In a continuation of Art Basel’s digital initiatives, they recently concluded OVR: Portals, the first curator-led edition of their online viewing rooms. The initiative saw Christina Li, independent curator based in Amsterdam and Hong Kong; Magali Arriola, director, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; and Larry Ossei-Mensah, co-founder of ARTNOIR and curator-at-large at Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, joining their creative visions. On view from June 16 to 19, OVR: Portals saw participation from 94 galleries from across 29 countries and territories, including Experimenter from Calcutta and Chemould Prescott Road from Mumbai. In a chat with t2, Christina Li talks about curating for OVR: Portals that aimed to examine the present reality shaped by our collective experiences of the past year and to question notions of connectivity and disconnect.

How did you go about curating for OVR: Portals? What made you get on board with Art Basel’s first curator-led edition of its Online Viewing Rooms?

As a curator who has worked mostly with physical exhibitions, the possibility to work with and experiment with the possibilities this new platform can offer, as well as to engage with a digital space that provides more access to people who otherwise cannot visit the physical show, is something that intrigued me immensely. Beyond that, I was excited to join forces with my esteemed curatorial cohorts, Magali (Arriola) and Larry (Ossei-Mensah) on this endeavour. It has been a delight working with them over the past months virtually.

What were some of the challenges of curating this OVR?

The challenge with the OVR is to engage with audiences without the tactile and sensory experience that a physical encounter with art provides, and I am glad to see a variety of ways how the galleries have approached this challenge: some made use of the platform to showcase multimedia work, while others’ presentations reflected on the contemporary condition of hyper connectivity and physical isolation.

Tell us what you think about what Experimenter and Chemould Prescott Road are showcasing. According to you, what unifies them for this OVR but also sets them apart from each other?

One major theme of “Portals” is to showcase practices that interrogate the notion of space and the changes of our perception of it in very broad terms. In that sense, both presentations of new work at Experimenter and Chemould Prescott Road offer poetic reflections to our contemporary condition. At Experimenter, celebrated Hong Kong multimedia artist Samson Young’s new suite of Relational Drawings is a playful yet contemplative set of notation works that explore how we negotiate solitude, and interpersonal relationships in the year of living and working remotely exclusively within the digital sphere.

Trained miniature painter Desmond Lazaro’s new work at Chemould Prescott Road addresses his personal migratory journey from India to Australia that overlapped with the isolation brought about by the pandemic and by the move to a new continent. His cosmological maps explores a markedly different journey, of explorers, star maps and the wider cosmos, as a reflection of his, and in turn, our place within a larger microcosmic universe.

With the pandemic still on and people just starting to go out again, do you sense any changes in how art is viewed or appreciated?

Definitely. With museums in the Netherlands opening up after being closed for almost half a year, the sense of excitement to see shows is palpable. I can only speak for myself, but having been deprived of the experience of standing in front of an artwork for such a long time, I spend much more time to soak in, and appreciate details of an artwork.

What are some of your favourites from OVR: Portals?

There are far too many to mention! Apart from the stellar presentations at Experimenter and Chemould Prescott Road, some of my favourites include Yee I-Lann’s collaborative woven ‘tikar’ (mat) works that unpack ideas of community, exchange and craft beyond geographical borders at Sliverlens; Damon Zucconi’s web-based works at New York gallery JTT is an interesting dialogue with the discussions around technology that are happening at this moment; and lastly, Thaddeus Ropac’s presentation of Mandy el-Sayegh’s new body of work composed of overlooked fragments, or in her words “scabs”, feels particularly pertinent in a time where the reparative role of art take on a new significance in relation to the pandemic.

Pictures courtesy: Art Basel, OVR: Portals