El Zorro: Art Basel 2015.13

Cont'd

Take me to the mardi gras (in his study) 2015: oil on canvas by Takeo Hanazawa (b. 1977) Japanese painter and installation artist, a painting with obvious Freudian implications.

Consume (消化) 2014 in stainless steel and titanium by Gao Weigang (高偉剛) (b. 1976) a Chinese artist from Heilongjiang associated with Ay Wei-wei, working in painting, sculpture, installation and performance art is constantly experimenting his artistic language, pushing the boundaries of painting into both sculpture and installation,rupturing our conventional perspective on specific topics and bringing the spectators into the space of his work, emphasizing more the meaning and concepts behind his artistic creations than craftsmanship. He won the "Arts Future Award" in Art HK 2011. This is what he says about this metallic structure: " In Hong Kong, one of the world's most famous ports, the container is a popular mode of transportation but is often ignored. The main structure of "Consume" is altered from a container but is in sharp contrast to it. The bridge-like structure has an arched back, the raised medium section is made of stainless steel and titanium and has been polished gold. Almost everything in our daily life were stored in containers and are delivered to us via the container from different parts of the world and are then repacked with new goods and sent to the next stop, thus each stop is a starting point in an endless cycle. Goods and commodities with the associated message run into our desires and are then inter-packed, exchanged or despatched. Like our thoughts and our lives, they engage in an endless round of exchanges of rampant moods and objects , mostly useless and meaningless. Do we really need to consume so much garbage? "

7 works by James Rosenquist (b. 1933), an American pop artist

Alkahest 2013 in oil, salt, emulsion, shellac, charcoal and an iron balance on a photograph on a cardboard by German painter and sculptor Anslem Kiefer (b 1945) working on such as straw, ash clay, lead, shellac, charcoal, often in huge works which deals with taboos of the past like various people and places associated with Nazism and his style has been described as a New Symbolism.

Ohne Titel (Untitled) 2014: India ink and ink on paper by Georg Baselitz (b.1933), German expressionist artist

another untitled work in 2014 by the same artist

A Chinese artist completing his huge drawing about ubran life in ink

State of Being (Bird) 2015 in plexiglass, stuffed bird and black thread by Chiharu Shiota (塩田千春)(b. 1972) Japanese installation artist working in Berlin since 1996 using various everyday objects like beds, windows, dresses, shoes and suitcases to explore the relationships between past and present, living and dying, and memories of people implanted into objects, linking them to intricate, web-like threads of black and red.

State of Being (Anatomy Book) 2013 in metal, fold out book and white thread, another work by the same artist.

Details of the human figure below the painting

Laughing figures by Yu Min Jun (岳敏君) (b. 1962) a Chinese painter from Heilongjiang known for his oil paintings, sculpture, watercolor and prints depicting himself frozen in laughter classifed by some as belonging to the Cynical Realist movement in art, developed in China since 1989, a label he rejects.. The figures are now divided with two heads and the body tied up like a sack.

Photocopier within metal cage

Place Vendóme No. 18 2014: wooden scale model and paint by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata (川俣正)((b.1953): head cut off from statue with yellow blood?

Bracing Girl 2013 paint on wood and acrylic by Tanada Koji (棚田康司) (b. 1968)

3 Legged Torso 1 2013 paint and acrylic on single wood block by the same artist

Two more wood sculptures by him

You and Mountain 2011 crayon, color pencil on paper by Japanese artist O Jun (块巡)

Performance art?

A bear with pink feathers?

Two installations

Les Spectateurs (Man and Woman) (袖手旁觀: 男與女) 1999 by wood sculptor Wang Keping( 王克平) (b. 1949) who became famous with his work Idol, a small Buddha with the face of Mao. In 1984, he moved to France with his French wife Catherine Dezaly (who had taught in Beijing) and began crafting more naturalistic sculptures, concentrating on works with five themes: women, men, couples, birds and pure forms. In these two sculptures, he worked on natural trees, making use of their knots and grains in which the woman towers over the man as he saw them as maternal, erotic and spiritual beings and men more as physical beasts, seeing man as yang and woman as yin. In the background is a giant Chinese ink painting Beholding the Mountain with Awe No. 1 2008-2009 by Xu Longsen (除龍森) based on the phrase (高山仰止) in the Book of Songs (詩經). He says that he often wondered how it would feel if he found himself before a huge mountain. Then he went to Huashan (華山) in 2007 and stood on a precipice. He was shocked by its grandeur, its sense of serenity and its mysterious power. Feeling both gitated and intoxicated , he experienced for the first time a sense of merging into Nature. After a long period of reflection, he made this painting to try to show stroke by stroke the sense of harmony and unity between man and Nature as a record of such an experience.