Art Basel Hong Kong

Stephen Friedman Gallery is delighted to announce its participation in Art Basel’s first edition of Online Viewing Rooms, a new digital platform designed to connect galleries and collectors from around the world.

Our Online Viewing Room will feature several key artists from the gallery programme with a focus on the Asian market in lieu of the gallery’s inaugural participation at Art Basel Hong Kong. From new artists on its roster (Jonathan Baldock), artists that have never before been exhibited in Asia (Manuel Espinosa), to long-standing gallery artists who have recently had major public exhibitions (Yinka Shonibare CBE, David Shrigley, Luiz Zerbini), the presentation introduces many of its artists to the Asian market for the first time and consolidates the reputations of those already established in the region.

An installation of ceramic sculptures by British artist Jonathan Baldock is presented that recently featured in his solo exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, London in 2019. Baldock’s work is saturated with humour and wit, as well as an uncanny, macabre quality that channels his longstanding interest in myth, folklore and the narratives associated with 'outsider' practices. He will have a solo exhibition at Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway in May 2020.

The gallery also exhibits historical paintings by Argentine artist Manuel Espinosa. A seminal figure in the history of Argentine Modernism, Espinosa's works are driven by a preoccupation with line, colour and the optical sensations of movement and light. This will be the first time his work has been exhibited in Asia and marks the gallery’s long-standing work with historical artists and Estates as well as its ongoing commitment to showing South American artists as part of its programme.

In the same vein, following his acclaimed solo exhibition at South London Gallery in June 2018, new paintings by Brazilian artist Luiz Zerbini are on show. His dynamic, kaleidoscopic works draw visual references from the artist's surroundings in Rio de Janeiro as well as art history and pop culture. Zerbini had a solo presentation at Fondation Cartier, Paris in June 2019.

A recent painting by American artist Wayne Gonzales is also exhibited. Drawing on source material from his own photographs, and those by iconic modernists including Walker Evans and Charles Sheeler, Gonzales' meticulously crosshatched paintings from the past year critically examine the contemporary American landscape.

An early work is presented by Swedish artist Mamma Andersson. Inspired by filmic imagery, theatre sets and period interiors, Andersson’s compositions are dreamlike and expressive. In 2018, Andersson won the Daniel And Florence Guerlain Drawing Prize, a prestigious award honouring a living European artist. She was a co-curator of the current 33rd Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil and her solo exhibition ‘Memory Banks' opened in October 2018 at Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, USA.

Rare works on canvas by British artist David Shrigley are on view, building on the artist's reputation in Asia following the success of his British Council exhibition ‘Lose Your Mind' at Power Station of Art in Shanghai in 2018. Shrigley is best known for his distinctive drawing style and works that make satirical comments on everyday situations and human interactions. Shrigley was a Turner Prize nominee in 2013 following his major mid-career retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, London entitled ‘Brain Activity'.

Part of the presentation is dedicated to British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare CBE ahead of his forthcoming retrospective at Museum der Moderne, Salzburg in June 2020. A new series of domestic-size bronzes is presented that marks a progression from Shonibare’s monumental wind sculptures, intricately hand-painted with the iconic pattern of the artist’s signature Dutch wax batik fabrics.

Seminal historic works by Japanese artist Jiro Takamatsu are also exhibited. Throughout Takamatsu's career, the artist made use of intangible properties such as perspective, shadows and numbers. His work combines subversive and playful aspects of Dada and Surrealism with an idiosyncratic use of Minimalism's refined visual language. Takamatsu was the subject of a major solo exhibition at Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK in 2017 and a retrospective at the National Museum of Art Osaka, Japan in 2015.

Please register for access at: bit.ly/2U05P3U

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