For Art Basel Hong Kong, This Gallery’s Approach is Old Meets New Thaddaeus Ropac is showcasing artists like Heemin Chung, Zadie Xa and Hans Josephsohn
By David Belcher
On a recent springlike afternoon in the Hannam-dong neighborhood, amid the embassies and art galleries that stretch along the hilly streets near the Han River, the Korean artist Heemin Chung had a few thoughts about a wet marigold.
“As an artist, I try to reimagine objects or scenery, and I encountered this flower in the rain one day and I thought it was vivid,” Ms. Chung said in an interview at the Thaddaeus Ropac Seoul gallery describing the inspiration for her 2023 painting “Marigold in June.” “I wanted to represent this wet marigold but not in a way that is typical. It was vivid in a different way to me. I felt a sense of distance.”
That painting will be one of several pieces on display at the Thaddaeus Ropac booth at Art Basel Hong Kong, March 28-30, this year along with the works of the Korean Canadian artist Zadie Xa (and more than 15 other artists). There will also be a sculpture by a Swiss artist who the gallery feels is ripe for discovery in Asia more than a decade after his death.
Bringing works by Ms. Chung and Ms. Xa to Art Basel Hong Kong seems fitting, given its global reputation for championing Asian artists, but the announcement this month that the gallery will represent the estate of the sculptor, Hans Josephsohn, is a chance to introduce a piece of history to the Asian market, according to gallery executives. Mr. Josephsohn, who died in 2012 at 92, is known in some European art circles but is considered virtually unknown in Asia.
That juxtaposition of old meets new, Europe meets Asia, is an exciting proposition for the Thaddaeus Ropac group, which opened its Seoul gallery in 2021 (joining others in London, New York and Salzburg, Austria). And for Ms. Chung, who often focuses on bridging the gap between the technological world and the natural world, the wet marigold seems ideally suited to the moment.
“I get inspiration from nature, from reading, from many mediums, and this process is really important to me as an artist and as a human being,” she said. “It’s not really about the impression, but how I convey what I see and feel.”
This approach also informs the works of Ms. Xa, 40, in ways that she would never have imagined growing up in Vancouver, British Columbia (she has lived in London since 2012). The painting “Grandmother Mountain,” which will travel to Hong Kong, has roots squarely in Asia and was created for an exhibition of her works at the Space K gallery in Seoul last year. It’s an homage to her ancestral roots in the Korean Peninsula.
“For the past seven years I’ve been really interested in grandmother figures or elderly women, particularly because I kind of stumbled upon this forgotten creation myth in Korea about Mago or Grandmother Mago,” Ms. Xa said in a recent video interview from her London studio. “It’s a story of a giant goddess who created the land formations and fortresses and rivers in East Asia.”
Her oil-on-canvas painting depicts such a goddess, surrounded by a patchwork of colors, mountains and clouds, with a tiger and birdlike images. “The Grandmother Mago figure is venerated, and there are still shrines within Korea and the mountains where people go and make offerings to and pray to,” Ms. Xa said. “One of the things that I found interesting is in Korean mythology a lot of creation myth stories center around male deities. This was a way to venerate and try to in some ways pay homage to the Grandmother Mago figure.”
Alongside that figure, in a swirl of background imagery, are characters equally compelling to her as an artist and observer of nature. The tiger keeps company with less exotic animals in the painting, such as a sea gull.
“I’m quite interested in urban animals that are downtrodden and maligned within society, which is I think why I’ve always really loved sea gulls,” said Ms. Xa, who will have a solo exhibition titled “Rough Hands Weave a Knife” at the Ropac gallery’s Paris space from April 12 to May 26. “Sea gulls have a connection to the supernatural. Sailors would often pay attention to the way they behaved to understand what will be happening with the weather.”
That philosophy could certainly apply to the works of Mr. Josephsohn. The gallery hopes to demonstrate the power of his artistry and lift the veil on his obscurity among modern art collectors. One of his brass sculptures, “Untitled (Lola),” from 2002, will go to Hong Kong.
