The Backroom Conversations series organised by the Asia Art Archive (AAA) is an intellectual highlight of the Hong Kong International Art Fair (Art HK), which returns for its fifth edition this week.
This year, there will be six discussions on topics ranging from the functions of private art collections to the role of lens-based media in contemporary art.
Curator and art critic Okwui Enwezor will be the guest speaker for the Burger Collection Keynote Lecture on Thursday. The Nigerian-born New York-based Enwezor has served as artistic director of Documenta 11 (1998-2002), the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale (1996-1997) and the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008). He is now director of the Haus der Kunst, Munich, and adjunct curator of the International Centre of Photography in New York. Hong Kong's artists and curators will get the chance to meet the man The New York Times once referred to as 'one of the most controversial curators on the international art scene'.
Other notable artists joining the Backroom Conversations include the Beijing-based Cao Fei, local contemporary artist Tam Wai-ping, Hans Ulrich Obrist of Serpentine Gallery in London, as well as independent curators Amy Cheng and June Yap.
AAA will also be staging a two-part exhibition this week that reconstructs the history of Oil Street, the short-lived artist village located in the former Government Supplies Department in North Point, and the ensuing 'Save Oil Street Campaign' which took place in the late 1990s.
Separately, the International Art Critics Association, Hong Kong, will host a lecture/discussion session on 'Curatorial Practice & the Museum' on Tuesday. Guest speakers include Claire Bishop, associate professor in art history at the City University of New York Graduate Centre, and Jane DeBevoise of the AAA, as well as a panel of curators including Cosmin Costinas, executive director of Para/Site Art Space, and Eve Tam Mei-yee, chief curator of the Hong Kong Museum of Art.
