Art AsiaPacific No.38 Fall, 2003

NEWS

10 THE CULT OF MURAKAMI With a recent collaboration with Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton, and a Rockefeller Center installation, Takashi Murakami is the talk of the town.

12 WILD STYLE IN JAPAN A Note from Charlie Ahearn

14 THE NEW MORI MUSEUM By Lara Kateri Leung

17 SAN FRANCISCO’S ASIAN ART MUSEUM By Britta Erickson

20 MAPPNIG A BODY POLITIC DNAsia explores the future of South Asian Artists in the UK. By Sarita Malik

21 ALEX LEE AND JEANNIE HO Integrate Prada

23 BLAXPLOITATION MEETS 20TH CENTURY CHINOISERIE Franklin Sirmans talks to Christine Y. Kim about “Black Belt” at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

25 IS THERE POETIC JUSTICE AFTER DREAMS AND CONFLICTS? Dominique Nahas on the Istanbul Biennial.

28 THE POINT Lilly Wei on Chinese Artists and the Marketplace.

34 THE HOT SPOT New Art Spaces in Beijing. By Chin Chin Yap

FEATURES

38 MY GENERATION: REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE Testing gravity with rpm’s, Gleen Kaino’s sculptures literally blur the meaning behind our icons of power. By Eungie Joo

42 A CANAL WITH A VIEW: VENICE Biennials continue to proliferate around the world. Of course they make an economic impact but does the art really matter? Benjamin Genocchio takes us through the granddaddy of them all.

50 PARALLEL LIVES Montien Boonma and Chen Zhen shared more than the season of their deaths. A pair of recent exhibitions revealed remarkable parallels in their lives and artworks. By Eleanor Heartney

54 THE BIG PICTURE: THE CONTROL OF FEAR As the crisis appears to be coming to a head: SARS through the eyes of artists. Alexandra Chang discusses art and the epidemic as excess.

58 A STITCH IN TIME Kim Sooja has been working and showing consistently since the late 80s. Her star, like her intimate, often slow performance-based aesthetic, has been rising ever since. By Jonathan Goodman

63 REEL CINEMA While this year’s Cannes Film Festival has been roundly criticized as boring and homogeneous, Asian film festivals in the U.S. enjoyed critical successes. Alexandra Chang reports from San Francisco and Chicago.

68 WEAVING HISTORY Mixing images from pop culture and his own life, Dinh Q. Lê brings the past into an eerie present. David Spalding talks to Lê about an apocalyptic now.

72 COMMENT City of God: Art and Politics in Brazil. By Jen Budney

74 REVIEWS Eungie Joo on "Under Construction: New Dimensions of Asian Art" 74 Shinyoung Chung on Do-Ho Suh 75 Rifky Effendy on "GRID" 75 Adam Geczy on "Liquid Sea" 76 Adam Geczy on Yang Jiechang 77 Astrid Mania on "+64, Phone Home" 78 Thomas J. Berghuis on "Alors la Chine?" 79 Midori Yoshimoto on Takashi Murakami 81 Merrily Kerr on Contemporary Asian Photography at the Japan Society 81 Franklin Sirmans on Mel Chin 82 Xenia Tetmajer von Przerwa on In-Hyung Kim & Jian-Jun Zhang 83 Midori Yoshimoto on "Commodification of Buddhism" 84 Jonathan Goodman on "Jonathan Goodman" 84 Clara Kim on "How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age" 85 Reena Jana on "The History of Japanese Photography" At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 86

88 BOOKS Hou Hanru’s On the Mid-Ground by Carolee Thea

COVER IMAGE

Glenn Kaino - The Siege Perilous (2003) Courtesy The Project, New York and Los Angeles