Art Central presented in partnership with United Overseas Bank (UOB), took place 20 – 23 May 2021 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, running alongside Art Basel Hong Kong (21 – 23 May 2021).

The fair has established itself as a place of discovery for seasoned collectors and new buyers alike and provides a platform for museum quality artworks from more established names to be exhibited alongside cutting-edge works by emerging artists across different mediums. With a unique identity in the Hong Kong visual arts landscape, the fair receives approximately 37,000 visitors during Hong Kong Art Week. 

Our curator, Shristi Sainani reviewed the works on offer and selected the following works as her top picks.

Born in Amori prefecture of Japan’s main island of Honshu, Mitsuru Watanabe (b.1953) paints fantastical, unearthly compositions, usually including a unique protagonist in a setting drawn from art history. In this piece, ‘Naoko playing with JAKUCHU’s puppies (2019)’ Watanabe depicts wide-eyed and spiffy, Naoko, one of Mitsuru Watanabe’s two daughters. She is plugged into an Edo- period (1603–1867) painting by the Japanese master, Ito Jakuchu, called One Hundred Dogs (1799). Watanabe, in his oil on canvas, instills a sense of history — personal and humanistic, which is based on an older Japanese tradition, Honka-Dori, in which new poetry is created by quoting older ones. He tailors the past to an aesthetic of contemporaneity as he adds geometry beneath Naoko’s feet and declutters the assemblage of pups to conduct negative space.

Korean artist Kim Keun-Tae (b.1953) is a former student of Chung-Ang University in Seoul and is a part of the Dansaekhwa movement (1970s), which aimed at liberation from strict Korean artistic heritage. The artists of this movement gravitated stylistically, towards the emulation of Western modernism. The term, Dansaekhwa translates to ‘monochrome painting’. In works produced by Kim Keun-Tae, one is reminded of Rothko and Newman’s minimalist compositions and the muted palette of Agnes Martin.

Chinese multi-media artist, Yue Minjun (b.1962) is part of the Cynical Realism movement, and known for his portraits of maniacally laughing figures.  In describing his work, Minjun states, “I’m actually trying to make sense of the world, there’s nothing cynical or absurd in what I do.” ‘Untitled 1997 (1997)’ is an early self-portrait, and compared with later works, it is a comparatively modest and softened composition.