In the beautiful setting of the Monnaie de Paris, Asia NOW offers visitors to this 10th edition a stroll through the most diverse Asia. Having become an essential meeting place for contemporary Art aficionados from these regions, the show offers a panorama of the vitality of the Asian art scene, from Lahore to Singapore, via Shanghai, Hong Kong and Seoul. Bringing established and emerging artists together, bringing together the most varied universes (installations, performances, videos, lacquerware and ceramics revisiting traditional techniques, and even Japanese peasant kimonos relating to the aesthetic Mingei), the course offers a breakdown of the most diverse disciplines and trends. First observation: spirituality has never seemed to permeate this fair so deeply, superior to the previous edition both in the quality of the perspectives and the selection of works. At the heart of the event and designed for Radicants by Nicolas Bourriaud and Alexander Burenkov, the 10th anniversary exhibition is entitled “Ceremony”. The Salon also commissioned two specific installations from Britto Arts Trust and Sumayya Vally.
View of the Asia Now fair, 2024.
Photo credit Lionel Belluteau, unoeilquitraine.
At the heart of this high-level journey, Korea confirms that it is indeed one of the most stimulating laboratories on the contemporary scene. On the stand of the Berlin gallery Esther Schipper (which is participating for the first time in Asia NOW), are the introspective and hyper-realistic works of the Korean artist Lee Jin Ju, whose prices range between 6,500 and 17,500 dollars. At Perrotin, it is the sculptor and abstract painter Shim Moon-Seup (born in 1943 in Chungmu and close to Lee Ufan and the avant-garde movement Mono-ha), who is represented through a selection of recent paintings, such The Presentation of 2022 whose listed price is $138,600.
Court of honor of La Monnaie de Paris: Sumayya Vally, Water in One Hand Fire in the Other350 jars and raw clay, 5m, 2024, Asia NOW Paris 2024, curators Kathy Alliou, performers Alexia Traore, Nawal Mlanao, Melissa Nedjma Le Boudal, Malika Ammar, Music and sound Ensemble MTO Zendeh. Program offered by the MTO Sufi Art and Culture Museum.
Photo credit Lionel Belluteau, unoeilquitraine.
Pakistan is one of the nice surprises of this edition, as shown by the informed choice of gallery owner Sabrina Amrani, who has been based in Madrid for 14 years. For her first participation in Asia NOW, she presents the minimalist and sacred works of the artist from Lahore Waqas Khan (between 4,600 and 16,000 euros), not far from those of her young compatriot Wardha Shabbir whose precious compositions and refined questions question her condition as a woman within society and the environment. For one of its “dreamlike herbaria”, you have to pay between 7,400 and 36,000 euros. We find Pakistan in the exhibition curated by Anissa Touati, where we will admire a lapis lazuli piece by Hamra Abbas, the star of the Pakistani scene!
Finally, Vietnam continues its great breakthrough, as evidenced by the series “The Crossing” by the artist Bao Vuong inspired by its past as a boat people (A2Z Art Gallery), sepulchral compositions symbolizing the tragic trials of life. A real shock!
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Asia NOW, until October 20, 2024, La Monnaie de Paris, 11 Quai de Conti, 75006 Paris, asianowparis.com
