There Is No Center at ROH Projects arrives not as a conventional presentation of artworks, but as an event in the truest sense—a disturbance in the usual flow of time. Extending beyond the gallery’s familiar five-week format, the twelve-week-long exhibition challenges the static nature of traditional exhibition-making, embracing a fluid proposition in which artworks enter and exit the exhibition at irregular intervals and for undisclosed periods, and performative actions instigate reconfigurations of how and where works are positioned. These movements establish ever-changing contexts and reconsideration of the works vis a vis in relation to each other, as well as in relation to themselves.
Raha Raissnia will be installing new paintings in the second week of March, and hosting a film-performance on March 9. Read more details at the link below.
Reina Sugihara fantasizes about breathing like a bird—having constant access to fresh air, as she told me, and being able to inhale and exhale deeply as if it were second nature. Inherited from their dinosaur ancestors, the nine to eleven air sacs attached to birds’ lungs allow for oxygen storage enabling effortless and effective breathing. In today’s stress-filled world where we need meditation and breathing classes for their constant reminders to respire deeply and correctly, these small, round, inconspicuous air sacs seem like something that might be as beneficial for humans as they are necessary for birds.
Emerging from the shadows of Empty Gallery’s customarily dark sanctum, Reina Sugihara’s paintings—softly illuminated by spotlights—exuded a quiet primordial force. Her abstract biomorphic forms, rendered in tones ranging from earthy to carnal, resemble blistering encrustations. The thickly painted canvases, some large enough to loom over the viewer, support viscous deposits of pigment and gesso that fissure as they dry. One thinks of scorched terrain, cooling lava, or half-healed wounds and scabs, but the associations are brief—the paintings resist legibility.
The artistic practice of DORIS GUO (*1992 in San Francisco, lives and works in Oslo), spanning a variety of media, is based on capturing moods and precise observations, distilled into multi-layered works and atmospheres. Her materials often consist of used, everyday objects, brought into relation through Guo’s sensitive combinations. For her first institutional solo exhibition Bent at the Window at Kunstverein Braunschweig, Guo develops new works and extends existing ones in dialogue with the exhibition space: among them, self-built projectors that cast static images onto the walls, as well as a new series of sculptures that further deepen Guo’s interest in translating objects into alternative material and mental states.
The exhibition will be on view from March 15 through June 1, 2025.
Curator: Junia Thiede
At MO.CO., Sense Unknown brings together more than one hundred works by thirty artists, offering an open and porous journey between materials, experiments, disciplines, and eras, with the aim of testing reality – or what we know of it. The exhibition will be on view from February 15 through May 18, 2025.
In Chaos : Making a New Science (1987), James Gleick points out that the development of a scientific theory is often based on the repetition of experiments and the recurrence of an event. An isolated event is therefore considered an error. However, in the research process, serendipity, chance discovery, accident, and the acceptance of a twist of faith open up new pathways that were beyond our predictions. We then move from known worlds into the unknown.
The artists in the exhibition Sense Unknown sometimes come from scientific backgrounds, while others have worked with scientists or are simply passionate about one of these fields. They share a common interest in experimenting with the unknown through the reinterpretation of scientific forms and processes.
Participating artists include: Isabelle Andriessen, Art Orienté Objet, Berdaguer & Péjus, Hicham Berrada, Morgan Courtois, HR Giger, Joey Holder, Tishan Hsu, Cooper Jacoby, Yunchul Kim, Josh Kline, Roy Köhnke, Kinke Kooi, Tetsumi Kudo, Emma Kunz, Candice Lin ; Pei-Ying Lin, Špela Petrič, Dimitris Stamatis & Jasmina Weiss ; Mary Maggic, Guadalupe Maravilla, Nam June Paik, Jean Painlevé, Bernard Palissy, Eduardo Paolozzi, Luboš Plný, Lea Porsager, Josephine Pryde, Victorien Sardou, Jeremy Shaw, Kiki Smith, Alina Szapocznikow, Haena Yoo, Anna Zemánková.
Taro Masushio is participating in the group exhibition Cool Invitations 11, from January 18 through February 2, 2025. The exhibition at XYZ Collective, Tokyo, is curated by MISAKO&ROSEN.
Participating artists include: Maki Katayama, Yui Yaegashi, Ryohei Usui, Chan Cho Kiu Bunchi, COBRA, Futoshi Miyagi, Zon Ito, Ryoko Aoki, Hiroshi Sugito, Shunsuke Imai, Masaya Chiba, Hanna Hur, Trevor Shimizu, John Riepenhoff, Sara Caron, Will Rogan, Margaret Lee, Taro Masushio, Hikotaro Kanehira, MISAKO&ROSEN
The gallery is open Thursday – Saturday from 1pm – 6pm, as well as Sundays, 1pm – 5pm. It is closed on Mon, Tue, Wed and National holidays.
Xper.Xr will participating in a two-person exhibition with Delia Gonzalez at Hot Wheels Athens London, as part of Condo London, taking place 18 January through 15 February, 2025.
Empty Gallery is pleased to participate in the third edition of Dallas Invitational, from April 10–12 at the historic Mansion on Turtle Creek.
Organised by Olivia Shao, Legal Size is a group exhibition at Gandt, New York, from December 7 through February 9, 2025.
Participating artists include: Richard Aldrich, George Brecht, Lyndon Barrois Jr., Elise Duryee-browner, Curie Choi, Franz Erhard Walther, Peter Fischli, Jef Geys, Doris Guo, Raymond Hains, Bradley Kronz, Matthew Langan Peck, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Aki Sasamoto, Enzo Shalom, Mike Smith and Rosemarie Trockel.
Amid his exhibition at Empty Gallery, Hong Kong, the Japanese bricolage photographer presents art as helping us sit with the discomfort of the unknown.
In the last essay he published before passing away on 23 October 2024, Gary Indiana wrote about photographs: “We all live at least one or two lives that we subtract from our biographies. Areas of un-revisited, unhealed pain or such monumental nothingness that they’re not worth remembering. Then, infrequently, some evidence turns up, often photographic evidence. You are seized, suddenly, by a grisly species of curiosity.”
Born in Japan and now living in New York, artist Taro Masushio’s exhibition “Pass” at Empty Gallery, Hong Kong is replete with photographic evidence, but contains little of facts and does not reward undue curiosity. Masushio’s reprinting of his father’s amateur travel photography on the cardboard of care packages shipped across the world from father to son conjures a haptic, material intimacy mediated by impersonal logistics networks. A series of sparing, high-contrast still-life photographs catalogues enigmatic objects sourced intuitively from his father’s belongings and the artist’s own collection – a book of Rimbaud’s poetry, a pair of male Ainu figurines, testosterone supplements, photo paper, a darkroom safe light. The effect is disruption of the impulse towards certainty in meaning-making, the recognizable objects utterly drained of their indexicality, despite their unambiguous familial, autobiographical, and sexual connotations.
Empty Gallery 懷著興奮的心情宣布，我們將參與於今年5月19-23日假香港灣仔會議展覽中心舉行的香港巴塞爾藝術展，為大家帶來徐梯善、增鹽太朗、Xper. Xr.和Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork以及洪子健的多組作品。結合我們兩位當代藝術家和歷史前衛一員的徐梯善，這次展示的作品，兼具政治視野和實驗實踐，模糊媒介之間的界線。
徐梯善多幅塑膠彩絲印亞麻布本作品包括《Thumb-Eye-Extended 1.0 》，藝術家回到他1980年代未期的創作實驗，嘗試以絲網印刷作為一種複製的方式，模擬早期螢幕科技的點矩陣美學。這些標誌性的作品預告了徐梯善近年來的關注，在創作中逐漸包裹及扭曲人類和科技的界線。再者，這次展示亦包括了徐梯善早期的紙本作品，詳細展現了他及後用於藝術創作中美學策略 的發展概念過程 。
同場展出的亦有洪子健的作品《我的敵人的敵人是我的朋友》，乃是一齣科幻電影的一系列想像分鏡圖， 電影圍繞中國和美國，及其他參與台海軍事競賽的國家。洪子健的創作由研究出發， 落墨於認識論與社政問題的交疊層面，質問權力操縱知識的行為。洪子健對種裔民族權力能動性（在美國及海外）的尖銳調查，在這中西關係愈趨緊張並預告一個未知未來的時刻， 可說別具前瞻性。
而增鹽太朗展示的攝影作品選自他近期於畫廊的展覽《聽聞說》。探源日本美學及剛陽之氣的概念，這些抽象特寫照像裡的是散發著神秘味道的味噌湯，挑起觀者想像日常生活隱藏的陌生感。增鹽透過反轉日本人熟悉的事物，暗示民族身份的延展性。
Empty Gallery 是一個四千五百平方呎的黑盒畫廊空間，位於香港仔海畔的田灣。畫廊由鄭成然創辦，展出包括成名及新晉藝術家的作品，並同步進行一系從先鋒多媒體委約計劃、表演及音樂項目。Empty Gallery 著重具時間性、短生及非以物為本的藝術實踐，致力推動各文化、地理和特定媒介間的跨界對話，並同時作為一個區域樞紐以躍活東亞藝術圈。
