Just as we arrived at the Glass House, the late architect Philip Johnson’s country home in New Canaan, Connecticut, the leaden sky opened up and threatened to drench us. We were there for “Night Sounds #4,” which featured a live performance by the avant garde–electronic duo Lucky Dragons and the unveiling of a sculpture by Vincent Fecteau—as well as a more ephemeral work by the Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya.

Untitled Selection is a bi-weekly post of photography from ArtAsiaPacific’s areas of coverage. Created by photo editor, Ann Woo.

The third edition of Frieze New York, which returns to its gigantic white tent on Randall’s Island Park from May 9 through May 12, features a remarkable 18 exhibitors from Asia, including a smart mix of established and emerging galleries from Japan, Korea, China, India, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Israel and Turkey.

The last Whitney Biennial to take place in the museum’s iconic modernist building on 75th street has met with some criticism due to the decision to divide the exhibition into floors—each curator given one each—rather than maintaining an overarching theme.  The result, however, benefits the viewer who is given the opportunity for comparison between the three curators—Stuart Comer, Anthony Elms and Michelle Grabner—who inevitably exhibit different styles and methodologies. This element of comparison, overall, enlivens the biennial, making the tripartite show stimulating in a multitude of ways. Below is a brief overview of the Whitney Biennial 2014’s diverse selection.

Contemporary Chinese art was the undisputed belle of the ball at this year’s Armory Show. The largest art fair in New York hosted 205 galleries from around the world, including 17 from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong. The Armory’s “Focus” section, now in its fifth year, highlighted three decades of contemporary Chinese art, under the discerning eye of curator Philip Tinari, the Director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Clustered along the corridor connecting the modern section of the fair to the contemporary one, fairgoers could not transition between the two periods without encountering the many facets of the Chinese art scene—which, as Tinari emphasized, is making its own inroads too often overlooked by Western audiences. The following are some of the fair’s highlights from ArtAsiaPacific.

When Michael Chow enters a room, he commands an audience. With his sweeping gestures and boisterous tones, he speaks in overtures; it doesn’t matter what he is about to present so much as the presentation itself. This performative nature has served him well throughout the years—Chow has managed a successful restaurant business, which currently boasts six locations worldwide, and has brushed elbows with the cultural elite—he counts the late Jean-Michel Basquiat as having been one of his closest friends. Now, at the age of 75, the notorious Mr. Chow has turned his attention to art. How will his expertise in fine dining translate onto the canvas?

In late October, artists, activists, community organizers, politicians, and architects converged in New York City for the  2013 Creative Time Summit. Between panels, conversations, lectures and presentations—bookended with dinners and cocktail receptions—the experience was chaotic, frenetic and, depending one’s ability to process massive amounts of information in a short amount of time, awe-inspiring. Aiming to be a catalyst for collaboration and reflexivity, the Summit facilitated the sharing of ideas and insights and inspired lively debate on issues of capitalism, place-making and belonging—all of which played out with mutual respect and admiration. 

At the Brentwood Arts Exchange at the Gateway Arts Center in Brentwood, Maryland—less than a mile from the United State’s capital—the sounds of Katakhali, a small community on Barobaishdia Island in South-western Bangladesh, can be heard. Following the sounds, and turning a corner, one is led to Bangladeshi-American artist-activist, Monica Jahan Bose’s exhibition “Layer By Layer: Storytelling with Saris,” which is part of an ongoing conversation about literacy and eco-empowerment for the women of her home village of Katakhali.

Hong Kong streets have a deafening chatter, of the visual kind. Every night, the ICC Tower projects an LED light show in Central and down in the urban canopy hundreds of neon signs chart the alleys. “Visual culture is a fuzzily defined thing. But one can say for sure that neon signs are a very important part” said curator Aric Chen recently after an infamous Sai Ying Pun eatery sign was deemed illegal and subsequently claimed as an objet d’art in M+ Museum for Visual Culture’s permanent collection.

The New York-based artist Patty Chang has been making daring forays in performance art since the late 1990s. She once captivated viewers onscreen, appearing to be somewhere between throws of ecstasy and pain—but irreducible to neither—later attributing this to the live eels that filled her blouse and wriggled uncontrollably against her skin. In another work, Chang came uncomfortably close to incest by making chewing movements against the lips of her own parents which, at first glance, looked like awkward make-out sessions. Teetering precariously between humor and embarrassment, Chang’s early works push the body to its limits, alluding to the fluidity of identity by confounding any attempt at characterization. 

Gyun Hur is most known for her compositions of shredded silk flowers, meticulously arranged to mimic the patterns on her mother’s wedding blanket. In recent years, the Korean-born, Atlanta-based artist has moved away from this distinct motif, employing a new palate and turning the flowers—believed in Korea to drive out bad luck—into colorful mounds with objects, such as broken pottery, stone and plants, buried within each. The narrative quality of her installations extends into performance as well. While on residency at Artadia in Dumbo, New York, Hur staged a one day event, in which she and her father set up an optical store modeled after the actual store of the her childhood and invited audiences to peruse and interact with dozens of vintage glasses frames. Hur sat down with ArtAsiaPacific to discuss memories, process and the importance of family.