Detail: The continent on the other side of the Bosporus has always been an endlessly inspiring source of images as well as a screen for our projections. For a long time, however, only the Western view of a more-or-less Far East was accepted. How can we see Asia differently?
Today, Asia is experiencing a cultural awakening. From Bahrain to Beijing, new museums and art biennials are appearing. Asian art is now surrounded by total hype. Re-Imagining Asia examines the way in which new images of Asia appear in contemporary art. It is not the artists’ origins that are relevant for Re-Imagining Asia, but only their focus on Asia as a space for the imagination. The spectrum of artists ranges from Chinese artists such as Zhang Dali to the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, who was born in Buenos Aires and works in New York, to the Mexican Gabriel Orozco and the Germans Andreas Gursky and Johannes Kahrs. No matter whether their subject matter is the stock exchange in Kuwait, street scenes in mega-cities, pop imagery borrowed from the world of comics, or spine-chilling models of Tiananmen Square, the works selected from the twenty-three artists all develop new, heterogeneous ways of perceiving the world that transcend the polarities of local : global, traditional : modern.
Installations, objects and photographs form the focal point of the exhibition. And although the motives and materials fall back on traditions, the artistic strategies are absolutely contemporary. The artists examine the history of their societies, invoke love and suffering, express their sense of disquiet about the system, experiment with traditional forms and new media. Irony and enthusiasm go hand in hand, and new connections are established between contemporary and traditional phenomena. Re-Imagining Asia discovers its perspectives in these spaces of the imagination.

Other participating artists:
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Parastou Forouhar (Iran), Andreas Gursky (Germany), Johannes Kahrs (Germany), Gabriel Orozco (Mexico).