The fascination and anxieties surrounding AI are explored by Li Qi in his feature on artist Lawrence Lek. Focusing mainly on Lek’s two trilogies ‘Sinofuturism’ and ‘Smart City’, set respectively in virtual replicas of Singapore and Beijing, Qi coins the term ‘futuristic chinoiserie’ to compare the present moment of the global AI race with the fantastic visions of China that arose in post-Enlightenment Europe. As its historical counterpart, futuristic chinoiserie is a European imaginary, an orientalist projection in which past fascination has been replaced with fear and xenophobic sentiments. Yet, as Qi elaborates, in his being both outsider and insider, Lek (who is based in London and of Malaysian-Chinese descent) creates imaginaries that combine high-tech with Chinese traditions and Buddhist-Taoist paradigms – showing how technology is both enmeshed in global economic circuits and culturally coded through local beliefs and cosmologies.
Published on AFTERALL JOURNAL, Issue 58, October 2025. Read the full Forward by Adeena Mey on afterall.org.
Vacharanont Sinvaravatn, Night After Night, 2025, oil on canvas, 6′ 6 3⁄4″ × 13′ 1 1⁄2″. From “The Shattered Worlds: Micro Narratives from the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Great Steppe.”
By Li Qi
The Great Game is a cruel one. This famous yet frivolous term originally referred to the nineteenth-century military and diplomatic rivalry between the British and Russian empires for hegemony over Central Asia—an imperial contest that left the region in turmoil and decline. In recent years, the phrase has been repurposed to describe other playgrounds of empires, from the struggle among Russia, China, and Japan for dominance over the Korean Peninsula in Sheila Miyoshi Jager’s latest book The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia (2023), to the US and USSR’s polarizing influence over Southeast Asia during the Cold War. The latter formed the historical backdrop of “The Shattered Worlds: Micro Narratives from the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Great Steppe,” an ambitious exhibition co-organized by the Jim Thompson Art Center and the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in Thailand, and curated by the Art Center’s artistic director, Gridthiya Gaweewong, and her team. The exhibition revisited the struggles of smaller nations caught in the clashes of superpowers, and the unresolved issues left by the opposing ideological blocs. It ultimately held a mirror to the present, with countries along the Indochinese Peninsula and the South China Sea once again being pulled into opposing spheres as a new contest unfolds across the Indo-Pacific.
The exhibition brought together thirteen artists and collectives from Southeast Asia, neighboring nations, and as far afield as the Eurasian Steppe. It was anchored by two expansive research-based projects, both presented at the Jim Thompson Art Center, to reexamine the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a mid-twentieth-century transnational political effort aimed at resisting alignment with either the US or the USSR. Two Meetings and a Funeral, 2017, a three-channel film by Bangladeshi British artist and academic Naeem Mohaiemen, revisits the ill-fated attempt to unify the Third World, which was ultimately undermined in the 1970s by ideological rifts between NAM and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. A roundabout: Blooming mementos, towards monument, 2025, a mini showcase by the Indonesian collective Hyphen—, investigates the myth, symbolism, and political gesture of the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. While both projects draw on archival footage and historical imagery that once celebrated South–South solidarity, they are tempered by a skeptical tone. NAM is treated as a utopian precedent whose viability for today’s Global South remains uncertain.
The larger portion of the exhibition unfolded at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, where the artists surveyed both visible and invisible residues of Cold War power plays. In the short documentary film Vision in Darkness (2015), late Vietnam-born artist Dinh Q. Lê retraces the transformation of modern Vietnamese master Trân Trung Tín (1933–2008), who moved from producing state-sanctioned works to pursuing freer expression in painting. Chinese Austrian artist Jun Yang turns his gaze on the space race with a mirrored monolith accompanied by neon light and photographic archives, while Kazakh artist Almagul Menlibayeva investigates the nuclear-arms race through a five-channel video installation that reveals a secretive desert town. Malaysian artist Au Sow Yee, meanwhile, attempts to recollect lost tales and memories from the sea through semifictional stories in her video installations.
Thai artists focus on more localized topics regarding the Cold War’s aftermath. Vacharanont Sinvaravatn paints eerie landscapes of Thailand’s once violence-ridden southern “red zones”; Chulayarnnon Siriphol, in his Red Eagle Sangmorakot project, 2024, reenacts for the camera the entanglement of Thai boxing, masculinity, and national identity; Som Supaparinya juxtaposes Cold War–era signage found in Thailand and Laos with photographic records of diplomatic meetings from 1961, highlighting the stark divides across adjacent borders.
As if testing history against present reality, this politically charged exhibition arrived amid the simmering border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia, with no works by Cambodian artists on view. Despite this shortcoming, “The Shattered Worlds” managed to remain poetic and imaginative, with one eye turned toward the past, the other toward the future—reflecting the desire to consolidate Southeast Asia’s global position and chart a new, and hopefully peaceful, path forward.
Published on ARTFORUM, October 2025, Vol. 64, No. 2. Read the original on artforum.com.
Heman Chong, 106B Depot Road, 2024, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, 55 1⁄8 × 40 3⁄4 × 45 3⁄4″. Photo: Sun Shi.
By Li Qi
Heman Chong’s latest solo museum show, “The Endless Summer,” curated by Luan Shixuan, is staged in the northern Chinese county where the country’s top political leaders spend their summer holidays. It’s an Instagrammable beach resort renowned for a chapel with no clergy, a library crowded with nonreaders, and UCCA Dune, a satellite pavilion of Beijing’s flagship art institution. The museum’s anthill-shaped galleries are half buried in the town’s carefully controlled landscape—an approved simulation of nature. As a Singaporean, Chong should feel right at home in Beidaihe, which, as the artist told me, he sees as a paraphrase of Singapore’s success story in urban planning. Against the backdrop of China’s bursting real estate bubble, Chong has brought his “Endless Summer” to China’s economic winter, offering his favorite method for navigating life: through fiction.
106B Depot Road, 2024, newly commissioned for the show, materializes Chong’s conceptual transpositions. The artist described in detail the Singaporean public-housing block where he lives to an architect who, interpreting these descriptions, re-created the building in two ghostly white plastic models, each about waist height. Transformed from a tangible place and memory into an abstracted idea and representation, the building’s stacked modular forms embody the complexities of Singapore’s ascent. Beyond urban spectacle, Chong’s project reconstructs a symbol of Singapore’s social experiment in state-capitalist nation building. As the global Bitcoin-rich eye Singapore for its secret formula for accumulating wealth while maintaining social responsibility, these concrete edifices stand as both puzzles and testaments.
Chong’s investigation into real estate and ideology touches a nerve: How can socioeconomic development sustain itself, and what are the consequences when growth slows? Shot in a long-format video, Tanglin Halt Green (A Survey), 2023, documents a large 1970s public-housing compound awaiting redevelopment. The deserted site stands in haunting beauty—a relic of Singapore’s dutiful past and rejuvenated future. These silent monuments echo loudly in Beidaihe, where China’s state ownership of land intersects with an economy heavily reliant on an overextended real estate sector. The piece was initially published on the artist’s YouTube channel as an ASMR video accompanied by the sound of torrential rain—here, it’s presented as a video installation—intended to soothe frayed nerves and insomnia. Elsewhere in the show, three circular benches in A Different Kind of Loneliness, 2024—crafted like display plinths using recycled materials—offer free seating on the museum’s porches, which open onto the resort’s expensive beach. Chong conceives his practice as a public service, producing works that blur the boundaries between utility and art.
Chong is deeply engaged with print culture: The Library of Endless Journeys, 2024, features one hundred books on travel and migration; Perimeter Walk, 2013–24, comprises 550 postcards documenting Singapore’s seemingly endless coastline; and Monument to the people we’ve conveniently forgotten (I hate you), 2008, includes one million blacked-out business cards. Paperwork, 2024, transforms five hundred rusted-iron plates, each the size of an A4 sheet of paper, into a mandala symbolizing bureaucracy. Collectively, these works give a smart twist to the notion of “works on paper.” The bound, stacked, and spread-out pages emphasize the aesthetics of print—still an ideal medium for human connection and social exchange.
Chong distills a spectrum of ideas and reflections into minimal gestures. In place of narrative climax and resolution, he builds anticipation and tension by suspending development and staying in medias res. Prospectus, 2024—fragments of black-ink text printed on eight white posters arranged in repetition and covering the walls of a gallery—forms both the physical and conceptual backdrop of the show. The work consists of 239 English words salvaged from the ruins of a novel of the same name, which Chong worked on and later scrapped in 2006. Each poster features a unique selection of disjointed phrases and clauses alongside their corresponding Chinese translations, reminiscent of pages torn from a Language-poetry anthology. This reconstruction exemplifies his approach to artmaking: creating fictions not for the sake of the story itself but for the traces and formal wreckage left behind.
Published on ARTFORUM, April 2025, Vol. 63, No. 8. Read the original on artforum.com.
From left: Thaiwijit Puengkasemsomboon, Li Qi; from right: Heidi Zuckerman, Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Under the framework of the Asian Art Roundtable, the research project “Buddhism and Global Art” examines contemporary developments while offering fresh insights into historical phenomena spanning East Asia, the Indochinese Peninsula, Europe, and the United States.
This field research seeks to identify significant works within the portfolios of selected artists and to explore other practitioners from Thailand and neighboring Southeast Asian countries—both historical and contemporary—who engage with Buddhist themes. The project delves into the distinct characteristics and philosophies of Buddhism and conceptual art within this region, analyzing their broader global influence.
The research involves a series of studio visits to prominent artists, including Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kamin Lertchaiprasert, Ubatsat, Tawatchai Pansawasdi, Chitti Kasemkitvattna, and Montien Boonma (1953–2000) Atelier.
In 2023, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan, launched a long-term initiative to foster and strengthen networks among the next generation of art professionals across the Asia-Pacific region. The initiative seeks to explore new artistic visions generated by the synergies within these networks while identifying strategies to expand their potential. Positioned as a cornerstone of this effort, the program was officially named the “Asian Art Roundtable” during its inaugural in-person summit in Tokyo.
Over four intensive days of presentations and group discussions, the roundtable members organized their ongoing research into four thematic areas: Community, Spirituality, Migration, and Digital/Materiality. By integrating the diverse perspectives of its participants, the program aspires to shape a dynamic platform for collaboration. Envisioned outcomes include research projects, discussions, publications, exhibitions, workshops, and other initiatives, all of which will be developed and implemented over the coming years.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs is pleased to announce its International Roundtable: The possibility of Collaborating in a Divided World, scheduled to take place on February 16, 2024 at the National Art Center, Tokyo. The aim of this roundtable is to discuss specific ideas for building an international network of curators from/in Asia region among the next generation, as well as involving artists and researchers, and creating new collaborative possibilities in the mid- to long- term perspective. In Session 1, we welcome Ms. Kataoka Mami, Ms. Kim Sunjung, and Dr. Pi Li as panelists to explore international networking and collaboration in the coming era through case studies of international collaborative projects since the early 2000s. In Session 2, following the presentations, the three panelists and participating curators will join the discussion.
A beat—compact, persistent, and full of life—emanates from the depths of darkness. Interwoven with flickering light, it beckons the inquisitive mind on a journey into the unknown. Thus the Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone’s exhibition at the Fosun Foundation captivates visitors through sound, with this acoustic overture setting the stage for the film burn to shine—the pulsing heart of a selection of works made over the past four years, which now converges with the eponymous exhibition.
The evocative title, burn to shine, hails from a poem “You must burn to shine” by Rondinone’s late partner, John Giorno. While this phrase likely traces its roots to the Sanskrit word तप् (tap) meaning “to shine; to be burnt”, in a broader sense, it gestures towards the path to liberation through bodily penance known as तपस् (tapas), a meditative and self-disciplinary Buddhist practice. Yet Rondinone’s film does not dwell on suffering; instead, it pulsates with fervent celebration. Orchestrated by Franco-Moroccan choreographer Fouad Boussouf and brought to life by percussionists and dancers, the film references a panoply of spiritual rituals; prevalent across cultures, these practices resonate with myths of regeneration through fire. In the synchronised video projection in the exhibition, the six monumental screens form an enveloping circle, which is augmented by darkened window foils that occlude external views, thereby creating a sanctuary that nurtures a meditative experience.
While burn to shine portrays the cyclical motion of sunrise and sunset in an infinite loop, this motif is also echoed in the Mattituck series, inspired by the Long Island locale where Rondinone has a home and studio. These fourteen paintings, spaced evenly apart, evoke the face of a sundial, representing the perpetual dance of the sun and the moon. Each painting captures, through a triad of harmonious or contrasting hues, a moment of natural phenomena, their dimensions intimate and reminiscent of a personal journal: imbued with a gentle melancholy, the paintings offer reflections on the passage of time. Varying in size, they are aligned along the walls at the horizon line—where painted skies touch the sea.
This horizon extends even to the horses sculptures that inhabit the gallery floor. Appearing at the juncture of their upper and lower parts, the horizon offers up the illusion of air and water respectively. The works’ equine forms, moreover, represent the earth, while their glass bodies were cast out of fire. Together, they symbolize the four natural elements essential to the artist’s creation. Named after the world’s oceans, the works also suggest a Romantic notion of a voyage. Ultimately, these sculptures prompt viewers to appreciate the dynamic dualities often embedded in Rondinone’s work: here, abstract fluidity paired seamlessly with tangible solidity.
Another duality emerges in the seven bronze sculptures, standing sentinel just under three meters tall on the roof terrace overlooking the Huangpu River. Their natural rock textures are recast and painted in an aggressive DayGlo palette, with nature’s delicate equilibrium transformed into monuments of artifice. Part of the nuns + monks series, these sculptures draw inspiration from the geologic wonders called hoodoos, rock pyramids forged by natural erosion. These stacked figures exude the gravitas of holy sages, offering a compelling juxtaposition against the gleaming skyscrapers along the riverbank. Meanwhile, an eighth sculpture, one meter higher than the group, stands poised at the ground level entrance, a public sculpture inviting shared contemplation, its pink and yellow colors radiating optimism.
In sum, Ugo Rondinone’s exhibition “BURN TO SHINE” unfurls a holistic experience that pulsates from dusk to dawn, from the oceans to the sky, and from the individual to the collective. Rooted in the fundamental motif of landscape, the artist’s works transform the marvels of nature into simple yet sublime subjects, existentially capturing the profound emotions thus elicited.
