The busiest week on Hong Kong’s contemporary art calendar drew to a close on March 17 with the conclusion of the third edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, Asia’s most prominent contemporary art fair. Adding a bit of star power to the event this year were celebrities like Susan Sarandon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Wendi Deng and Dita Von Teese. And of course a host of powerhouse artists.
For art collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and art lovers, Art Basel Hong Kong is a dynamic cross-cultural exchange, and the 2015 third edition of the show was no exception, with 233 galleries from 37 countries and territories presenting works ranging from the Modern period of the early 20th century to the most contemporary artists today.
For three days in March, around 60,000 people visited the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre for a firsthand experience of both emerging talents and Modern masters, tracing twelve decades of art history across the show’s six sectors: Galleries, Insights, Discoveries, Encounters, Magazines and Film. On show were paintings, sculptures, drawings, installations, photographs, videos and editioned works by more than 3,000 artists from Asia and around the globe.
Cambodian Insights
The Insights sector presented projects developed specifically for the Hong Kong show. For this sector, the galleries must be based in Asia or the Asia-Pacific region – spanning from Turkey to New Zealand, including Asia, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent – and exclusively present works by artists from the region.
Highlights from this year’s Insights sector included a focus by Rossi & Rossi (London, Hong Kong) on Leang Seckon, one of the foremost members of the emerging Cambodian contemporary art scene.
Born in Prey Veng province, Seckon grew up in the 1970s during the devastating period of Khmer Rouge rule, witnessing firsthand the government-enforced policies that led to famine and disease, as well as state executions.
Today, his striking artworks in a variety of media – textiles, photographs, posters, and found objects – are intimate narratives of his memories from the period and the civil war that followed. Brimming with references to popular culture and local lore, such as Buddhist prophecies and folk stories, his intricate and delicate pieces depict both the beauty and the horrors of Cambodia’s past.
The artist finds beauty and life affirmations in even the smallest, most mundane and unexpected places. A walk in his neighbourhood in Phnom Penh can result in a number of different creative inspirations.
Speaking of the tense process he had to undergo for a visa application for the UK ahead of the exhibition at the Rossi and Rossi gallery in London – it is increasingly complicated and expensive for Cambodians to secure travel documents for overseas travel, and 2014 was a particularly challenging year for the country in terms of politics – Seckon relays a story behind the inspiration for the pieces on show in Hong Kong.
“I was walking in front of The Royal Palace when I saw some cards face down and I told myself that I was going to make a wish – I wanted to divine the outcome of my visa application. I turned the card over but as I am not a card player I didn’t know the meaning of it and took it to a fortuneteller sitting by the riverside. He told me it was the King of Hearts and I thought to myself that it was a good card,” the artist recalls. “A few days later I picked up another card, this time it was the Queen of Hearts, and laughingly I told myself ‘You will get an answer!’ and three days later I got a call and my visa application was approved.”
Playing cards typically scattered on the streets of Phnom Penh, advertising, shadow puppets, the manic traffic, Buddhism… Seckon’s works are loaded with Cambodian images and ideology.
The process of creating artworks is cathartic for Seckon, allowing him to experience and express the identity that was denied him as a youth. Through his works, the artist looks nostalgically to an idyllic vision of Cambodia in the 1960s, to a time before the destruction of the Vietnam War and the rise of the Khmer Rouge. However, Seckon’s artwork also acts as a warning: drawing parallels between Cambodia’s past and present, it cautions against corruption and environmental destruction.
“Buddhism talks about the cycle of life, grow and return, grow and return,” the artist reflects. The changes he sees in his country nowadays cause him great confusion.
“Cambodians today are changing ideas and changing their culture to be more material, everything is fast and about money. It’s the opposite of Cambodian culture. Life is short, and I don’t understand why they think like that. If we walk fast we can’t see anything; if we walk slowly, but keep moving and keep things sustainable, we will succeed in the long run. That is the meaning of life, it is a long process and in the details we have everything.”
