In this monthly roundup, we spotlight five stellar exhibitions at small and rising galleries.
From naked performances in the streets of 1970s Poland to conceptual works grappling with language and power, octogenarian artist Ewa Partum’s first solo exhibition in Asia traces her radical merging of feminism and conceptual art. Among the highlights of “Conceptual Feminism” at Hong Kong’s Double Q Gallery is Active Poetry. Poem by Ewa (1971–73), a film in which the artist scatters individual letters across public landscapes, letting the environment reorder them into words and poetry. This work represents the artist’s conviction that language can disrupt systems of power.
A trailblazer for feminist art, Partum often uses her own body as the subject of her politically charged art. “I was concerned with the task of creating a feminist symbol,” Partum said, in a statement released by the gallery on Instagram. “The only thing I could represent was my nature that I own. I used my body to create my art.” One example of this is Stupid Woman (1981/2025), a self-portrait displayed on a lightbox showing the artist covered in string lights with a look of distress on her face.
Partum studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1965, where she graduated in 1970. The artist currently lives in Berlin, where she moved in 1983. In 2024, she won the Lovis Corinth Prize and presented a retrospective at the Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg in Germany. Her work is featured in collections of Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
