Fairs

Art Basel Hong Kong
​2025

Henry Curchod
Natalia Gonzalez Martin
Vivian Greven
Gu Xingzi
Michael Ho
Huang Ko Wei
Caroline Ricca Lee
Rūtė Merk
Ni Hao
James Prapaithong
Sydney Shen
Sun Woo
Hatsune Suzuki
Alexandre Zhu
​
Galleries
Booth 3C32

Dates_ March 26–30, 2025
Venue_ Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
​

Installation Views / Works / Press Release

Gallery Vacancy is pleased to participate in Art Basel Hong Kong 2025, Galleries sector, at booth 3C32. The group presentation features 14 artists including Henry Curchod, Natalia Gonzalez Martin, Vivian Greven, Gu Xingzi, Michael Ho, Huang Ko Wei, Caroline Ricca Lee, Rūtė Merk, Ni Hao, James Prapaithong, Sydney Shen, Sun Woo, Hatsune Suzuki, and Alexandre Zhu.

Vivian Greven (b. 1985, Germany) will make her debut at Art Basel Hong Kong with the diptych Crac V (2025). These large-scale canvases use gradual color transitions to transform smooth, flawless bodies into an endlessly extending labyrinth, exploring the transmission and meaning of love, desire, and possession in the digital age. The new works by Rūtė Merk (b. 1991, Lithuania) examine the mediation of technology on perception and representation. In Valerie (2025), a woman dressed in neutral, casual attire reclines on a single sofa, holding a digital device in her grasp. The painting responds to the classic theme of reclining nude in art history while reflecting a sense of loss and the fluidity of social roles in the hyper-connected modern world.

Ni Hao (b. 1989, Taiwan, China), who will participate in the 14th Taipei Biennial later this year, presents a series of installations, each featuring a pair of ghostly taxidermied sock sculptures accompanied by an intimate looping video. The work explores the trade of worn underwear, examining how anonymous communities and the internet transform personal, private rituals into erotic capital, turning taboos into sublime spectacles. Sydney Shen (b. 1989, USA) explores the politics of aesthetics within social interactions. Presenting an enlarged sculptural rendition of an earring back, the artist highlights its easily lost and often overlooked nature to expose the intricate mechanisms of control and confinement it imposes on the body beyond its decorative function. The work also reflects on the human desire for validation and redemption, examining how self-inflicted pain is often endured to satisfy others. In the bronze sculpture Echo (2024), artist Sun Woo (b. 1994, South Korea) casts her own body and face onto a string of traditional Korean chime bells. Suspended within the booth, these silenced instruments evoke a voiceless narrative of the immigrant experience and the social dynamics faced by Asian women. Through the material’s monumental yet delicate qualities, the work embodies a quiet yet profound resilience, reflecting the enduring strength woven into the immigrant experience.

Gu Xingzi (b. 1995, China) creates paintings that blend traditional sensibilities with contemporary expression. Through soft, interwoven colors and fluid, floating forms, she explores the intangible emotions of intimacy and solitude, as well as the delicate interplay between self and other in a cross-cultural context. Her dreamlike scenes seek to reconcile the weightlessness and disorientation of navigating life as an outsider in a foreign land. Alexandre Zhu (b. 1993, France) distills the search for identity within the Chinese diaspora into his labor-intensive charcoal on canvas works. Shifting between delicate details and deep, rich tones, his pieces evoke memories of distant, unreachable places, weaving recollection and imagination into a monochromatic narrative that unfolds like a whispered soliloquy.  As a descendant of Chinese and Japanese immigrants, Caroline Ricca Lee (b. 1990, Brazil) explores the diasporic experience of her family's history in South America by assembling family photographs, quilts, porcelain shards, and fishnets into a mosaic of personal and collective memory. Through the meticulous process of cutting and sewing each component, she reanimates faded and unfamiliar traces, crafting an intricate yet deeply personal tapestry of identity. Michael Ho (b. 1991, the Netherlands) employs a distinctive technique of working on both sides of the canvas, allowing pigments to seep, overlap, and permeate across the painting surface. This approach disrupts the conventional linear narrative of representation, creating a liminal space where neither side dominates. By embodying the latent tension between Eastern traditions and Western aesthetics, Ho’s practice explores the immigrant experience, cultural dissonance, and identity struggles within the Chinese diaspora.

Huang Ko Wei (b. 1988, Taiwan, China) captures the essence of urban life in Asian metropolises through fluid brushstrokes and the interplay of spatial reconstructions. His bustling scenes evoke the weightlessness of daily existence within perpetually transitory spaces, reflecting an individual’s anticipation and uncertainty toward the past, present, and future amidst the shifting currents of geopolitics. James Prapaithong (b. 1996, Thailand) transforms intimate personal experiences into collective memory. By enlarging and extracting images from his travel albums, he paints uninhabited landscapes with delicate, restrained techniques, using the interplay of light and shadow to evoke a sense of being around the passage of time. Through the depiction of absence and loss, he unveils the essence of lived experience. Hatsune Suzuki (b. 1995, Japan) explores the coexistence of humans and nature by incorporating materials sourced freshly from the earth into her sculptural and painterly processes. Her labor-intensive works embody the cyclical rhythms of life and the tension between opposing forces, transcending terrestrial presence into a constellation of harmony.

Henry Curchod (b. 1994, USA) dissects social class and power structures through an idiosyncratic lens and dynamic compositions. Using oil sticks, he veils satirical societal observations behind vibrant tones and animated narratives, carving out a space between painting and drawing to reshape historical dialogues. Natalia Gonzalez Martin (b. 1995, Spain) applies classical painting techniques to explore timeless themes of love and desire. Her works capture the tension of possession before touch, infused with alluring tones that evoke an endless, enchanted revelry.

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