In the new year, YiCOLLECTA recommends 7 wonderful exhibitions in China that can’t be missed!
1. Black Box–Illusion: Tony Oursler
Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts 2021.01.23 ~ 05.16
“Black Box:-Illusion: Tony Oursler” was originally expected to be held in 2020, but it was postponed due to the impact of Covid-19. This year, the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts reopened after the renovation, and “Black Box” also opened as the first international exhibition.
Tony Oursler is known as a pioneer in American video art, combining a variety of media such as video, sculpture, and performance art in order to bring images out of a two-dimensional space. He tries to bring the reality of images into real space, creating unique video artworks. “Black Box'' is like opening a mysterious black box, exploring the unknowns and its origins, as it shows the infinite possibilities between illusion and reality through light and science. Tony Oursler’s works use light, shadow, sound and video technology to simulate human emotions, creating sculptures that are life-like, leading the audience through the video space, exploring the realities of people’s minds, spirits, popular culture, and modern technology. The first large-scale solo exhibition in Asia presents classic video installations, experimental short films, and film works, showing the direction that Oursler is taking with his video creations (from early in his career to present day). This time, Tony created a new work called "Facial recognition system" for his Face Recognition series.
2. Hsiao Chin at 85: An Exhibition of Transcendent Art
Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts 2021.01.23 ~ 04.18
As one of the first students to study abroad and enter the western art world, Hsiao Chin believes that the modernization of Chinese art must be global. Hsiao Chin’s creations integrate Eastern and Western cultures to form unique philosophical abstract paintings. His creations clearly showcase his explorations of the mysteries of the universe, as well as the pursuit of life’s energy, as if echoing the Eastern cosmology of “heaven and earth”. For Hsiao Chin, artistic creation is not the ultimate goal of life. Rather, he uses creative means to explore the journey of life, discover the potential of the human soul, and realize the true meaning of unity between nature and man. He is a member of the “Tong Fang Painting Association” and founded the “Punto International Art Movement” while living in Milan and promoting “mindfulness” with eastern philosophy as the purpose of the international avant-garde art movement.
This exhibition examines the creative years of artist Hsiao Chin, from the changes that once resided in the external environment of the West, the launch of international art movements, the transformation of his own creative consciousness, or even sorrowful things that he’s encountered. He created “Non-figurative art” and “Action painting” series, “Tao” series, “Mindfulness and Introspection” series, “Hard Edge” series, “Zen” series, “Life” series, “Universal Landscape” series, “Limit” series, “New World'' series, “Eternal Garden”, “Samādhi”, “Bright Shore”, and so on. The exhibition explores different issues regarding life and the principles of the universe, while exploring cross cultural pluralism, reflecting beyond what we know or can imagine, what we know to be important in the world, and the idea that all things will always be constant.
3. Nara Yoshitomo Special Exhibition
Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts 2021.03.12 ~ 06.20
On the 15th of this month, the Chinese Cultural Association announced that The General Association of Chinese Culture will host a special exhibition by Japanese contemporary artist Nara Yoshitomo, and will be exhibited at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts starting March 12. In April of last year, Nara expressed his gratitude to Taiwan for donating masks on social media. President Tsai Ing-wen also responded enthusiastically. In addition, this year is the 10th anniversary of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake in Japan and the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association also hopes to include Nara’s special exhibition in the Always Here series. Unlike his past works that possessed pessimistic feelings full of evil and innocence, Nara’s recent creations focus on peaceful and spiritual images, continuing people’s childlike innocence and physicality. They also evoke the depth of his audience’s soul and evoke the sense that their hearts travel between reality and the imaginary world. The first wave of works confirmed to come to Taiwan is “Miss Moonlight”, exhibited in 2020 at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.
4. Great Migrations: Lu Ming-Te
Taipei Fine Arts Museum 2021.04.17 ~ 07.18
This exhibition invites Tsong Pu, Hsu Yuan-Ta, Chiang Po-Shin, and Cheng Nai-Ming to form a team of consultants in order to assist in the exhibition and research of artist Lu Ming-Te’s creative career over 50 years. The story of “The Great Migration” runs through 8 exhibition rooms and uses theatrics for spatial translation to give a new perspective of the works over the years. Through a variety of creative media such as graphic painting, video, space installation, sculptures, ready-made objects, performance art, etc., the presentation gives meaning to the phrase “media is everything”.
Born in Zuoying, Kaohsiung in 1950, Li Ming-Te is well-known in the painting community for his structural paintings as unique symbols. He argues that the concept of “everything is media, media is everything” breaks away from the general perception of graphic painting. The concept of mixed media was introduced into Taiwan as one of the pioneers of video and new media art. Since 2010, Lu Ming-Te’s creations have focused on ecological evolution, natural environment protection, cultural diversity, and other issues. His works feature cartoon characters, animal figures, traditional Chinese white flowers, embroidery and childlike collages with strange narratives.
5.Shiota Chiharu: The Soul Trembles
Taipei Fine Arts Museum 2021.05.01 ~ 08.22
“The creator needs to transform the meaning of the work so that more people can comprehend it.” This is the meaning of life that Chiharu Shiota has learned from her artistic practice. Densely packed and methodically arranged filaments occupy the entire space, intertwined and tangled like a cocoon, similarly to inner thoughts and dreams, or a certain degree of persistence. The Soul Trembles is Chiharu Shiota's largest solo exhibition of the past year, bringing together 20 years of creation. Similar to her work, the subheading of the exhibition “Heart Touching” (魂がふるえる) has the ability to touch her audience’s hearts. It is as if they are tied to each other, possessing the same feelings. Shiota’s works are intensive, deep, and enormous, and the thin lines that cover the entire space are unsettling. Through those lines, she hopes to express the abstract concepts of human memory, dreams, and anxiety and expand the common knowledge of others from personal experience. The Soul Trembles is centered around 6 large-scale installations, 3-dimensional sculpture, video, photography, original sketches of her creative processes, and precious materials from stage designs, presenting the “non-existent existence” that Chiharu Shioda has always pursued.
6. Timeless Mucha-Mucha to Manga: The Magic of Line
National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall 2021.06.12 ~ 09.31
Hailed by the front page of The New York Times as the “world’s greatest decorative artist”, Muscha excels at using lines to outline the beautiful posture of women, combined with the flow of flowers and plants. Curated by the Muscha Foundation, the special exhibition, “Timeless Muscha-Muscha to Manga: The Magic of Line” will display a large number of Muscha’s original paintings, early manuscripts, and Muscha-inspired collections: Moravian crafts, religious paintings, Rococo style furniture, Japanese and Chinese art crafts, etc. The exhibition area will also showcase the works for artists from various countries who have been influenced by Mucha’s style. His style has influenced various art aspects such as Jug Band’s music poster (a tribute to Muscha’s cigarette poster “JOB”) and Japan’s well-known comic “Cardcaptor Sakura”.
7. Solo Exhibition of Chung-Li Kao
Taipei Fine Arts Museum 2021.10.09 ~ 2022.01.16
The exhibition introduces the series of works created by artist Chung-Li Kao at various stages over the past 40 years, from early photography, experimental short films, to various video installations across multiple artistic paradigms, dealing with history, personal memory, and time, images, and media. Not only do his works break down traditional narratives, but they also broaden horizons and old patterns of video art. Chung-li Kao was born in Changhua, Taiwan in 1958. His works mainly explore the relationship between history and personal life, as well as the relationship between time, video, and media. Kao is also a photographer, filmmaker, animation creator and collects historical photos and has a good understanding of the history of video media.
Figure 1: Tony Oursler - Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts exhibition site, YIART photography
Figure 2 upper left: Lu Ming-Te, “Media is Everything” 2001, neon lights, transformers, 75x630 cm ©Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Figure 2 upper left: Lu Ming-Te,《如果我有一把大自然的尺》2010, mixed media, 105x104cm © Li Ming-Te
Figure 2 bottom left: ©Yoshitomo Nara Facebook
Figure 2 lower right: Chung-Li Kao《ASA的n次方》1983, mixed media ©Chung-Li Kao
