31 Jan 2015: The Year in Review
This posting appears a bit later than we had originally intended, but we reckon it’s better late than not at all!
First off, Happy New Year 2016 from all of us here at Artemis Art. Or slightly-used year, as the case may be.
It’s now the early part of yet another new year, one which will hopefully come with it new opportunities. For many Malaysian galleries, 2015 was a challenging year overall. This was certainly for us as well. But that said, 2015 was perhaps one of the more memorable years for this young gallery.
One thing we decided early on in the year was to reduce the number of exhibitions staged (we did fourteen in 2014!), but make each one more impactful. Last year saw us staging FACETS, at MAP@Publika’s White Box last year, the largest exhibition we have attempted to-date.
And without a doubt, it was a successful showing by all five artists involved, and a major milestone in our gallery’s young history. It was also quite unique because of the variety of artworks shown, including sculptures and installation, in addition to the numerous paintings on exhibit.
Another important milestone for the gallery was our participation in Young Art Taipei 2015. Our being at the art fair is important for a few reasons. As a gallery that focuses on young artists, Young Art Taipei is an important annual event, allowing us to broaden the market for the artists we represent. Not only were we the first, and so far only, Malaysian gallery to participate in this prestigious art fair, Dedy Sufriadi, one of the artists represented, won first prize for the fair’s annual Young Art Award, the first for an artist outside of North Asia.
Among the many art fairs in the annual Asian art calendar, Young Art Taipei is unique because of its specific focus on young artists. Without a doubt, it is one of the art fairs we’ve targeted to participate in annually, as part of our overall promotion strategy.
International art fair participation, while very costly, is important for Artemis Art and the artists we represent, allowing us to showcase talents beyond Malaysian shores. For the artists, it is an opportunity to show their works to a wider, more international audience. Another international art fair we participated in last year was Art Kaohsiung in December. The Taiwan market is one that we find exciting, offering many possibilities, and will be a destination we will go back to whenever we are able.
One other area that we delved into with greater vigor was collaborations. We had a few in 2015, but among the most important was our involvement in CAFFA 2015 (Coffee and Art Fringe Festival Asia), where Artemis Art was one of the supporting partners for the event.
Another important collaboration we took part in 2015 was as venue sponsor to ELUSIVE, a group exhibition by young artist collective Mekar, led by visual artist Haris Rashid. The exhibition itself was unique because of the diversity of artists who participated, both formally trained and self-taught, coming from diverse areas of visual art practice. But more importantly, it was a group exhibition comprising of young artists, from Malaysia and abroad.
Throughout last year, inclusive of the collaborations, Artemis Art was involved with nine exhibitions and events, much less than the previous year as we indicated earlier. One thing that did not change in 2015, nor is expected to change in the foreseeable future is our continued commitment to promoting young artists. The exhibitions done with specific focus on young artists in 2015 were Beauty In The Beast (solo exhibition by Haris Rashid), Behind The Wall (group exhibition by Barrel Art Group), Guilty Pleasures (group exhibition by Cracko Art Group), Variant (group exhibition by Aizat Ahmad, Azimuddin Manaf, Mohd Nazri Tahir & Zaimuddin Aziz), aveNew (group exhibition by contiNew), Behavior (group exhibition by Initial Art Group), and even a Star Wars fan art exhibition closing out the year, Star Wars: The Fan Art Awakens.
To our fans and friends, THANK YOU for helping us make 2015 memorable, and we look forward to another exciting year in 2016…
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