Organised by Asia Art Archive (AAA) in collaboration with The University of Hong Kong, ‘It Begins with a Story: Artists, Writers, and Periodicals in Asia’ is a symposium that explores how periodicals have fostered conversations around art and emergent forms of visuality in twentieth-century Asia. It will be held from 11–13 January 2018 at the University of Hong Kong. AAA will present a series of talks, discussions, and exhibitions in December 2017 leading up to the symposium. All events are free and open to the public with registration: www.aaa.org.hk/en/Symposium2018
Periodicals are exemplary for how they bring technologies of word, image, and print together with notions of aesthetics, practices of viewing, and circuits of dissemination. The adage “modernism began in the magazines” is certainly true for Asia, where print media has been instrumental in taking debates, discourses, and images of art to wide audiences.
Periodicals have been more than just platforms or sites for artistic experimentation and exhibition; they have themselves shaped and staged them. In so doing, periodicals have played a defining role in forming diverse publics for art in Asia.
The papers presented in the symposium explore periodicals in relation to emerging practices that cut across genres, new nomenclatures and aesthetic propositions, verbal and visual manifestos, the production of alternative publics and communities for art, and other topics.
Symposium Agenda
Thu, 11 Jan 2018
5pm
Keynote
Charles ESCHE, Director of Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, and Co-founder of Afterall journal
Courtesy of Asia Art Archive.
Fri, 12 Jan 2018
10:30am
Panel 1: War and Alternative Modernities
Michael ERDMAN, Curator, Turkish and Turkic Collections, The British Library
Samina IQBAL, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Studies, Lahore School of Economics
Phoebe SCOTT, Curator, National Gallery Singapore
1:30pm
Panel 2: Underground and Overground
Mervin ESPINA, Program Director, Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila
Anthony LEUNG Po-Shan, PhD in Cultural Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Hyejong YOO, Art Historian, Seoul
Sat, 13 Jan 2018
10:30am
Panel 3: Aesthetics and Internationalism
Naomi KUROMIYA, PhD Candidate, Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York
CHIANG Poshin, Associate Professor, Department of Art History, Tainan National University of the Arts
Sophia POWERS, PhD in Art History, University of California, Los Angeles
2pm
Panel 4: Intersections of Art and Mass Culture
Spandan BHATTACHARYA, Adjunct Faculty for Film Studies, School of Culture and Creative Expressions, Ambedkar University Delhi
Insoo CHO, Professor, Art Theory Department, School of Visual Arts, Korea National University of Arts
WU Mo, PhD Candidate, History of Chinese Art, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
4pm
Conversation
LI Xianting, Beijing-based Independent Critic and Curator
Moderator: Anthony YUNG, Researcher, Asia Art Archive
Prelude Events
As prelude to the symposium, a talk by artist, scholar, and editor Verina Gfader will be held on 5 December 2017 at AAA. Gfader will speak about the Italian avant-garde magazine movement of the 1960s to 1970s; the fictions around the sci-fi fanzine Cheap Truth; and the transmission of knowledge through the archive and paper-making.
On the same day, three exhibitions open at AAA to explore art periodicals in Asia as tools for criticism, historical research, travel writing, and fiction. These exhibitions are conceived by AAA team members, they include a presentation on Li Xianting’s Contribution to Art Journals in China by AAA Researcher Anthony Yung; Somewhere Along the Line, a project by New Delhi–based artist Karthik K. G. in collaboration with AAA Researcher Sneha Ragavan; and Fantasy of a Dialogue, initiated by AAA Collection Coordinator Nicole Lai, with a commissioned work by artist Au Sow-Yee
Talk by Verina Gfader | Wild Iconographies
Date and Time: Tue, 5 Dec 2017, 7pm
Venue: A Space, Asia Art Archive, 10/F Hollywood Centre, 233 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong
It Begins with a Story: Three Exhibitions
Date: 5 Dec 2017–24 Feb 2018
Venue: Asia Art Archive Library, 11/F Hollywood Centre, 233 Hollywood Road, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong