In its tenth edition, Asia NOW celebrates the diversity of Asian contemporary art

Asia NOW, the Paris Asian Art Fair, returns for its 10th anniversary edition from October 17 - 20, 2024. Held in France at Monnaie de Paris, the art fair brings together a global selection of 65 galleries, including artists from 21 nations and territories across Asia. It will feature various site-specific installations, performance art pieces, talks and more. STIR takes a look at the fair’s programme ahead of the 2024 edition.

The works slated to be shown at the 2024 edition aim to spark conversations around broad issues, through a multitude of artistic voices from the Global South.

Asia NOW 2024 is titled Ceremony, referencing forms of traditional cultural practice and celebrating ancestral wisdom while exploring, questioning and transforming social hierarchies and power structures within Asian societies. The works slated to be shown at the 2024 edition aim to spark conversations around broad issues, through a multitude of artistic voices from the Global South.

Sumayya Vally, founder and principal, Counterspace, will present a site-specific iteration of the installation They Who Brings Rain, Brings Life, organised by independent curator Kathy Alliou. The installation is grounded in Sufism and will be activated through a series of daily performances.

Britto Arts Trust, Dhaka will present Palan & Pakghor (The Kitchen Garden and The Social Kitchen), an outdoor kitchen and garden where visitors to the fair may convene to mingle, tell stories and enjoy food and beverages. The food is prepared from recipes developed by various communities residing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as the installation was first shown there, as part of the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale.

Taiwanese artist Charwei Tsai will present a performance work previously presented in March, in the art exhibition Annica, Change, Life World, held at Licchavi House, Nepal. The work brings together over 1200 ceramic offering vessels, some containing perishable goods, meant for nourishment.

Brihatta Art Foundation will present Bangladeshi artist and educator Bishwajit Goswami's পরিচয়/Porichoy (2024), an installation and performance art piece that explores the diverse rituals between human beings and land, over generations in Bangladesh.

These are just a few of the many installations and performance works that audiences at Asia NOW 2024 can look forward to seeing at the Monnaie de Paris art centre. The art festival will have several first-time participants among its 65 gallery-strong roster. These will include Zilberman (Istanbul / Berlin / Miami), Kaikai Kiki Gallery (Tokyo), Shrine Empire (Delhi) and more. Some established galleries returning to Asia NOW are Perrotin (Paris / Dubai / New York / Hong Kong / Seoul / Tokyo / Shanghai) and Yeo Workshop (Singapore), among others. Asia NOW 2024 will also build on the success of the NOW ON section from the 2023 edition—which was launched to showcase young galleries and emerging artists—and present Square Street Gallery ( Hong Kong), A.I. (London), LKHAM (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia), biscuitgGallery (Tokyo) and IDOLON Gallery (Taipei).

Asia NOW 2024 will present the art fair’s inaugural Videoprogram, which will see Anushka Rajendran of the Prameya Art Foundation, New Delhi, present video art works from the archive of the Sharjah Art Foundation. The fair’s conversations platform will also return, featuring speakers such as Marcella Lista, Head Curator, New Media and Asia Pacific, Centre Pompidou; Devika Singh, Senior Lecturer in Curating, Courtauld Institute of Art and Alia Swastika, Director, Biennale Jogja Foundation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (and co-curator of the upcoming Sharjah Biennial 16, 2025), among others.

The overall direction of the art event is defined by the nomadic curatorial cooperative Radicants, founded by curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud in 2022. Bourriaud has co-founded and co-directed the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (1999 - 2006), has served as the Gulbenkian Curator for Contemporary Art, Tate Britain (2007 - 2010) and has held curatorial responsibilities for major art events such as the 2009 Tate Triennial, the 2014 Taipei Biennial and the 2024 Gwangju Biennale. Radicants will also be curating a group exhibition titled Ceremony, featuring Darius Dolatyari-Dolatdoust, Charwei Tsai, Rajyashri Goody and Marcos Kueh supported by Ron Mandos, Leelee Chan supported by Klemm’s, Zadie Xa supported by Thaddaeus Ropac, Trevor Yeung supported by Galerie Allen, Nil Yalter and Minja Gu supported by NIKA project space, Qian Qian supported by Richard Saltoun, Özlem Altın supported by The Pill, Yohan Han and Natsuko Uchino supported by Galerie Allen, Ariuna Bulutova, Tomoko Sauvage and Isaac Chong Wai supported by Zilberman gallery, Mohammad Alfaraj supported by ATHR Gallery, Bobby Yu Shuk Pui supported by VI, VII, Faina Yunusova supported by Jean-Claude Maier - and Ming Wong and Alice Wang supported by Capsule Shanghai.

With so much to look forward to, audiences to Asia NOW can expect a massive offering of compelling practices, from across the length and breadth of Asia.

Asia NOW 2024 will be held at Monnaie de Paris from October 17 - 20, 2024.

STIR is a media partner with Asia NOW.