LGDR presented Embodiment, a selection of works from leading contemporary artists. On view at the gallery’s space in Hong Kong, the works featured rotated over the course of the exhibition. Embodiment explored identity politics, desire, and reflection in the contemporary world through portraits and figurative works across media, genres, and cultures.

The second chapter of Embodiment presented a selection of Marilyn Minter’s large-scale works that explore the ‘pathology of glamour.’ Through painting, photography, and video, Minter’s work focuses on the female body and its portrayal in art history and popular media.

Featured works included Pink Eye (2005), a hyperrealist depiction of a woman’s eye, rendered simultaneously seductive and irritating with her trademark technique of layering and modeling enamel on metal. Pink Eye exposes tensions between beauty and desire and confronts cultural inhibitions surrounding sexuality. The work was shown alongside Minter’s photographs, Last Sleepy Angel (2017) and Double Halo (2019), which draw inspiration from the classical representation of the ‘bather’ and depicts female forms behind steamed panes of glass, allowing the viewer to consume their images. In her works, the clichés of fashion photography and soft pornography collide, provocatively subverting the male gaze and redefining the nature of feminist art.

Also on view were four recent paintings by Afro-French artist Alexis Ralaivao. Born to a Madagascan father and a French mother, Ralaivao’s paintings primarily explore ethnicity, beauty, and intimacy. The self-taught artist documents details from his immediate surroundings and infuses them with delicate sensuality, capturing fragments of romantic memories, as seen in the close glimpses on view in Embodiment. His unique painterly technique adds a velvety veneer to these candid images. Subtle, elegant, and refined, Ralaivao’s canvases immerse viewers in a sophisticated, distinctly French ambiance.

Embodiment chapter one featured recent paintings by Ghanaian artist Emmanual Taku that combine figuration and pattern in his signature rhythmic style.