‘There’s been a huge move to material practice and a real shift to recognizing Indigenous sovereignty,’ says Alexie Glass-Kantor, the curator of the fair’s sector dedicated to outsized presentations
The first work visitors will see within ‘As The World Turns’, this year’s edition of Encounters at Art Basel Hong Kong, will be impossible to miss. Set against a theatrical backdrop of shocking pink and yellow fabric, with a purple vinyl floor, the late Pacita Abad’s three abstract ‘trapunto’ works – enormous painted, quilted, and embroidered textiles – are over five-meters tall. ‘They never made it to her retrospective exhibitions [most recently at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and MoMA PS1 in New York],” explains her nephew, the artist Pio Abad, who manages her estate. ‘Museums barely have five-meter-high walls.’ What’s perhaps most striking about Pacita Abad’s presentation though, is that she is one among a significant number of artists showing in Encounters this year who draw on the traditions and ancestral wisdom of what are often marginalized cultures.
The Encounters in Hong Kong is dedicated to monumental artworks and known both for its physical and conceptual ambitions. It’s ‘a benchmark for excellence and experimentation’ says its curator Alexie Glass-Kantor. For the past 11 years, she’s helped artists develop works up to 10-meters tall, which despite not being in dedicated rooms, manage to distinguish themselves from the bustle of the show floor. As such, the sector is a conduit for some major artworld currents. ‘There’s a huge move to material practice,’ she says. ‘In the past decade, there’s also been a real shift to recognizing Indigenous sovereignty. Artists are working in transhistorical modes of production, and looking to intergenerational forms that pass on inherited knowledge.’
Pio Abad describes his aunt’s presentation for Encounters as ‘materially the most omnivorous work she made.’ The three textiles were created while she was based in Jakarta in the 1990s, and incorporate batik and ikat fabrics which she constantly collected from markets in the Indonesian capital. Yet it is her connection with multiple cultures that makes the work of the Filipino émigré particularly distinct. Having fled to America in 1970 from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, she not only drew on her personal heritage in her work, but also identified (sometimes as a fellow immigrant) with the diverse people she encountered in the 60-plus countries she visited, sitting outside the so-called developed world. ‘She had a willingness to take on the positions of the communities that she spent time with, whose material language she fell deeply in love with,’ reflects Pio, who adds that the surging interest in her project speaks to our times. ‘We’re experiencing the repercussions of not thinking about Indigenous histories or how that knowledge can actually help us find a way forward. Her work has always drawn knowledge and solace from these communities.’
