Wu Jianru

Dec 6, 2024 | artforum.com | Wu Jianru |Zian Chen |Eve Hill-Agnus

On the 4th Bangkok Art BiennaleI ALIGHTED FROM THE BTS SKYTRAIN at exactly 3 PM. The contrast between the refrigerated air inside the train and the station’s cemented heat quickly evaporated my midday drowsiness and sharpened my awareness: Bangkok, with its cacophonous and seditious logic-in-chaos. As I descended into the rambunctious streets below, street vendors dotted the pavement, selling sliced watermelon, Isan sausages, and lunchboxes.

Dec 2, 2024 | artforum.com | Wu Jianru |Zian Chen |Eve Hill-Agnus |Agata Pyzik

On Art Week Tokyo 2024Tokyo’s contemporary art scene remains enigmatic, even to frequent visitors from across Asia, who are often confounded by Japan’s linguistic and cultural barriers. It is also often eclipsed by the city’s dizzying array of attractions—from its renowned pop culture and cuisine to its striking architecture. Against this backdrop, Art Week Tokyo (AWT) offered a rare window for foreign art professionals into the city’s local art ecosystem.

Apr 18, 2024 | artforum.com | Pablo Larios |Travis Jeppesen |DiarySo CLOSE |Wu Jianru

“I WANT TO TURN THE VIEWERS INTO FOREIGNERS,” Tesfaye Urgessa says to me. We’re in one of the baroque rooms in Venice’s Palazzo Bollani near San Marco, where, this week, the Addis Ababa–based painter is the first to represent Ethiopia in its debut official Venice pavilion. I tell Urgessa that his new oil paintings—scenes of lost, anxious domesticity, where lean, fragmented bodies flash with bold strips of color on angular sofas and carpets—are outstanding.

Apr 18, 2024 | artforum.com | Travis Jeppesen |Pablo Larios |DiarySo CLOSE |Wu Jianru

Trevor Yeung at the Hong Kong pavilion: The only artist I’m aware of whose chief medium has been horticulture. Yet for his Venice show he has shifted to water, appropriately enough, in a new series of installations, including Cave of Avoidance (Not Yours), 2024—a roomful of pink-lit fish tanks containing various ceramic objects sculpted out of terra-cotta soil—whose overall aesthetic was inspired by 1990s Hong Kong pet shops, according to curator Olivia Chow.

Apr 17, 2024 | artforum.com | Travis Jeppesen |DiarySo CLOSE |Wu Jianru

ALWAYS START YOUR DAY with something you know you’re gonna like. For me, that usually entails a book and a quadruple espresso: a luxury I can’t afford when I’ve been tasked with seeing as much of the Venice Biennale—“Foreigners Everywhere,” curated by Adriano Pedrosa—and its multitudinous collateral exhibitions and events as possible within three days.