2021 – India

Jyoti Bhatt

Born in 1934 in Bhavnagar Gujarat, Jyoti Bhatt was influenced by his father’s Gandhian philosophy while growing up. He came to Baroda and studied painting from 1950 to 1959 at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University Baroda under N. S. Bendre, K. G. Subramanyan, and Sankho Chaudhuri. He joined his alma mater to teach painting from 1959 to 1992. He received scholarships between 1959 and 1966 to travel to Europe and the United States. In 1962 he became a founding member of Group 1890. He has extensively engaged with printmaking and digital media and is an internationally acclaimed photographer, whose archival material of the living traditions of tribal and rural visual arts is historically significant. Since 1959, Jyoti Bhatt has been a commentator on cultural practices through his essays and articles published in vernacular and English periodicals. His art has been exhibited internationally, is in public and private collections, and is the subject of six monographs, among other important publications. He is a recipient of national and international awards, including the Padma Shri, the Kalidas Samman, an Honorary Doctorate, and five lifetime achievement awards. Jyoti Bhatt attributes his sustained engagement as an artist to the guidance of his teachers, the support of his friends, the curiosity of students, the journey of parenting, and the love and friendship of his partner ceramist, the late Jyotsna Bhatt. He lives and works in Baroda, and despite fragile health and failing eyesight continuous to work every day in his studio.

 

Hamra Abbas

Hamra Abbas is an interdisciplinary artist known for her diverse practice that ranges from marble-inlay sculptures and miniature silk paintings to color and light installations. Abbas has used Mughal architecture, religious and vernacular iconography, and portraiture to address notions of cultural memory, sexuality, and faith. Her recent works largely focus on the image of a garden and aesthetics of devotion to question the ideals of truth and perfection. After living for many years in Berlin and Boston, her recent move back to Lahore has greatly influenced her work. She has participated in the inaugural Asia Society Triennial, New York (2020) and Lahore Biennale, Pakistan (2018); 2nd Karachi Biennale, Pakistan (2019); 2nd Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India (2014); Changwon Sculpture Biennale, South Korea (2014); deCordova Biennial, US (2013); Asian Art Biennial, Taiwan (2011); 9th Sharjah Biennial, UAE (2009); 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, China (2008); 10th International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2007); and 15th Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2006). Abbas has taken part in group shows at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2017); Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein (2014); Nelson-Atkins Art Museum, Kansas (2013); Singapore Art Museum (2012); REDCAT, Los Angeles (2009); MAXXI, Rome (2016); ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2016); Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou (2011); Asia Society Museum, New York (2009); Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2009); and Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2009).

 

Sohrab Hura

Sohrab Hura is a photographer and filmmaker. His work lies at the intersection of film, photography, sound, and text. By constantly experimenting with form and using a journal-like approach, many of his works attempt to question a constantly shifting world and his place within it. His work has been exhibited at the Liverpool Biennial (2021); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2021, 2019); Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata (2020); the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020); Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (2019); and Cincinnati Art Museum (2019). His films have been widely shown in international film festivals. The Coast (2020) premiered at Berlinale 2021 while Bittersweet (2019) was awarded the Principal Prize of the International Jury at the 66th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2020. The Lost Head & The Bird (2017) had previously won the NRW Award at the 64th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen 2018. Hura has self-published five books under the imprint UGLY DOG. His book The Coast (2019) won the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook of the Year Award in 2019. The exhibition Growing Like A Tree (2021) opened in January 2021 at Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai, marking his inaugural curatorial project. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Ishara Art Foundation; Cincinnati Art Museum; and other private and public collections. Hura lives and works in New Delhi, India.

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2021

Dr. Uli Sigg

Dr. Uli Sigg is one of the leading collectors and champions of contemporary Chinese art. He received a PhD from the law faculty of the Universität Zürich. Dr. Sigg served as Vice Chairman of the Schindler Group, establishing the first joint venture between China and the West in 1980. From 1995 to 1999 he was Swiss ambassador to China, North Korea, and Mongolia. During this period, Dr. Sigg began collecting contemporary Chinese art, eventually amassing more than twenty-five hundred works that have been exhibited internationally. In 2012, he gifted over half his collection to M+, Hong Kong. His significant contributions to the field include founding the Chinese Contemporary Art Award in 1997 (known as the Sigg Prize since 2020) and the CCAA Art Critic Award. Dr. Sigg is on the boards of Asia Society Switzerland and M+; the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the International Advisory Council of Tate, London.

 

Parviz Tanavoli

Parviz Tanavoli is an Iranian painter, sculptor, and poet known for his iconic heech sculptures. The artist graduated from Brera Academy in Milan in 1959. Tanavoli was a founding member of the Saqqakhaneh school, the first modern art movement in Iran. His practice incorporates modernist aesthetics with traditional motifs including handicrafts and Persian literature. Tanavoli has exhibited at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2017 and 2003); Tate Modern, London (2015); Asia Society Museum, New York (2013); the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); the British Museum, London (2011); Minneapolis Institute of Art (1962); and the Venice Biennale (1958). His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the British Museum; Tate Modern; Museum of Modern Art, Vienna; the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi; Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art; and National Museum of Qatar, Doha, among others. He served as a professor at the Tehran College of Decorative Arts and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and as the head of the sculpture department at the University of Tehran.

 

Zarina

Zarina was a printmaker whose minimal compositions reflect her mathematics training and interest in architecture. Her work references notions of home, borders, displacement, and memory while her use of calligraphic inscriptions in Urdu demonstrates the vital role language plays in her work. Zarina received a BS from Aligarh Muslim University in 1958 and studied printmaking in Bangkok, Tokyo, and Paris before settling in New York. She was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2012), which traveled to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago (2013). She participated in the Venice Biennale (2011) and was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2019–2020). Her work is in the collections of Tate Modern, London; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Menil Collection, Houston, among others.

 

Zhang Huan

Zhang Huan is best known for his provocative durational performances and as a pioneering founder of the Beijing East Village group. He received an MA from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, in 1993. His practice spans large-scale participatory performances, sculpture, installation, and painting that often addresses Chinese culture and history. He was the subject of a retrospective at Asia Society Museum, New York (2007), which traveled to Vancouver Art Gallery (2008). Zhang has exhibited at the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (2020); the National Gallery of Singapore (2019); Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (2018); MoMA PS1, New York (2018); M+, Hong Kong (2015); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (2012); Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2011); Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (2010); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2007). His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Louvre Abu Dhabi; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and Shanghai Art Museum.

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2020 – India

Tiffany Chung

Tiffany Chung is internationally renowned for her research-based multimedia installations and detailed cartographic works that examine conflict, migration, and urban transformation through the lens of geopolitical and environmental traumas. The artist was awarded the Sharjah Biennial Artist Prize in 2013. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. (2019); Asia Society Texas Center, Houston (2018); Gwangju Biennale (2018); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2016); the 56th Venice Biennale (2015); and the 11th Sharjah Biennial (2013). Chung is a cofounder of Sàn Art in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

Prabhakar Pachpute

Prabhakar Pachpute’s multidisciplinary practice includes drawing, stop-motion animation, installation, and sculpture. His choice of charcoal as a medium relates directly to his family’s history as coalminers. The artist combines personal experience with in-depth research to explore the complexity of socioeconomic and environmental transformations around the world. Pachpute’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at the 4th Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018); Asia Culture Center, Gwangju (2017); Para Site, Hong Kong (2017); National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai (2016); the 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015); and the 31st São Paulo Biennial (2014). He is a member of Shunya Collective, founded in Mumbai in 2012.

 

Vivan Sundaram

Vivan Sundaram works across the mediums of painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. His work has long been informed by contemporary political events relating to anticolonial struggles, migration, exile, violence, and war. He has exhibited internationally including at the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2018); Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi (2018); the 16th Biennale of Sydney (2008); Tate Modern, London (2007); the 7th Sharjah Biennale (2005); the 2nd Gwangju Biennale (1997); The 2nd Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane (1996); National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi (1994); and Royal Academy of Arts, London (1967). He is a founding member of SAHMAT, a collective formed in 1989 to promote artistic freedom.

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2019 – Hong Kong

Christine Ay Tjoe

Christine Ay Tjoe is an Indonesian artist whose multimedia practice includes painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. Her psychologically-charged abstractions address philosophical themes relating to spirituality and the human condition filtered through the artist’s personal experiences. Ay Tjoe recently had a major midcareer retrospective at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2018) and has been featured in many international exhibitions, including at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2017); National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung (2012); National Gallery of Indonesia, Jakarta (2009); and Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (2005).

 

Fang Lijun

Fang Lijun is one of the leading figures of the Cynical Realism movement that emerged in China in the 1990s. This group sought to capture the disillusionment of China’s youth following the optimism of the 1980s. Fang’s bald figures, captured in mid-yawn, portray the alienating feelings of apathy and helplessness that permeated contemporary society during this period. Fang has exhibited internationally, including at the Kunst Museum Bern (2016); Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2011); Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2009); the 48th Venice Biennale (1999); Asia Society Museum, New York (1998); and the 22nd São Paulo Art Biennial (1994).

 

Imran Qureshi

Imran Qureshi is renowned for his site-specific paintings, installations, and videos created in the style of Indo-Persian miniature painting as a means to explore contemporary socio-political themes. His elegant miniatures often juxtapose figures in modern dress against ornate landscapes that reflect contemporary life in Pakistan while his large-scale works feature red leaves and floral patterns that are meant to provoke thoughtful reflection on the sometimes tenuous and often bloody relationship between religious ideologies and warfare. Qureshi has exhibited internationally, including at The Curve, Barbican Centre, London (2016); the 55th Venice Biennale (2013); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013); the 10th Sharjah Biennial (2011); and Asia Society Museum, New York (2009).

 

Natee Utarit

Natee Utarit is a Thai artist best known for his photorealist paintings that subtly critique the socio-political dynamics of post-colonial Thailand. His neoclassical compositions often feature biblical and Buddhist symbols and anthropomorphize animals in the manner of Aesop’s Fables and George Orwell’s Animal Farm as a means to illuminate uncomfortable truths about contemporary society. Utarit’s work has been the subject of international solo and group exhibitions including at the Ayala Museum, Manila (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art (now Kiasma), Helsinki (2001); and the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (1999).

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2019 – India

Vibha Galhotra

Vibha Galhotra is best known for her large-scale, research-based projects that confront the evolution of physical and cultural geographies due to globalization and nation-building. Galhotra is a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council fellowship (2017), The Rockefeller Foundation grant (2016), and the Fine Arts Award from Inlaks Shivadasani Foundation (2006). Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions including Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi (2018); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2018); Land Art Mongolia (2016); and San Jose Museum of Art (2011). Her work is also in the collections of Singapore Art Museum; Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; and Seattle Art Museum.

 

Akbar Padamsee

Akbar Padamsee’s illustrious career includes accomplishments in painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and film. He studied at the Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai and lived in France from 1951 to 1967 before returning to India. Padamsee’s interest in Sanskrit writing culminated in his signature series of abstract landscape paintings titled “metascapes” that he began in the 1970s. He has received the Padama Bhushan from the Government of India (2010) and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (1965). His work has been exhibited at Asia Society Museum, New York (2018); National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi (1991); Royal Academy of Arts, London (1982); São Paulo Biennale (1959); and Venice Biennale (1953 and 1955).

 

Gulammohammed Sheikh

Gulammohammed Sheikh is a painter, art historian, and writer who serves as Professor Emeritus of Art History and Painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Sheikh, who is influenced by the work of fifteenth-century mystic poet Kabir, draws from literature in his paintings to pose questions regarding art and life. His work combines diverse painting traditions, including Sienese and Mughal art, with personal photographs and images from mass media to construct a narrative that juxtaposes political events, news stories, and everyday life. Sheikh has participated in major exhibitions including at Asia Society Museum, New York (2005); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1985); and National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi (1971, 1993, and 1999).

 

Yang Yongliang

Yang Yongliang‘s multifaceted practice melds traditional East Asian aesthetics with digital technology as a means to comment on the rapid changes occurring within Chinese society in the last few decades. The artist’s signature black-and-white photo collages and video montages utilize appropriated imagery from building sites and cityscapes to reconstruct the gentrification of Shanghai and other Chinese major cities in the style of Song- and Yuan-dynasty landscape paintings. Yang’s work has been exhibited at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (2015); the 5th Moscow Biennale (2013); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013); and Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2012).

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2018 – Hong Kong

Subodh Gupta

Subodh Gupta draws from a diverse range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, and video in his practice. Gupta is best known for his use of the mass-produced stainless steel and brass cooking vessels ubiquitous throughout India, which he transforms into monumental sculptural installations that explore migration, globalization, and the social repercussions of economic development. Gupta has held solo exhibitions at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, D.C. (2017); and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2015). He has participated in Performa 13, New York (2013); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, (2012); and the 51st Venice Biennale (2005). In 2018, Monnaie de Paris will present a retrospective exhibition of the artist.

 

Shirazeh Houshiary

Shirazeh Houshiary, a member of the New British Sculpture movement in the 1980s, employs painting, sculpture, and video installations, often incorporating elements of Islamic texts and imagery, including Sufi poetry, as a means to ruminate on the intangible nature of spirituality and our common humanity. Her work was included in the groundbreaking exhibition “Magiciens de la Terre” at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1989). She has had solo exhibitions at Tate Liverpool (2003) and the British Museum (1997). Her work has been featured in the 57th Venice Biennale (2017); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006); Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (2004); and São Paulo Biennial (1996). Houshiary was shortlisted for the Tate Modern’s prestigious Turner Prize in 1994.

 

Ju Ming

Ju Ming has been lauded as one of the most celebrated sculptors from Taiwan for his minimal yet fluid aesthetic. His signature reductive style is best illustrated in his acclaimed Taichi Series and Living World Series, created in a diverse range of mediums including wood, iron, bronze, and stainless steel. Ju has been the recipient of solo exhibitions at the Hong Kong Museum of Art (2014); the National Art Museum of China (2010); the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung (2006); and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Yorkshire (1991). A permanent museum dedicated to the artist was founded in 1999 in Chinshan, Taiwan.

 

Park Seo-Bo

Park Seo-Bo is a seminal figure in Korean contemporary art and a founding member of the Dansaekhwa movement in the 1960s, which defined postwar Korean abstract painting. Park is best known for his ongoing Ecriture series which he began in 1967. His minimalist paintings have evolved with time to feature meticulously inscribed surfaces that he builds up with acrylic and Korean hanji paper, emphasizing the materiality of the painting while evoking a Taoist sense of pure emptiness. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at the Daegu Art Museum (2012) and Tate Liverpool (1992), and group exhibitions at the Carlo Bilotti Museum, Rome (2013); and the 43rd Venice Biennale (1988).

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2018 – India

Kochi Biennale Foundation

Bose Krishnamachari and Riyas Komu, critically acclaimed artists in their own right, co-founded the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) in 2010 on the conviction that art is essential to contemporary society. KBF is a non-profit organization engaged in promoting art and culture and educational activities in India, most notably the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, with a goal to strengthen contemporary art infrastructures and to broaden public access to art across India. The Biennale seeks to encourage appreciation for artistic expression and its relationship to society and protect the autonomy of artistic pursuits. The Foundation organizes a broad range of ongoing educational and outreach initiatives with a focus on the artistic development of art students and children across India.

 

Benitha Perciyal

Benitha Perciyal has developed a distinctive approach to sculpture that incorporates her Christian background to explore organized religion and the role faith plays within contemporary society. Her figurative assemblages are often created using herbs and oils that are used to make incense such as myrrh, cinnamon, frankincense, lemongrass, and bark powder, which she casts into iconographic forms. These often fragmented objects represent the ephemerality of our physical existence and the fragility of religious faith in the 21st century. Perciyal's work has been featured in the second Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2014) and the First Yinchuan Biennale (2016), and most recently in the group exhibition Mémories des futurs: Modernités indiennes, organized by the Centre Pompidou Paris (2017–2018).

 

Arpita Singh

Arpita Singh is celebrated for her multidisciplinary practice, spanning over five decades, that astutely documents cultural shifts found across contemporary life in India in response to the country’s socio-economic rise. Her work often incorporates elements of traditional Indian culture including miniature painting, textiles, folk art and mythology filtered through a feminine perspective. In the 1990s Singh explored the politics of female identity through the poignancy of ageing bodies, contesting conventional aesthetics of female sexuality. Singh's work has been exhibited at Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (1993); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1986); and the Royal Academy of Arts, London (1982) among others. She has participated in the Havana Biennale (1987) and the 3rd and 4th Triennial–India, New Delhi (1977 and 1980) and was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the Republic of India in 2011.

 

Sun Xun

Sun Xun’s artistic practice combines meticulous craftsmanship with stylistic experimentation, blurring the lines between drawing, painting, animation, and installation. His signature animated new media works explore themes of global history, culture, memory, and politics with a focus on the subjective nature of history and the disconnect between personal experience and officially recorded events. The artist established π Animation Studio in 2006. Sun’s work has been the subject of solo and group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (2017); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016); 10th Shanghai Biennial (2014); and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2014). He is a recipient of the Award of Art China: Young Artist of the Year (2014).

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2017 – Hong Kong

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2017 – India

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2016 – Hong Kong

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2015 – Hong Kong

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2014 – Hong Kong

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2013 – Hong Kong