Art Fairs
Art Basel Hong Kong Announces Details of its 2017 Film Program
The program will feature more than 35 films and one world premiere.
Caroline Elbaor
Share This Article
Art Basel Hong Kong has announced a program of over 30 film and video works that will be screened at the 2017 iteration of the fair, its fifth edition in Asia, which will run from March 20 to 25. Screenings include works by Taiwanese filmmaker Hsu Hao-hsuan, Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen, and Scottish director Kevin Macdonald, among many others.
The program combines three feature-length films with 34 short films, which have been selected from the fair’s participating galleries and curated by Beijing- and Zurich-based multimedia artist and producer Li Zhenhua.
Feature-length highlights include the world premiere of “My Dear Art” (2017), a documentary by Hsu Hao-hsuan that chronicles the experiences of Taiwanese art collector (and executive producer of the film) Yao Chien, as he visits art fairs, auctions, galleries, and museums across Asia and the United Kingdom.
The 2015 video “The Nameless” by Ho Tzu Nyen follows the story of Lai Teck, the Secretary General of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947, who also worked as a triple agent for French, British and Japanese governments; such tales bring up questions of loyalty, political and personal duplicity.
In Scottish director Kevin Macdonald’s “Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang” (2016), Macdonald traces the making of artist Cai Guo-Qiang’s most monumental artwork to date: a ladder composed of fireworks reaching 1,650 feet into the air.
In a particularly contemporary turn, the short film program will feature 11 films under the umbrella title “Anthropocene,” which explores “the myriad ways in which humans have affected—and continue to affect—the environment,” according to a press release. Among those included are works by the collective GCC, represented by London’s Project Native Informant, and Galleria Continua’s Hans Op de Beeck.
Other short film projects fall under the titles “Hello, It’s Me,” a showing of works by Yao Qingmei and Joel Kyack, “two artists who are interested in the concept of self and the place of the individual in society,” and a program called “Narrative Relation,” which explores human relationships in their many forms.
Related Articles
-
