Asia Week New York is more of a cultural hub than ever

From the February 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.

Asia Week New York

Since the city’s dealers in Asian art first joined forces in 2009, Asia Week New York (AWNY) has been distinguished by its emphasis on connoisseurship – and by the number of curators from museums across the United States, Europe and Asia it attracts. For Brendan Lynch – of the London-based dealership Forge and Lynch, and now overseeing his second edition as chairman of AWNY – a key part of his remit has been capitalising on this strength, developing AWNY into a kind of ‘year-round cultural hub’. It publishes webinars, ‘an active media programme in Chinese and English’ and a weekly newsletter with 5,000 subscribers, appealing not only to ‘curators actively building collections’ but also to connoisseurs and non-specialist audiences.

Its core business, though, takes place each March – a moment when the city takes stock of the wider market for Asian art around the world, and of New York’s position within it. This year (13–21 March), the roster is driving up towards pre-pandemic numbers – there are 27 galleries, up from 24 last year, and six auction-houses, offering everything from ancient ritual objects to contemporary art.

Contemporary art, says Lynch, is the big growth market worldwide – especially among collectors under 40 – and the specialists at AWNY are particularly well-placed to present new talents from across the continent. A highlight at Ippodo Gallery is a work of 2023 by the innovative Japanese lacquer artist Terumasa Ikeda, its exterior shimmering with thousands of tiny ingrained numerals; Joan B. Mirviss, meanwhile, offers a glazed stoneware ‘comma pattern’ vessel by Morihiro Wada (c. 2004).

Souvenirs of Travel, Third Series: Tennoji Temple in Osaka (1927), Kawase Hasui. Scholten Japanese Art, New York

More traditional fare comes courtesy of Carole Davenport, who offers an arresting mask by Deme Yukan, a carver of the early Edo period, for the Noh play Yamanba. Francesca Galloway presents a fine depiction of a zebra, painted by a Mughal court artist in the 17th century using opaque pigments and gold on paper, while at Carlton Rochell Asian Art is a 16th-century Tibetan copper alloy icon of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Lynch himself is especially excited by a work by Sita Ram, who accompanied his patron Lord Hastings, the governor-general of India from 1813–23, on a 17-month tour of the country from Calcutta to Punjab; most of the 200 watercolours he produced are now in the British Library. Forge & Lynch offer an earlier and distinctly charming study of two grasshoppers (1801).

The Asian art market has had to confront various storms in recent years – the tariffs imposed on Chinese art by the last Trump administration may be repeated and perhaps accompanied by similar ones on India this time around – but this event appears in good shape to weather them. As Lynch suggests, ‘Well-documented works of art from the great cultures of Asia will continue to be highly desirable amongst collectors and museums.’

Asia Week New York takes place at various venues and online from 13–21 March.

This is the first focused look at the last of Picabia’s many reinventions. The French artist had passed through cubism to play a key role in Dada before denouncing it in favour of Surrealism, then breaking with that in turn. This show explores the moment his controversial wartime nudes, toying with the line between pornography and fine art, gave way in 1945 to densely textured abstract paintings, in line with the rise of art informel.

At Home: Alice Neel in the Queer World
30 January–8 March
Victoria Miro, London

From Frank O’Hara to Allen Ginsberg, New York City mayor Ed Koch to performance artist Annie Sprinkle, the cast of characters introduced in this exhibition bears witness to Alice Neel’s long commitment to presenting in her portraits as broad a view of New York society as she could. Curated by Hilton Als, the exhibition pairs paintings and drawings with archival material that situates both Neel and her sitters in their historical moment.

Michael Landy and Gillian Wearing: Art Lovers
4 February–12 April
Thomas Dane Gallery, Naples

This is the first joint exhibition that the two YBAs (and husband and wife) have put on in two decades. It takes its cues from its setting; both artists have responded in their signature fashion to Naples and its history, with Landy presenting etchings of weeds encountered in derelict Neapolitan nooks, while Wearing has produced five self-portraits in the guise of Italian film stars, including Monica Vitti.

Symbole (1950), Francis Picabia. Musée bibliothèque Pierre André Benoit, Alès. Photo: Mercatorfonds, Belgium/Archives Comité Picabia, Paris

Alighiero Boetti. Cabinet de curiosités
Until 22 February
Tornabuoni Art, Rome

Thirty years after Boetti’s death, this exhibition presents major works such as Zoo (1979) – a fantastical playroom constructed with his children Agata and Matteo at their home in Rome and featuring hundreds of plastic animals – alongside unpublished notebooks, letters, postcards and sketches from Agata’s archive, offering a rounded perspective of the complex, free-form mental processes that underpinned the conceptual artist’s work.

Fairs in focus

Art Karlsruhe
20–23 February
Messe Karlsruhe

Some 187 galleries gather in the Messe Karlsruhe for the 22nd edition of this fair, the strengths of which are the platform it provides for galleries from the Rhineland and its wide-ranging offering of 20th-century art. No fewer than five galleries are presenting exhibitions of the American abstract painter Sam Francis, 30 years after his death; more contemporary work by the likes of Ai Weiwei and Tony Cragg can be found in the sculpture section.

Modenantiquaria
8–16 February
ModenaFiere

Modena, the former capital of the Duchy of Este, is host to the oldest antiques fair in Italy, now in its 38th edition. It continues to offer particular support to local galleries, which, like the Fondantico di Tiziana Sassoli, trade in the treasures of the region’s illustrious past, but its roster also includes some of the most prestigious dealers from throughout Italy, including Old Master specialists Maurizio Nobile from Bologna and Milan.

From the February 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.