Market Forces is an annual event that is part of Osage’s non-profit initiative. The basis of the event is to question ‘value’: the 2012 ‘Market Forces, Whither Contemporary Art?’ asked whether we could find new paradigms for intellectual and artistic inquiry and debate, and for 2013, ‘Market Forces: The Friction of Opposites’ emphasized value in terms of moral or societal notions. For 2014, we have invited veteran curator Charles Merewether to curate the third ‘Market Forces; Erasure: From Conceptualism to Abstraction’ will be spread over two locations including Osage Hong Kong and City University. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a symposium moderated by David Elliot, entitled ‘Art and Values’ where invited speakers Jens Hoffmann, Biljana Ciric, Charles Merewether, Kurt Chan and Enin Supriyanto will examine the increasingly over-determined economic interpretation of the value of art. Both events are co-presented by City University of Hong Kong as part of the university’s 30th anniversary celebratory events.

The basis of the exhibition is to question ‘value’ as assigned or measured by the global art markets; more specifically, it aims to critically engage with the increasingly pervasive conflation of aesthetic value with market price – a phenomena which has been exacerbated by the booming contemporary market’s general tendency to favour particular media, styles and ‘brands’. Art in this case is reduced to a vehicle for representation rather than a basis for exploring ideas and issues or a way of engaging with the world through the senses; in other words, subject matter takes precedence over the concept and materiality of works. The exhibition will feature artists from Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand. The creation of object based and conceptual work rooted in this region has a history that is often overlooked, and such work remains, to a certain extent, unexplored. The exhibitions will thus tease out the intrinsic aesthetic value and connections between works and practices in the region.

Artists:

Hong Kong: Au Hoi Lam, Tang Kwok Hin
China: Song Dong, Yu Ji, Zhao Zhao
Singapore: Ng Joon Kiat, Milenko Prvački, Jeremy Sharma, Grace Tan, Ian Woo
Philippines: Ringo Bunoan, Nilo Ilarde, Bernardo Pacquing, Maria Taniguchi
Japan: Masanori Handa, Kishio Suga
South Korea: Shin Il Kim, Young Rim Lee, Mee Ai Om
Indonesia: FX Harsono, Tintin Wulia
Thailand: Nipan Oranniwesna

-Osage Art Foundation

Image: © Young Rim Lee
Four Gray Boxes
2013
acrylic and wood stain, wall paint on fibreboard
65 x 66 cm

Image courtesy of the artist and Space Cottonseed