S T Y L E 生活時尚 15 TIMES • WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009 EXHIBITIONS From emptiness, a quip

Tsong Pu’s installation at the National Fine Art Museum’s Asian Art Biennial might appear abstruse, but it includes a jibe that won’t be missed by art world insiders

By BLAKE CARTER Staff Reporter Augmented Sculpture Series is an installation by Spanish new media artist Pablo Valbuena.  1973, Tsong Pu’s (莊普) parents gave him founding members of the contemporary art scene least in Taiwan. In his free time he made collages displays none of the “holier than thou” attributes US$1,500 and a one-way ticket to Spain. that developed in Taiwan in the 1980s. At the and learned about Western art from American that some artists his age do — Tsong has  Photo courtesy of the Digital Arts Center In Madrid University is not the first place Asian Art Biennial, now being held at Taichung’s and Japanese magazines. He remembers reading unflinchingly followed his vision. one would think a young, modern artist would National Taiwan Fine Arts Museum, he’s filled about — or at least looking at pictures of works by After seeing his model for the installation last Artists from Taiwan, Germany, choose to study at the time, but Tsong says he a large, high-ceilinged gallery with an elegant, — Jackson Pollock, Joan Miro and Salvador Dali at month, I was surprised to find that some of the Japan, Sweden and Spain wanted to improve his technique and selected rather austere installation titled One Comes a time when Taiwanese art magazines didn’t exist. ropes he installed at the Biennial fall onto a bent working in interactive a school where he would be forced to paint From Emptiness — just the type of work his “At home, at school, and in society there was metal signpost that reads “Taiwan Contemporary installation, sound and video art realistically. He returned to Taiwan eight years university teachers might have thumbed their a feeling you couldn’t think freely, so when you Art Museum.” There is no such place. Many artists will show off their work as part later, and hasn’t painted realistically since. noses at in the 1970s, perhaps describing it as saw Jackson Pollock and that kind of stuff you felt complain that Taiwan’s museums — especially in of the Fourth Digital Arts Today the 62-year-old is seen as one of the “pretentious” or “incomprehensible.” free, so you wanted to create something with the the capital, and specifically the Taipei Fine Arts Festival. This year’s theme, Seven-meter lengths of white nylon rope hang same kind of feeling,” he says. Museum (TFAM) — don’t pay enough attention to “Funky Light” (光怪), probes from the ceiling on discrete supports. On the By Western standards, he was well behind the the country’s artists. the nature of technology and ground, the ropes are carefully arranged into coils, times. Pollock died when Tsong was nine years old, “I wanted a contrast between soft and hard,” its effect on civilization. The each about 1m in diameter. Tsong showed me a while Miro and Dali were old hat when he chose Tsong said when I asked him about the augmented festival, which takes place at the model for the work at his studio near National to study in their country. But Tsong had already work last week. Museum of Contemporary Art, Taiwan Normal University early last month. The decided what he would do. But what about the fact Taiwanese artists Taipei (MOCA, Taipei) and the forms are reminiscent of cobras rising for a snake The purity of his abstract paintings and his are relegated to the museum’s smaller galleries Digital Arts Center (台北數位藝 charmer, or the rope that magicians might coax up nonjudgmental attitude toward art gained attention downstairs while Chinese artists Fang Lijun (方 術中心), is accompanied by a from a table or hat. when he returned to Taiwan with an art degree and 力鈞), Cai Guo-qiang (蔡國強) and Ai Weiwei (艾未 series of performances and an The weave of the rope is similar to the patterns Spanish wife (now divorced) in tow. He was one of 未) get large exhibitions at TFAM? Was his work a artist forum. in Tsong’s best-known works — abstract paintings the founding members of IT Park Gallery in Taipei, comment on that? ■ Digital Arts Center (台北數 composed of 1cm-by-1cm squares that are often a non-government, non-commercial art space for I expected he’d avoid the question as the 位藝術中心), 180 Fuhua Rd, adorned with a diagonal swath of paint. Tsong says and by artists that after more than 20 years is still powerful TFAM defines who’s who in Taiwan’s art Taipei City (台北市福華路180號). that he has been interested in repetition since he running, though struggling to stay open. world and has several of Tsong’s paintings in its Open Tuesdays to Sundays was a student at Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School A father figure to many young artists collection. But he didn’t hesitate. from 10am to 6pm. Tel: (02) four decades ago. — or perhaps better described as an uncle, as he “Yes,” he said. 7736-0708; and Museum of “My classmates still ask me how I can keep doing Contemporary Art, Taipei the same thing without getting bored,” he laughs. (MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan Throughout his years as a student at Fu-Hsin, W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安 his three-year military service and his time at 西路39號). Open Tuesdays to Madrid University, Tsong lived a double life. Sundays from 10am to 6pm. Whether he spent his days drawing from plaster Tel: (02) 2552-3721. On the Net: replicas of Greek sculpture or building tanks dac.tw/daf09 in Taichung, he produced art in his free time, ■ Begins Friday. Until Nov. 15 developing a unique aesthetic. While young, Tsong was ahead of his peers, at Taiwanese contemporary artist Chang Chih-Cheng (張 Right: Tsong Pu, One Comes From Emptiness (2009). 志成) presents a new series of Below: Tsong Pu, The Color of Frost (1999). portraits and dream-inspired  PHOTOs COURTESY OF TSONG PU works in his solo exhibition Beyond Words (意外). Chang’s oil paintings of human figures on a featureless landscape are rendered in subdued hues that depict a lonely and desolate picture of human existence. ■ Chen Ling Hui Contemporary Space (陳綾蕙當代空間) 2, Alley 24, Ln 300, Renai Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市仁愛路四段300巷 25弄2號). Open Tuesdays to Fridays from 11am to 7pm. Tel: (02) 2703-2277 ■ Until Nov. 29

Norwegian ceramicist Ole By displaying stodgy old The weightiness of Chang’s photographs Lislerud examines consumerism Sinophile Lee Shi-chi’s (李錫奇) juxtaposed nicely with the first work in Metaphorical Signs. new mixed media work just viewers see after passing through the Employing visual references around the corner from pieces lobby into the exhibition area of the to the and stock by Tsong Pu (莊普) and several museum: the Guinness Book of World exchange, Lislerud’s series of Highlights Taiwanese 20-somethings, the Records largest-ever photo book, made ceramic tiles, porcelain panels show addresses the refrain by Japanese artist Hitomi Toyama. She and plaques employs markings, so often repeated by artists in proudly says the 3m-by-4m, 26-page signs, calligraphy, photos this country: “Who am I?” To monstrosity Women of Vietnam weighs and graffiti that are meant of the Lee’s credit, he pointed out Lee Shi-chi, Orientation Sprouting From the Root in at 200kg. My request to turn a page Hitomi Toyama, Women of Vietnam (2008). to symbolize the pressures PHOTO COURTESY OF NTMFA in a rousing Artists Forum — 14 (2005). PHOTO COURTESY OF NTMFA was curtly dismissed by museum staff. of advertising and the presentation on the show’s assumption that the meaning opening day that he had “been there/done everything” before arriving at his Also Japanese, two-boy group (or of life is attained through Asian Art current style of Taiwanese art with Chinese characteristics. two-man group — Yusuke Nakano is the acquisition of cash and 33 and Yasuhiko Hayashi 38 years old) commodities. The 20-somethings hint at the Paramodel filled a 58 ping (193m²) ■ Yingge Ceramics Museum (鶯 diversity that makes the younger gallery floor, walls and ceiling with toy 歌陶瓷博物館), 200 Wenhua Rd, Biennial generation of Taiwanese artists car tracks, toy cranes and Styrofoam Yinge Township, Taipei County so difficult to pin down. Mia mountains in an installation they said (台北縣鶯歌鎮文化路200號). Liu’s (Liu Wen-hsuan, 劉文瑄) they’d shown, with little variation, in Open Tuesdays to Fridays from By BLAKE CARTER work was inspired by a job she six countries. It was hard to get a word 9:30am to 5pm, closes at 6pm Staff Reporter had at the Guggenheim in New out of the Osaka-based pair through the on Saturdays and Sundays. Tel: York for about a year, selling museum’s inept Japanese-to-Chinese Paramodel, Paramodelic Graffiti (2009). (02) 8677-2727 ■ Until Dec. 6 he second Asian Art Biennial at the tickets to hundreds of visitors translator. “We like toys,” is about as PHOTO COURTESY OF NTMFA a day. As any young artist deep as the 20-minute interview got. National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts Taiwanese contemporary in Taichung takes on grand themes, but might do, she dreamt of one Nonetheless, the room is fun to walk through. Once. Then you feel like a grup T day showing her work there. and never want to see it again. artist Chang Pei-chun (張培均) unlike much of last year’s Taipei Biennial, it Liu Wen-hsuan, I Am Mia Liu (2008). “It started as a joke,” she says. exposes his internal world in doesn’t shove any particular ideology down PHOTO COURTESY OF NTMFA Liu had Guggenheim tickets Pakistani artist Rashid Rana had no such Inner Heart Memories (心 visitors’ throats. Curator Tsai Chao-yi (蔡昭儀), printed with her name on them and handed them out to friends. Later trouble describing his Desperately Seeking 象追憶). The series of abstract head of the museum’s exhibition department, and expressionist oil paintings chose the title Viewpoints and Viewing Points she ordered thousands and arranged them into the decorative patterns Paradise, a 3m cube that from one angle displayed in the exhibition. looks like a block of mirrors. Walk around is a mixed bag of colorful well: The show challenges visitors to ponder shapes built up on the canvas, Asian art’s place in the world through the the piece and a cityscape comes into view. 許尹齡 as though an array of disparate work of 56 artists/artist groups, 18 of which Hsu Yin-ling ( ), 22, is a Then look closer and discover the image first-year graduate student at is composed of emotions and memories are are Taiwanese, including several of the competing for the viewer’s country’s best-known. Taipei National University of tiny pictures of the Arts. If her acrylic paintings his hometown, Above: Rashid Rana, Des- attention. For viewers interested in Taiwanese art, ■ 朝代藝 look familiar, you may have Lahore. The perately Seeking Paradise, Dynasty Art Gallery ( the simpler, broader issue is how Taiwan’s 術 台北 seen the one hanging at Salt artist doesn’t (2007-2008). ), 41 Leli Rd, Taipei City ( artists compare with their international 市樂利路 號 Peanuts Cafe near Taipei’s claim to have Left: Rashid Rana, Desperately 41 ). For a viewing, counterparts. More interesting is how the call (02) 2377-0838 country’s artists address its ambiguous Shida . Hsu said invented the Seeking Paradise (detail), by e-mail that she “started technique, ■ Until Nov. 17 international status. Hsu Yin-ling, Megascopic Gap (2008). (2007-2008). scribbling pictures at about five which is  PHOTOs COURTESY OF Rashid Rana years old and never stopped; PHOTO COURTESY OF NTMFA perhaps most Brushing aside realism as an every day it’s the same as popular from advertisements for the 1998 movie The Truman Show. Rana artistic trope, Taiwanese artist eating or sleeping : )” The paintings don’t look like they were done by the said he had no idea how many images went into making the work, but that Hung Yi-chen (洪藝真) offers kind of person who ends messages with an electronic happy face. he started with about 100,000 digital photographs and worked from there. He an unconventional approach to wants “geometric abstraction and representation to coexist, something often painting in her solo exhibition Exhibition notes: After Lulu Hou’s (Hou Shur-tzy, 侯 thought impossible.” at IT Park Gallery (伊通公園). 淑姿) show on foreign brides in Chen draws on the ideas of What: 2009 Asian Art Biennial (亞洲藝術雙 Taipei last month, Chang Chien- Malaysian artist Justin Lim said he thought his theorists such as Roland Barthes 年展) chi’s (張乾琦) Double Happiness paintings were going to be shown in Taipei, to focus the viewer’s attention When: Through Feb. 28, Tuesdays to series on the same subject didn’t but happened to be in Taichung with his 11- on the process of creating Fridays 9am to 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays sound too exciting. But I found man percussion band Aseana — no relation a painting rather than the 9am to 6pm his documentary photographs of to the airline — for the Taichung Jazz Festival painting itself. Where: National Taiwan Museum of the Vietnamese women and Taiwanese just down the street from the museum last ■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), Arts (國立台灣美術館), 2, Wuchuan W Rd Sec men who traveled to Vietnam to find month. Lim’s paintings explore Malay ghosts 2F-3F, 41 Yitong St, Taipei 1, Taichung City (台中市五權西路一段2號) wives the most powerful exhibit at from folk legend. “I use the ghosts and apply City (台北市伊通街41號2-3樓). Admission: Free the show. The 48-year-old, currently Chang Chien-chi, from Double Happiness them to current political situations,” he said. In Open Tuesdays to Saturdays one of four artists representing series (2003-2009). PHOTO COURTESY OF NTMFA Oil We Trust is based on the story of a serial from 1pm to 10pm. Tel: (02) Taiwan at the Venice Biennale, rapist called Orang Minyak who covers himself 2507-7243 shows an extraordinary ability to capture desperation in its many forms: in black oil to sneak around undetected. ■ Until Dec. 5 loneliness, resignation, frustration. Positive aspects are also explored: practicality, courage and hope. Justin Lim, In Oil We Trust (2008). PHOTO COURTESY OF NTMFA