From today, that is, from November 13 to 16, 2025, the 13th ART021 Shangai Contemporary Art Exhibition will return to Shangai Exhibition Center again - after 13 years of deep development, ART021 has grown from an art star to "one of the most important art fairs in Asia," and its concept of "basing on local and looking at the world" has once again been well reflected in this exhibition.
This year's ART021 brings together 141 participaing galleries and projects from 22 countries and regions, 50 cities, to build a contemporary art scene that truly transcends the definition of geography and times. In the five carefully planned units - the main gallery unit, the APPROACH unit, the detour unit, the BEYOND public unit and the special project unit - we see the rich layers of art ecology. Reson Gallery, Almin Leahy, Dana Gallery and other top international galleries have unveiled blockbuster works, along with Shangri-La Gallery, Beijing Public Commune, Key local forces such as Antenna Space formed a dialogue, while the 20 young galleries from seven countries in the APPROACH section (half of them for the first time) injected new blood into the exhibition.
In particular, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the current exhibition is more focused on the depth of culture while internationalizing. Felix Gonzalez-Torres "Untitled" (lovers), presented by the Cc Foundation for the special project unit, is not only an important work in art history, but also creates a contemplative space in the classic space of the Shangai Exhibition Center. This in-depth presentation of the cultural connotation of the works reflects the mature transformation of ART021 from a commercial platform to a cultural platform.
Judging from the geopgraphical distribution of the exhibition lineup, the rise of Asian art power is particularly noticeable. In addition to the strong lineup of local Chinese galleries from Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia and other regions have brought various cultural expressions, demonstrating the diversity and vitality of contemporary Asian art.
In an inclusive and forward-looking platform, Art Basel focuses its attention on four female artists working in diverse cultural contexts - In very different artistic languages, they are engaged in a common practice : making the invisible appear, making the masked appear, and making the world visible again.
"Imaging Four Ways to Make the World Visible"
Contemporary female artists' "manifestation" brings the invisible to life, the hiden to life, and the world back to being visible - in a more authentic, complex, and essential way. Like the fairies of the Eastern myths, they did not wave the dust of the myth, but rather the brushes, needles, symbols, and persistent labor, but they also allowed everything to reveal its true form, and the truth to escape nowhere. In Eastern whimsical stories, fairies could prototype everyday things with just a flick of dust : treasures turned into stones on the ground, or gorgeous dresses turned into old linen. In the Western darkroom, the liquid allowed the hidden image on the film to gradually emerge - the original blank negatives, in chemical reactions, reveal light, shadow, outline, detail, and finally form a complete picture.
These two "representations," one from myth and one from science, point to the same truth: that the world is far more complex than we see, that reality is often hidden beneath everyday appearances and requires some special force to be revealed.
And female artists may naturally have this ability to "show" themselves. Not because of myth or magic, but because of the long-term position of being seen rather than seeing, women develop a more perceptive capacity - they see overlooked details, they perceive pent-up emotions, they sense masked violence. They know that what is "invisible" is often the real thing : the penetration of technology into everyday life, the sublte connection of emotions, the invisible operation of discipline, the silent passage of time.
In this era of images, we think we see everything. The endlees array of photos, short videos, live streams on social meida plunges us into the illusion of "over-visibility." But real artists know that underneath this "too much" appearance, too much is hidden, ignored, and taken for granted.
The female artist's "apparitions" are precisely to make these invisible people appear - not by magic, but by more detailed observation, deeper perception, and more persistent labor. Their creation is not decoration, not glorification, but revealing; their work is not an illusion, but a catalyst for the truth to emerge.
"HDM Gallery & Joe Fish The Primitive Truth of the body and the Emotions Shown"
Jo Fish was s sports teenager, and five hours of training a day allowed her to develop an instinctive perception of the "movement and limits of the body." However, after graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in art and design, and moving to New York to establish a creative space near Basquiat's old studio, this perception of the body was transformed into an artistic language: she aimed to reveal the "primordial emotions" that were often overshadowed by daily life.
In her canvas paitings, the torso and limbs are broken down, twisted and streched to create "impossible poses." This is not a formal display, but rather a "manifestation" - a way for the body to manifest itself as it really is : disciplined, repressed, alienated, but also free and powerful.
Fish explicitly refuses to use personal memories or real situations as a blueprint for her work, instead using imagination as an anchor to explore "pure, primal emotions." She tries to transform abstract emotions into visual signs ; "The acidity of lemons" is conveyed by the degree of saturation; "The angry kick" is expressed by the body tension, and "Observe the sernity of leaves" is interpreted by the density of lines.
This search for "original emotions" requires a special sensitivity. Under the influence of modern art masters susch as de Kooning and Bacon, she blended the multi-perspective switch of stereotism with surrealist color block backgrounds to create a unique texture that was "twisted and happy disconnected." What she wants to show is not superficial emotions, but the "original truths" that are hidden by civilization, by upbringing, by discipline.
Female artists may have a unique advantage in this representation - because women's bodies have long been expected to be "graceful," "suitable" and "normative", and they are more aware of the power ther release when liberated, distorted, and redefined. Fish uses her paintbrush to show this power.
Bath Art : You've been a dedicated athlete, and five hours of training a day gives you a profound experience of being disciplined by your body. Arte those "impossible gestures" in your work a revolt against this discipline? How do you see the relationship between "physical freedom" and "physical control"?
Joe Fish: It's interesting that a lot of viewers are paying more attention to this connection than I am personally. But I think if enough people see this, you have to start paying attention to it. So I wanted to say it could be. This isn't necessarily a discipline in a concptual sense, but it's probably the way I feel and see the body naturally. I know what it's like to push myself to the limit physically, to the limit disorted to the limit, and now I do it mentally. It wasn't a conscious choice, maybe I trained for that, or maybe I was able to trained for that in that way because that's who I am, it's hard to say (...).
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