The 10th edition of the Asia NOW - Paris Asian Art Fair saw the Monnaie de Paris become the site of a dialogue on the theme of Ceremony. Guest curators Radicants, a curatorial collective founded by Nicolas Bourriaud, invited artists to create art inspired by the significance of everyday ritual observances, festivals and the power of ceremonial art forms to unify a community. This year, the art fair collaborated with 71 international galleries and 135 artists from 28 regions in an eclectic programme featuring performances, talks, video art, site-specific art and contemporary art. Here, STIR looks back at the 10th anniversary edition of Asia NOW, held from October 17-20, 2024 in Paris, France.

Enormous tapestries floating down from high ceilings welcomed visitors into the historic venue. These colourful installations by Malaysian artist Marcos Kueh, presented by Galerie Ron Mandos, explored the significance of traditional craft in the modern day as it contends with the influence of the Western gaze and technological capitalism. Outdoors, the performance Magic Maids: Sweeping Sisters by Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera, presented by The Columns Gallery, paired the archetypes of the maid and the witch in a critique of the exploitation of women as domestic workers, bridging Asian migrant histories and the legacy of European witch hunts.

The interrogation and reinterpretation of ceremonial and traditional crafts continued from the main exhibitions to gallery booths such as that of the Japanese craft festival Go for Kogei. Collective Action by artist Yoshida Shinichiro and curator Akimoto Yuji presented The Mingei Spirit: Minimalist by Nature, which showcased 19th century mingei textiles made from natural fibres such as hemp, highlighting their significance as works of art and as a source of inspiration for modern natural textiles.

A staggering range of contrasting mediums and perspectives proliferated throughout the fair. The gallery By Lara Sedbon, for example, displayed French artist Zoé Thonet’s abstract, organic sculptures against artist Zélie Nguyen’s highly symbolic oil paintings. The juxtaposition of art inspired respectively by science-fiction and traditional Japanese prints created a visual dialogue between imagination and memory. Gallery quand les fleurs nous sauvent (When Flowers Save Us) presented a solo exhibition of South Korean artist, Junseok Mo, who pushes and pulls on spatial, social and geographical boundaries in his work. His characteristic architectural forms find expression in watercolour, metal wire sculptures and Augmented Reality (AR).

Food, an integral part of ceremonies, inspired many artists who turned their attention to culinary art and communal food history. NIKA Project Space, for example, exhibited Sour Things: The Pantry by Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh. The exhibition focused on food preservation, an ancient and pan-cultural practice that connects modern pantries with cultural food heritage. She explored these practices of preservation and how they survive and change under the threat of displacement and erasure as a result of modern conflicts.

Vietnamese artist Duy-Manh Nguyen, meanwhile, turned his attention to the vessels traditionally used for serving. In ceramic works from his series Hồn Xiêu – Phách Lạc (Wandering Souls – Lost Spirits), he fragments, breaks and recombines traditional cultural ceramics in a meditation on the vulnerability of the values they symbolise. Galerie BAO juxtaposes these with the artworks of Trương Công Tùng in the two-person show Untamed Souls. Tùng’s work As time passes through shadows (2023-ongoing), consists of 18 lacquer paintings on terracotta, that rely on the careful palimpsest-like layering of symbols in a tribute to his childhood in the Vietnamese highlands and the volatile nature of memory.

The presentation of works was supported by a talks programme with global artists and curators. In the talk Ceremonies of Interdependence, for example, artists Mirna Bamieh, Yao Qingmei and Isaac Chong Wai discussed community and relationality with moderators Nicolas Bourriaud and Alexander Burenkov of Radicants. Other talks centred around particular artists, regions and art movements in Asia highlighted the richness of the continent’s art scene and its many perspectives. Meanwhile, a day of debates hosted by the activist art collective Thanks for Nothing foregrounded discussions on activist art, pedagogy and the future of the globalised art world.

Asia NOW served as a platform for Asian galleries to reach a global audience of collectors and visitors and provide increased exposure for their represented artists. For example, Inna Art Space showcased Chinese art by four emerging artists—Dongfan Chen, Yuchu Gao, Xinyi Liu and Wenfeng Liao. The artworks ranged from large, expressive canvases to narrow charcoal drawings, small and delicate paintings of orchids and abstract experiments with tactile materials, exposing an international audience to the multiplicity of Asian art.

Of the featured galleries, 28 were first-time exhibitors, including the Prameya Art Foundation (PRAF), a nomadic non-profit organisation for the arts based in New Delhi. They presented ink paintings and screen prints by Indian artist Anupam Roy in All trees and flowering plants stand on their own, an exhibition curated by Anushka Rajendran. The exhibition, like the eponymously titled poem by Binoy Majumdar, focuses on the interdependence of land and the people who call it home, challenging romantic notions of traditional landscape paintings. Rajendran also curated Asia NOW's first video programme, which featured works from the foundation’s archive by artists like Nil Yalter, Rain Wu, Bobby Yu Shuk Pui and Lap-See Lam.

The timeliness of the theme and programme was highlighted by Asia NOW's founder and director, Alexandra Fain, who said, “This anniversary edition, marked by the theme of ceremony and ritual, reaffirmed the importance and vitality of creativity in this vast part of the world, which has been undergoing major economic and cultural development for several years.”

STIR is a media partner with Asia NOW 2024.

(Text by STIR intern Srishti Ojha)