerie Gmurzynska, and Galerie Thomas but nevertheless, Art Basel is a event for all ages, including a junior arts centre for young children, spacious area for handicapped or baby strollers, with international exhibitors ranging from one person shows, thematic groups, installations, film/video programs to collections of art historical material, it is a diverse modern event for inspirational and educational journey all in one go.

BMW Proudly partners with Art Basel in Hong Kong for the 4^th Year
Inaugural BMW Art Journey Winning-Artist Samson Young’s Sound Journey
“So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island”
#2 BMW Art Car by Frank Stella (1976).
#bmwartcar #animateyourlife #bmwartjourney #bmwhk

The BMW Group has been a patron of arts and culture around the world for over forty years, and this year, BMW is once again a proud partner of the top modern and contemporary art show in Asia – Art Basel in Hong Kong. For the 4^th year as a partner, BMW highlights the latest work of Samson Young – Hong Kong based artist and the inaugural BMW Art Journey winner – “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. Young will also premiere another artwork “So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island” multi-media walk tomorrow (24 March 2016). Furthermore, BMW displayd the BMW Art Car designed by American artist Frank Stella at their lounge on Level 3 Concourse of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. As second “rolling sculpture” in the collection, Stella’s BMW Art Car celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, being designed in 1976 – just one year after Alexander Calder had created the series’ founding model. The BMW Lounge also features an interactive zone “Animate Your Life”, where visitors can take photos with the BMW Art Car and create a dynamic GIF file using digital technology.

Today, BMW has a media announcement of the shortlist of artists, which are Abigail Reynolds,Newsha Tavakolian and Alvin Zafra. The winner will be announced in early summer 2016. Besides, BMW also participates in this year’s Art Basel in Hong Kong as the event’s Official Automotive Partner, escorting VIP guests during the event in a fleet of luxurious all-new BMW 7 Series sedans.

BMW Art Journey: Display of Samson Young’s Project “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.

Launched last year, the BMW Art Journey is a new global art initiative by BMW and Art Basel offering artists an opportunity to undertake a journey of creative discovery.

BMW Art Car (#02 by Frank Stella)

CNN’s global portal identified Samson Young as one of the “Top 20 People to Watch in Hong Kong” and in 2013 he was named “Best Artist of the Year” in the Media Art category by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. Last year, his project “For Whom the Bell Tolls” won him the inaugural BMW Art Journey. The project has become the exhibition highlight in the BMW Lounge. Graduated from Princeton University with a Ph.D. in Music Composition, Young studied culture and philosophy. For his BMW Art Journey he chose iconic bells from various cultures and religions as his central theme. In the time before modern communication technology, bells served as an important means of communication. The auditory coverage of bells also defined territories; the abduction of bells on the other hand – often involving violent conflicts – aroused fierce animosities, and individual’s sense of belonging is greatly disturbed by such events. On his 60-day journey, Young traversed 11 countries in five continents: Austria (Vienna and Innsbruck), USA (LA & Clemson University), Australia (Darlington Point), Kenya (Mombasa), Morocco (Fez), Sicily (Licata), St. Petersburg, France (Cantal), Germany (Nuremberg) & Poland (Bydgoszcz), London and Myanmar (Mandalay).

“All the bells I recorded on my trip have a connection with conflict. In history writing, for example, the sounds of war are seldom described or recorded. That may be because sound is pure experience which doesn’t convey any information or hard facts. Yet it is sound that actually transports us into the midst of events.” Young compiled an extensive  archive of bell recordings and a series of bell sound sketches on paper. Visitors of the BMW Lounge can explore sound samples of Young’s archive generously supported by Bowers & Wilkins headphones.

BMW Art Car (#02 by Frank Stella)

Exclusive Multi-Media Walk – “So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island”.
Samson Young will premiere another artwork resulting from his research undertaken on his journey: “So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island”, a multi-media walk that will lead participants on a journey through the streets of Admiralty and Wan Chai districts in Hong Kong. Offering a time and site-specific experience, the work weaves together institutional histories of place with fictions and personal narratives, all through films, audio tracks, on-site FM radio broadcasts, live actions, and installation elements dispersed along the route. Each participant will receive a portable media player and Bowers & Wilkins headphones along with a bag holding various small objects, maps and instructions necessary to complete the journey. Walking individually or in groups, over the course of the next hour the participants will be led to a series of iconic and obscure locations in Hong Kong, where they will experience pre-recorded films and sounds, live actions and performances that had been painstakingly orchestrated by Samson Young and his performers and collaborators, including jazz vocalist Michael Schiefel, who contributed many of his original songs and plays one of the many mysterious characters that the audience will encounter during this walk.

“So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island” Multi-Media Walk
Date:   March 24, 2016 (Thursday, tomorrow)
Time:   1:15pm – 7:30pm (45 minutes/session)
Start:   BMW Exhibition, 3/F Lobby, HKCEC

There are eight sessions of the multi-media walking journey, each lasting about 45 minutes; the sessions start at 1:15pm, 2:30pm, 3:45pm, 5:00pm, 6:15pm, and 7:30pm.

Each visitor is limited to one registration, and please arrive 15 minutes in advance of the registered time.

Prior registration is required; please register online to reserve your appointment: www.bmw–art-journey.com/events/samsonyoung.

Timeless BMW Art Car #02 by Frank Stella.

Since 1975, renowned artists have been letting their creativity run loose using BMW vehicles as their canvas. The BMW Art Car Collection now contains 17 unique pieces, each of them designed by world-renowned artists. Every year, BMW Group selects one vehicle from the Collection to be displayed at Art Basel in Hong Kong; this year, BMW presents the #02 BMW Art Car, designed by American minimalist artist Frank Stella in 1976. Having been subjected to a grueling Le Mans 24-hour race, Stella devised a black and white design based on oversize graph paper on the BMW classic racecar BMW 3.0 CSL. Stella considers his design is a kind of blueprint applied to the entire body of the car, through which the aesthetics of the vehicle structure can be fully expressed and appreciated.


Frank Stella

One of the most important artists from the United States – Frank Stella – is renowned for his avant-garde minimalist and post-painterly abstractionist works.

Born on May 12, 1936, Frank Stella is an American painter and graphic artist best known for his minimalist and post-painterly abstractionist artwork. Hailing from Massachusetts, he began studying art at the Phillips Academy in Andover at the tender age of 14, and went on to study history at Princeton. After this, he set up a studio in New York and gradually developed his minimalist style.

An exhibition of his work was held at the Museum of Modern Art at the young age of 23. In the 1960s, he began working with metallic paint and deviated from the rectangular canvas using aluminum and copper surfaces as his canvases, for which he was given critical acclaim. Between the 1960’s to 1980s, Stella’s work was displayed around the world, and became hotly pursued on the market and at various auctions. Now at the age of 79, Stella insists on continuing to work on a daily basis in his workshop, and is one of the most well-known American artists. A major retrospective of his work was recently held at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (Oct 30, 2015–Feb 7, 2016).

Interactive Area for Art Sharing.
The BMW Lounge also features an interactive zone “Animate Your Life”, where visitors can take photos with the BMW Art Car and create a dynamic GIF file using digital technology. This unique memory with the BMW Art Car can be shared with friends and family via email and social media.

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Art Basel and BMW are pleased to announce that Samson Young, Hong Kong sound artist and winner of the first BMW Art Journey, will present a new public artwork during Art Basel’s Hong Kong show this year. Titled ‘So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island’, the piece will take the form of a multi-media walk that will lead participants on a journey through the streets of the Admiralty and Wan Chai districts in Hong Kong. Offering a time and site-specific experience, the work weaves together institutional histories of place with fictional and personal narratives, all through films, audio tracks, on-site FM radio broadcasts, live actions, and installation elements dispersed along the route.

The multi-media walk adds a new chapter to ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, an ongoing project the artist developed on his BMW Art Journey in 2015. The artist’s journey centered on bells, both as sonorous objects and as ideological, political, and religious emblems of their respective communities. On a sixty-day trip around the globe, Samson Young researched and recorded numerous bells, compiling an extensive archive of bell recordings and a series of bell sound sketches on paper. The recordings and interviews collected over the journey will be a major aspect of the multi-media walk.

‘During my 2015 BMW Art Journey, I traveled to eleven countries on five continents, frequently alone,’ said the artist. ‘So now it is all the more exciting to add this new dimension to the journey, in the city I call my home, surrounded by friends, artistic collaborators, and visitors. In the past year, I have developed a deeper appreciation for the cultural and psychological meanings of travel, and I hope that though this experience, participants in the sound walk will share this understanding.’

By enabling the winning artist to go on their own journey of creative discovery, the BMW Art Journey functions as a mobile studio that can take artists almost anywhere in the world – to develop new ideas, discover new themes, and envision new creative projects.

Additional information about ‘So You Are Old by the Time You Reach the Island’, Samson Young, and his BMW Art Journey can be found at bmw-art-journey.com.

Private View (by invitation only)
Tuesday, March 22, 2016, 3pm to 8pm
Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 1pm to 5pm

Vernissage (by invitation only)
Wednesday, March 23, 2016, 5pm to 9pm

Public Days
Thursday, March 24, 2016, 1pm to 9pm
Friday, March 25, 2016, 1pm to 8pm
Saturday, March 26, 2016, 11am to 6pm

March 24 －26, 2016

Lehmann Maupin’s booth (1C14) at Art Basel Hong Kong 2016 will feature a
selection of artworks by Kader Attia, Tracey Emin, Lee Bul, Liu Wei,
Catherine Opie, Tony Oursler, Do Ho Suh, Mickalene Thomas, and Nari Ward.

In addition, the Hong Kong gallery will present a joint exhibition with
White Cube of new works by British artist Tracey Emin, titled I Cried
Because I Love You, coinciding with the fair. Emin will give a talk as part
of the Art Basel Conversations and Salon program on Thursday, March 24th
with Tim Marlow and Sir David Tang.

Courtesy Mickalene Thomas and Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong, and ARS (Artists Rights Society), New York;
Photo by George Darrell © Tracey Emin. All rights reserved, DACS 2016.
Courtesy of Lehmann Maupin and White Cube

Eugenia Wan will cover Art Basel in Hong Kong soon!  Here’s some interesting information about Art Basel’s publication.

The third edition of Art Basel’s official annual publication, ‘Art Basel | Year 46’ reflects on the year 2015 in the artworld, as seen through the eyes of Art Basel. In addition to image portfolios documenting the Art Basel shows in Basel, Miami Beach and Hong Kong, the book features exclusive interviews, essays on contemporary art and personal highlights from artists, curators, collectors and museum directors.

Published by JRP|Ringier, the book opens with a commissioned essay by artist Seth Price, who reflects with sharp humor on what it means to be a mid-career artist in today’s artworld. Photo essays on all the shows’ individual sectors and the three host cities capture pivotal moments and elements of Art Basel. Alongside detailed entries on all participating galleries, in-depth interviews with individual exhibitors offer further insights into their histories and the diversity of the international gallery system.

New elements this year include a portfolio about Africa’s contemporary cultural scene, as well as an overview of the state of publishing today, including interviews with editors-in-chief from global publications such as Artforum, frieze, Monopol and Bidoun.

Interviewees and contributors featured in ‘Art Basel | Year 46’ include:

Sheikha Hoor Al Qasimi, Stéphane Aquin, Manuela Ammer, Camilla Barella, Monica Bonvicini, Ute Meta Bauer, Harry Bellet, Heman Chong, Suzanne Cotter, Cao Fei, Sylvie Fleury, Alexie Glass-Kantor, Matthew Higgs, Max Hollein, Christian Jankowski, Omar Kholeif, Li Zhenhua, William Lim, Maria Lind, Robin Meier, Heike Munder, Matthias Mühling, Glenn Phillips, Philippe Pirotte, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Allan Schwartzman, Mari Spirito, Luisa Strina, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Jochen Volz, Danh Vō, Ken Wong, Samson Young and Marc-Olivier Wahler.

‘Art Basel | Year 46’ will be available for purchase at the three Art Basel shows and at selected art bookstores across Europe, the United States and Asia as of April 2016, as well as online from ARTBOOK|D.A.P., AVA Verlagsauslieferung, Vice Versa Distribution, Les presses du réel, Cornerhouse Publications and JRP|Ringier websites.

April 2016
English edition
Hardcover, 210 x 295 mm 784 pages, 450 color/ 530 b/w images
ISBN: 978-3-03764-448-5
CHF 70 | € 57 | £ 44 | $ 80 | HKD 600