ART021

Highlights of the presentation include a selection of vibrant and expressive paintings by Pat Steir, whose first survey exhibition in Asia is currently on view at the Long Museum. Steir’s paintings represent the latest development of her celebrated Split series that are emerged from her intensive exploration of color and employ of gravity, chance, and forceful, fluid gestures.

Hot Seat Junction (2010) by KAWS, a painting that adapts the face of cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants into an expansive three-paneled work will also be on view. In this work, the icon of pop culture is shifted into a mode of large-scale abstraction. Like KAWS, Hong Kong-based artist Michael Lau, known as the ‘Godfather of Toy Figures,’ straddles the worlds of mass culture and fine art, achieving fame both for his acclaimed urban vinyl figures and his paintings. Recent paintings from Lau’s FLOWER (2021), SOLILOQUY (2020), and WHAT? WE: WANT (2016) series, which filter modernist art and pop culture through his unique aesthetic vision will be on view.

Paired canvases by Joel Mesler present intensely hued visions of painted script and figures amid stylized tropical vegetation, drawing from private reveries and universal human consciousness. Lévy Gorvy recently presented Joel Mesler: In the Beginning in Hong Kong, the artist’s debut exhibition in Asia. New paintings by Ghanaian artist Emmanuel Taku each represent a duo of figures in boldly patterned clothing and interconnected poses, with the artist noting that “the importance of capturing two figures in juxtaposition was to create a sense of consolidation, synergy, and unity.” Exceptional works by Yayoi Kusama, Lari Pittman, and Tu Hongtao complete Lévy Gorvy’s presentation of groundbreaking contemporary art in Shanghai.