Compiler

Matthew Ngui, HOME: The Singapore Skyline Project, 2004. Installation with LED lights (Project model, Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore Gallery, Singapore). Courtesy of and © the artist. Ngui is based in Singapore and Perth. His exhibition Matthew Ngui: investigating space and perception, curated by Russell Storer, is on show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney from 4 June to 12 August, and tours to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Singapore, 4 October to 18 November, and the John Curtin Gallery, Perth, 8 February to 20 March next year. 

China & Korea

More than café painting…

Tibet contemporary is the first show of Tibetan contemporary art in China and is presented by the Beijing powerhouse, 798 / Red Gate Gallery. Little is known of this scene outside Lhasa. US curator/academic Leigh Miller and Australian painter Tony Scott attempt to expose this vibrant scene, cutting across mediums to shift perceptions beyond the ‘tourist Buddha’. Showing through 17 June this exhibition follows a month-long festival at 798 featuring Scott’s work and that of Laurens Tan. www.redgategallery.com GF

Bringing it all back home

June finds a number of Australia’s most illustrious Chinese Australian artists back on native soil in Beijing. Ah Xian, Shen Shaomin, Lin Chunyan, Guo Jian, Wang Zhiyuan and Li Gang can all be found making art in the capital this Summer. Painter Guan Wei, who has made his home and career in Australia for the past fifteen years, will have a long awaited solo show at 798 / Red Gate Gallery, featuring his latest work, the mythic maps that make up the Day after tomorrow series, from 23 June to 22 July. Guan Wei will be a bit of a celebrity around town this visit. Used to being much better known abroad than at home, that changed with the recent screening of a documentary about his life and work on China Central Television. The recently published book Guan Wei, published by Craftsman House in Australia, is also due to be launched this month at local bookshop, The Bookworm on 19 June. www.beijingbookworm.com. MO

Korean artists in transition

Fast break brings together a full-scale exhibition of Korean artists in Beijing. Curated by Chankyong Park, its title is also a metaphor for Seoul’s momentum for change. Profiling fourteen young artists who have lived through this period of high-speed growth and who have experienced the trauma of cold war, their works confront the topography and language of transition as Seoul is redefined as an expanding place of freedom and one struggling under the complexities of shifting value systems. Showing at the PKM Gallery, Chaoyang Qu, Beijing until 30 June. www.pkmgallery.com GF

Malaysia & Vietnam

Come on down …

Installation artist Sharon Chin from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was recently announced as a 2007 recipient of the Visual Arts Residency at the Gunnery Studios in Woolloomooloo, Sydney. GF

Closer and closed

Independent curator Nguyen Nhu Huy reminds us of the realities of Vietnam and its struggling independent art scene. His exhibition Closer, conceptual photography by Himiko Nguyen (Nguyen Kim Hoang), was closed by government officials on 22 April, with the claim that ‘All the artworks of artist Nguyen Kim Hoang in this exhibition have violated the Vietnamese beautiful and kindly cultural tradition’. Not-showing at the Hi-mi-ko saloon, District 3, HCMC, Huy has picked up the debate on his blog (in English) on the contemporary art scene in HCMC. Blog: www.nhuhuy.com/htmls/weblogs_en.php?f=1&mon=4&ye=2007 GF

Pacific Rim perspective on nature

New nature at New Plymouth’s Govett Brewster Gallery looks at the endlessly mutating shifts between the natural world and its varied cultural readings through an array of media including photography, projection, painting, and digital media, and features the work of twelve artists from the Pacific Rim including Cicada, Fiona Hall, I-lann Yee, I-TASC, Yeondoo Jung, Takashi Kuribayashi, Rosemary Laing, Lin Tianmiao, Jon McCormack, Joe Sheehan, Tang Maohong and Michael Zavros. Until 2 September. www.govettbrewster.com GF

Filtered

Wei-Ling Gallery in Kuala Lumpur has been carving a name for itself over the last couple of years and pushing the boundaries within Malaysia. They have recently doubled their exhibition space, and they now occupy five floors in the Indian district of Brickfields. Their current show Filtered typically explores local socio-political constructs and attempts to cut through the veiled layers of rhetoric and media propaganda that shapes the cultural landscape in Malaysia. Including previously Melbourne-based artist Anurendra Jegadeva, Hamir Soib, Ivan Lam, Ise, Ahmad Shukri Mohamed among others. Until 17 June. visit www.weiling-gallery.com GF

Asia in Europe in June

If you’re heading over to Venice and Basel drop in to the ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Karlsruhe, Germany for Thermocline of Art: New Asian waves an exhibition curated by Wonil Rhee with more than 100 artists from twenty Asian countries From 15 June to 21 October. www.zkm.de  While in Venice keep your eye out for the project Migration addicts, a series of interventions across public sites from 6-15 June. The result of a two-year gestation period, this Shanghai-based initiative looks at how migration re-determines issues related to identity, gender and urban spaces.  www.ddmwarehouse.org GF

Japan

Outsider in Tokyo

A story of girls at war - of Paradises dreamed is the title of the current Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo exhibition, featuring works by the imaginative American recluse and outsider artist Henry Darger (1892-1973) on loan from the Kiyoko and Nathan Lerner Collection, USA. Until 16 July. www.haramuseum.or.jp NC

Toyo toy

April saw the unveiling of the new Toyo Ito-designed library of Tama Art University, Tokyo. It is a marvel in its handling of space, light and materials, and state-of-art facilities. If you’re in town with time to spare, consider a trip to Hachioji on Tokyo’s west side to traverse the library’s undulating floor, glass-arched facades, and neat finishes. While there you can read Art Monthly Australia featured in the periodicals display case. From there you can hop a train to Tama Art University Museum in Tama-city for their current exhibition Silpakorn University & Tama Art University Exchange Exhibition featuring Thai and Japanese artists/faculty of both institutions. Until 17 June. Visit www.tamabi.ac.jp/idd/2006/e/library.html & www.tamabi.ac.jp/museum NC

Marlene

Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo, is featuring a survey of the work of South-African expressionist painter Marlene Dumas: Light and dark 1987-2007 until 16 June, which coincides with the comprehensive Marlene Dumas – Broken White at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, the latter until 1 July. Visit www.gallerykoyanagi.com & http://dumas.jp NC

Moving on

After thirteen years as Head Curator and Artistic Director of the Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito, Japan, Eriko Osaka has recently taken up the position of Program Director at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, where visitors can anticipate her zest and experience coming to bear on exhibition programming. The comprehensive Le Corbusier: A life of creativity exhibition helps throw light on this major French architect and designer’s work as a painter in addition to his architectural work in Japan and elsewhere. Until 24 September. Visit www.mori.art.museum  NC

Hong Kong & Macao

Bridging theory and practice

Hong Kong’s Lingnan University offers two three-month residencies annually for emerging and established artists. Artists are provided with a large, light, well-equipped studio and an exhibition venue, and play an important role in the Visual Studies program, providing students with hands-on experience to complement their studies in art history and theory, and presenting lectures or master classes for the university community. Last month Lingnan’s second artist-in-residence, Jayne Dyer, exhibited Wordsforpictures, a site-specific intervention that entailed the introduction of hundreds of black butterflies and books transformed into sculptures into the library. The new artists-in-residence are Law Man Lok Davie, a local who works in a variety of media, and American ceramicist Harvey Sadow, who is currently visiting Fuping, near Xian, to produce ceramic works for the permanent collection of the new museum being built there. CA

in midair

… brings together works of art by six artists, composers and sound designers from Hong Kong and abroad. In this loud city, there are times when the experience of sound borders on an assault. Curator Yeung Yang wanted to highlight ‘the way all the sound artists in this exhibition are working with air and its movements to give shape and breathing room for sound’. Participating artists include Felix Hess, Anson Mak, Cedric Maridet, Kawai Shiu, Su-Mei Tse, Anthony Yeung Ngor-wah, Yuen Cheuk-Wa and Robert Iolini. Opens 16 June at Kapok Gallery in Tin Hau, and runs until 15 July. Artist talks are scheduled for 22 June. Exhibits are located at venues across Hong Kong, so check www.soundworkshongkong.net for details. CA

Black tiger

The exhibition Calligraphy and Seal Carvings by Luo Shu Zhong at the Macao Museum of Art displays more than 300 works of calligraphy and seal carvings created by the renowned artist. Luo Shu Zhong (1898-1969) was active in the Hong Kong and Macao art world from the 1930s onwards, and credited with the invention of the ‘black tiger’ style. Until 12 August. www.artmuseum.gov.mo. CA

Homework

… is the title of an exhibition by Australian-born Macao artist, Denis Murrell. Space is limited in Macao, and, as with Murrell’s first exhibition here in 1994, most of these works were painted at home. They combine paper, coloured inks and acrylics. From 9 to 30 June at Creative Macau. www.creativemacau.com. CA

Activist art

At the end of last year Macao’s Guia Lighthouse, a UNESCO-protected building, was in danger of being dwarfed by a proposed office tower. Artists were among those motivated to prevent this development, and last month the Ox Warehouse hosted a multi-media exhibition, Under the lighthouse. The government has now promised that views of the cherished landmark will not be affected by the new building. The current exhibition at Ox Warehouse centres on Ilha Verde, an old district slated to vanish very soon. Ilha Verde Nostalgia, a group exhibition curated by Frank Lei, mourns its passing in advance. Until 17 June. www.oxwarehousenews.blogspot.com. CA