Macao will welcome 2020 ARTFEM, Women Artists 2nd International Biennial of Macau, from 30 September to 13 December, in different venues around town, featuring works from over a hundred women artists.
The first edition of the art biennial – focused solely on work by women – was held at the Macao Museum of Art in 2018. The second edition is being held in four locations dotted around Macao: Albergue SCM, the Former Municipal Cattle Stable, Galeria Lisboa at Macau Fisherman’s Wharf and Casa Garden.
The event will show works by 116 women artists from around the world based on the theme “Natura”. The work of artists in China and the Portuguese-speaking countries will be strongly represented.
A highlight is the work of Clarissa Baumann, the Brazilian winner of the Beaux-Arts de Paris prize and the ADAGP Révélation des Arts Plastiques prize in 2016. She is among the many young, up-and-coming artists whose works have been selected by the organising committee for ARTFEM. Another is Krupa Makhija, the Glenfiddich Emerging Artist of the Year in India in 2015.
ARTFEM will feature the work of sculptor Kirsten Berg, who lives in Southeast Asia but was born in the United States. She is a regular contributor to the Burning Man festival in the United States.
The ARTFEM curators are Macao architect and artist Carlos Marreiros, along with artists Alice Kok and James Chu of Macao, Angela Li Zhenxiang of Mainland China, and art historian Leonor Veiga from Portugal.
ARTFEM was originally due to open on 8 March, International Women’s Day, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a delay. The organisers are hoping that restrictions on international travel imposed around the world because of the pandemic will be eased enough until the end of the biennial in December, to allow foreign artists whose work is a featured of ARTFEM to come to Macao to be artists-in-residence, and to give workshops and lectures.
Find out more about ARTFEM at https://artfem.org.