This year’s Autumn Salon, organized by the Art For All Society (AFA) and Macau Orient Foundation, showcased 84 works by Macau artists. Held at the Oriente Foundation, the goal of this initiative is to help develop Macau’s contemporary art market.
President of AFA and the curator of the exhibition, Alice Kok adds that the aim this year was to further diversify the portfolio of the Autumn Salon by including conceptual and less marketable art.
“The idea, like every year, is to be like a salon with art and an exchange of ideas, a concept inspired by the French art society over 100 years ago,” Alice explains.
The name Autumn Salon also points to the collection of work that artists have produced during the year, viewing October as something of a harvest season.
“Every year we do this in the fall and we make an open call to all the artists who are living and working in Macau,” Alice says. “The idea is to show the latest productions on Macau’s art scene, so we never impose a theme. All the artists can have different works, but the idea is to show their most up-to-date and best pieces,” she adds.
The process starts with an open call to interested artists, who make their applications, which are then evaluated by the organization.
This year’s “harvest” yielded 130 applications, with 78 ultimately being selected for the exhibition. Among the artists who participated in this year’s show were Alexandre Marreiros, Fan Sai Cheong, Francisco Ricarte, Kit Lee, Luna Cheong, Sit Ka Kit, Un Sio San, Yung Lai Jing, and also the curator herself.
“I found it very interesting to see that we had many up-and-coming artists who, despite being young, are already quite mature in their work,” notes Alice. “At the same time, we have a lot of recent artists on the scene who are already very creative and have new inspirations. I’m very happy that this year we had a lot of works filling the gallery walls, as they were quite large-scale.”
“As far as the type of art is concerned, most were paintings, but we also had many video works, animation, and also photography and installations,” she adds.
Asked about the future of Autumn Salon, Alice points out that she wants to put more emphasis on variety in art: “We will try to have a wider variety of art forms participating. I think this is of great importance because variety is one of the main characteristics of contemporary art, and not just the more traditional mediums like painting and drawing and photography. So we will try to have more installations, in a more contemporary sense.”
“In fact, this is what I tried to do this year, however, this always generates a debate because, for example, in the case of conceptual art, in our Salon, traditionally, we always like to encourage the sale or commercialization of the works, because we know that collectors like to come and see the vintage of the year. We always hope that they can buy some of the artworks, but in the case of conceptual art pieces, they are always less marketable.”
Nevertheless, the curator admits that although conceptual art is not so marketable, it is very important to always include it in the Salon.
“When the French painter Duchamp participated in the original Fall Salon 100 years ago, he presented something that was quite controversial, and as we know, today Duchamp is considered the father of contemporary art. Even a century later, we are still not very receptive to accepting ideas as an art form, at least on the commercial side. I’d like to get across to people that ideas can also be an art form, not just paintings or photography. And of course, ideas also take different forms. It’s not just the thought, but how we translate that thought into a work of art. I think this is a very interesting debate to have at the Autumn Salon in Macau,” Alice observes.
As for a standout artist at this year’s Autumn Salon, Alice replies: “Certainly, Eric Fok. His work is selling very well, and at the same time his artistic content also matches his ideology. When I see an artist like him succeeding, it makes me feel that AFA has been worth all the effort over the years.”