The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) is delighted to announce the 2023 highlights, which include two flagship exhibitions, seven solo exhibitions by Taiwanese artists from various generations, and three exhibitions of international collaboration. In addition, the TFAM is launching several special programs to celebrate its 40th anniversary, for which the museum will share the TFAM literature and collection database with the public, initiate an online platform which facilitate novel arts creation, and organize a seminar to engage the public in open discussion about the museum’s next step.
Annual flagship exhibitions: A One and A Two: Edward Yang Retrospective and the 13th Taipei Biennial
Co-organized by the TFAM and the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI), A One and A Two: Edward Yang Retrospective is co-curated by the TFAM Director Wang Jun-Jieh and Professor Sing Song-Yong at the Taipei National University of the Arts. As one of the pioneers spearheading the Taiwan New Cinema movement, Yang’s oeuvre demonstrates insights and critical visions ahead of his time in terms of numerous topics, including urban representation, gender power, political reflection, historical violence, and social change, forming an irreplaceable legacy of the Taiwanese cinema. The exhibition will feature Yang’s manuscripts, documents and archives organized and well-researched during the past three years. Comprising five sections, the exhibition embodies the director’s unique aesthetics and spirit. Moreover, many important works aside from Yang’s feature films, including four plays and his posthumous animation The Wind, are planned to be included in the exhibition to fully map out the creative trajectories and thoughts of the director.
Co-curated by Taiwanese curator Freya Chou; author, editor and educator Brian Kuan Wood; and curator Reem Shadid, the 13th Taipei Biennial will be grounded by an exhibition, a public program of music, residencies, workshops and various discursive and experiential forms. This biennial takes a closer look at different worlds that are disentangling from larger industrial systems; explores how the pressures of daily life and survival flip the scales on many hyper-performative modern apparatuses, sending their weights and measures haywire, breaking open stubbornly intimate enclosures in a still-growing world. It is hoped that this edition will lead the audience to rediscover, reiterate, and be surprised by what could make a certain lyrical life and creation possible.
Solo exhibitions of artists from senior to new generation demonstrate ample artistic energy in Taiwan
With Ho Te-Lai: A Retrospective, Re-Present: Kao Chung-Li, the 2020 Taipei Biennial Grand Prize winner Chang Ting-Tong’s solo exhibition – BODO, and the solo exhibitions of four artists, the TFAM will showcase the works ranging from senior generation artists to new generation artists.
Ho Te-Lai (1904-1986) was one of the important artists from the period of Japanese rule, who created an individual path outside the system of official exhibitions. His work expresses his thoughts on life, observations and understanding of natural creation, deep affections for his beloved family, as well as his contemplation on and care for the human society. The retrospective teases out the artist oeuvre, including calligraphies, watercolors, sketch drawings, short poems, notes, and manuscripts, to present the artist’s creative journey in a multifaceted and comprehensive manner. Featuring the artist’s brand new pieces and his art series published from 1983 onward, the exhibition Re-Present: Kao Chung-Li seeks to explore the interrelationship among perception, image, and history, respond to the modernization since the Second Industrial Revolution, and investigate how people create the conditions for memory and image production.
Chang Ting-Tong’s solo exhibition, BODO, is inspired by director Huang Mingchuan’s homonymous film, Bodo. Echoing the bizarre dreams and somewhat unreal sexual desires depicted in the film, the artist bases his work on his personal experience, and portrays the experience of serving in the marine corps, along with the fantasies, desires, and violent behaviors of a masculine world in a tropical forest. Through the work, the artist further discusses the abstract construct of “man,” and how it gradually becomes a social reality aided by camouflage uniforms and instruments of killing. For the TFAM Solo Exhibitions, Wang Yao-Yi, Shih Yi-Shan, Chang Yung-Ta, and Jao Chia-En will employ different media and creative thinking to unfold their respective explorations and dialectics of various topics, including the image and personal memory, the social order created by human-machine governance, the randomness of cosmic particles, as well as the narrative structures in exhibition mechanism and the right to speak.
Three exhibitions of international collaboration respectively featuring photography, video installation, and sculpture
In 2023, the TFAM will present three exhibitions of international collaboration, namely, the retrospective of Swiss photographer René Burri, the solo exhibition of Belgian video installation artist David Claerbout, and a thematic exhibition, titled Supernatural: Sculptural Visions of the Body.
René Burri · Explosions of Sight is a collaboration among the TFAM, the Photo Elysée, Lausanne and the Foundation René Burri, and will be the first retrospective of Burri in Asia after the passing of the artist. Burri has been named one of the most influential contemporary photographers. From the iconic image of Ernesto Guevara smoking a cigar to the documentation of the economically awakening Brasilia and Beijing, China in the 1960s, his black-and-white photography has served as a witness to significant 20th-century cultural events. The exhibition will feature more than 500 works, documents and archives, including original vintage photographs, contact sheets, notes, sketch drawings, books, letters and so on. Video installation artist David Claerbout is known for his works mixing photography, video, sound and digital technologies. Through manipulating and experimenting with motion and stillness, time and speed, as well as sound, the artist destabilizes conventional boundaries between visual media, and imbues his video images with multilayered temporalities. This solo exhibition will showcase a selection from his large-scale video works of 1996, which are to be accompanied by a series of sketch drawings, to construct a unique viewing experience in the high-ceiling gallery.
Supernatural: Sculptural Visions of the Body, a collaboration between the TFAM and Institut für Kulturaustausch, Tübingen, discusses the future of the human body in the Anthropocene era. As biotechnology continues to develop, mankind can modify the existence of all living things. What form will the body take in the future? “Who” or “what” will we become? What kind of an environment will we live in? The artists amalgamate robots and synthetic bio technology to create hyperrealistic sculptures, which prove the influences of digital evolution and genetic engineering on “post-humanity” and the environment, while speaking of the increasingly blurred boundaries between nature, science and culture.
Special projects for the TFAM’s 40th anniversary
To celebrate the 40th anniversary, the TFAM will launch an online database and thematic artist webpages born from several years of endeavor, to share the fruitful results with the public. At the same time, in order to respond to the museum’s expansion which is towards new types of cross-domain or hybrid art creation in the future, a networking project will be commenced. Last but not least, the TFAM is co-organizing an international conference with the Chinese Association of Museums (CAM) to brainstorm and envision the museum’s next stage.
Since the inauguration, the TFAM has accumulated an extensive array of valuable literature and archives. The museum has established the “TFAM Exhibition Archive 1983-1994”, and has digitized archives related to the exhibitions, research, and education outreach programs realized in the museum’s first decade, during which a total of 665 exhibitions were presented. The database will visualize the TFAM’s journey from the initial period of exploring its operation and management to gradually establishing itself as “a modern and contemporary art museum. The thematic webpages – “Special Collection: Ho Te-Lai” comprises a collection of more than a hundred of artworks donated by the artist’s family, Ho Teng-Ching, together with calligraphies, sketch drawings, and prints that have rarely been shown in public, as well as the artist’s notes and letters, all of which have been digitized and interpreted. The dedicated webpages will enable the public to read deeply and comprehensively the resonance formed by the unique artist’s life journey, his standpoints on life and death, and artistic creation, offering more diversified perspectives in the research of Taiwanese art history.
"TFAM NET.OPEN" is an online exhibition platform for cross-type artworks, accompanied by irregular virtual and physical public events, to respond to the contemporary technological society's imagination beyond the physical space. With "Net and networking" as the core concept, this project not only covers various creative fields to cope with the ever-changing and evolving network ecology, but also deepens the co-creation between the museum and other curators and art institutions around the world.
The “TFAM 40 Conference: New Vision and New Mission of Arts Museum” will take place from October 4 to 6, 2023. Regarding the challenges and opportunities faced by contemporary art museums, the conference will discuss three major topics, including “Art Museums and the Public: The Challenges of Low Birth Rates and Ageing Populations,” “Art Museums and Local Area Renewal,” and “Art Museums and City Images.” The call for papers of the conference has been launched, and the deadline of proposal submission is March 31, 2023. For more information and related documents, please see the TFAM event webpage at https://reurl.cc/X55R9j.
Taipei Fine Arts Museum announces 2023 and 40th anniversary highlights (TBD)
Note: The exhibitions below are listed chronologically. Comprehensive news material will be provided prior to the opening of the exhibitions.
Supernatural: Sculptural Visions of the Body | 2023.02.18－2023.06.04 【2F Galleries 2A & 2B】
Supernatural: Sculptural Visions of the Body discusses the future of the human body in the Anthropocene era. As genes continue to evolve with future technological developments, mankind can modify the existence of all living things, such as nature, animals and human beings. What form will the body take in the future? “Who” or “what” will we become? What kind of environment will we live in? The exhibition aims to find possible answers to these questions through hyper-realistic and realistic sculptures. These forward-looking pieces are not only a testament to the impact of digital evolution and genetic engineering on "post-humanity" and the environment, but also illustrate how these hybrid creations are increasingly blurring the boundaries between nature, science, and culture. Innovative technology has had a profound impact on modern sculpting. The artist perfects the production process with 3D printing technology, expanding the boundaries of sculpting to the level of robotics and biosynthesis, thereby opening up the possibility to expand new designs in artifacts, biology, and technology. The exhibition is divided into four major themes: “Hybrid Others”, “Post-Nature”, “Artist 4.0” and “Technological-Human-Metamorphoses”, which explores hybrid lifeforms, genetically modified organisms, future humans and robots, and technology’s impact on life respectively.
BODO – Solo Exhibition of the 2020 Taipei Art Awards Grand Prize Winner Chang Ting-Tong | 2023.03.11－2023.06.04 【BF Galleries E & F】
Chang Ting-Tong’s solo exhibition – BODO is inspired by director Huang Ming-Chuan’s film, Bodo. Echoing the bizarre dreams and somewhat unreal sexual desires depicted in the film, the artist bases his work on his personal experience, and portrays the experience of serving in the marine corps, along with the fantasies, desires, and violent behaviors of a masculine world in a tropical forest. Through the work, the artist further discusses the abstract construct of “man,” and how it gradually becomes a social reality aided by camouflage uniforms and instruments of killing. The exhibition brings together site-specific works, multilayered narratives, interactive technology, and multichannel sounds, transforming the museum into an automatic theater mixing reality and virtuality. In the exhibition, the audience’s viewing routes and choices will have an effect on how the story unfolds. In the complex multithreaded story, the audience become participants in a role-playing game, and everyone’s viewing experience becomes a unique existence unlike any other because of how they choose to experience the adventure.
René Burri．Explosions of Sight | 2023.03.18－2023.06.18 【3F Galleries 3A & 3B】
Celebrated Swiss photographer and Magnum Photos member René Burri has been reputed one of the most influential contemporary photographers. From the iconic image of the Cuban revolution leader Ernesto Guevara smoking a cigar, the memorable portrait series of Picasso taken during the two masters’ encounter in 1957, to the documentation of the economically awakening Brasilia and Beijing, China in the 1960s, his black-and-white photography has demonstrated visual politics and served as a witness to significant 20th-century cultural events. The exhibition not only showcases Burri’s iconic works, but also includes documents and archives in the collections of the Photo Elysée, Lausanne and the Foundation René Burri, as well as that of the Magnum Photos in Paris and New York. The exhibition attempts to reverse the common practice of image exhibitions normally revolving around events or the content of the works, but instead turns the photographer into the center of theoretical discourses and a converging point of events, hoping to provide contemporary audience a fresh viewing perspective. The exhibition will feature more than 500 works and archives, including original vintage photographs, contact sheets, notes, sketch drawings, books, letters and so on.
Re-Present: Kao Chung-Li | 2023.03.25－2023.06.25 【1F Gallery 1A】
Curated by Lee Wei-I, this exhibition explores the production of perception, image, and history. Featuring the artist’s brand new pieces and his art series published from 1983 onward, including ASA to the Power of N, Photochemical-Mechanical Live Image Projection Device, Slideshow Cinema, Object Book Series, Positions of Time, as well as his various sculptures, images, objects and archives, this exhibition responds to the modernization since the Second Industrial Revolution and the collective conditioning in a controlled society. With the archaeology of image machines as the fusion of temporal and conscious flow, the artist attempts to reinvent realities and create the conditions for the production of self-perception, memory and image through the historical disconnection in which the self and technical products find expression. The Chinese exhibition title owes its inspiration to The German Ideology (Die deutsche Ideologie) co-authored by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which reflects the artist’s materialist perspective of history informed by his critical themes—the struggle against audiovisual production and proprioceptive experience, as well as his extra attention to the imaging of “objects” and its history.
David Claerbout Solo Exhibition | 2023.04.01－2023.06.25 【1F Gallery 1B】
Video installation artist David Claerbout (b. 1969) was born in Kortfijk, Belgium, and graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in Belgium, and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Claerbout received a training in painting at first, and is later known for his works mixing photography, video, sound and digital technologies. Through manipulating and experimenting with motion and stillness, time and speed, as well as sound, the artist destabilizes conventional boundaries between visual media, and imbues his video images with multilayered temporalities. Claerbout was featured in the 2004 Taipei Biennial. This solo exhibition showcases a selection from his large-scale video works of 1996, which are to be accompanied by a series of sketch drawings, to construct a unique viewing experience in the high-ceiling gallery.
Ho Te-Lai: A Retrospective | 2023.07.08－2023.10.22 【2F Galleries 2A & 2B】
Ho Te-Lai (1904-1986) was one of the important artists during the period of Japanese rule, who created an individual path outside the system of official exhibitions. As a child, Ho lived in the Hsinchu and Miaoli region, and studied in both Taiwan and Japan. Throughout his life, he mostly lived in Tokyo, Japan. He was accepted into the Tokyo Fine Arts School (now Tokyo University of the Arts) in 1927, and studied painting under Wada Eisaku. After graduation, he devoted his life to promoting painting and developing his own art. Passionate about art, he had joined the Chi Hsing (Seven Stars) Painting Group (七星畫壇), and co-founded the Chi Dao (Red Island) Society (赤島社) and the Hsinchu Art Research Association (新竹美術研究會). Beginning from 1958 to his death, Ho also served as the operation committee member of the Japanese non-official art group, Shinkozo-sha (新構造社), and had joined various art groups, including the Yoshinori-kai (佳德會) and Asuka-kai (飛鳥會), to persistently promote painting and nurture young artists. Ho’s work expresses straightforwardly his thoughts on life. Through short poems and paintings, he delineates his observations and understanding of natural creation, deep affections for his beloved family, as well as his extensive contemplation on and care for the human society. The retrospective teases out the artist oeuvre, and features selected works from different periods of the artist’s career, bringing together calligraphies, watercolors, sketch drawings, short poems, notes, and manuscripts, to present the artist’s journey of expanding his art in a multifaceted and comprehensive manner.
TFAM Solo Exhibitions: Wang Yao-Yi, Shih Yi-Shan, Chang Yung-Ta, and Jao Chia-En | 2023.07.15－2023.10.08 【3F Galleries 3A & 3B】
Wang Yao-Yi’s solo exhibition, The Last Man, the Vietnamese soldier, the Tourist, A-Yuan, the Hunter and the Flâneur, comprises six videos thematically revolving around the artist’s family history informed by the Cold War diaspora and the globalization-propelled migration, and looks at the collective subconscious and personal memory caught in war memory, national symbolism, and the Taiwan New Cinema to be viewed as the key to construct self-identity. Shih Yi-Shan’s solo exhibition, Punishment 2030, comprises procedures of determining punishments posited in a near future world, an interface of human-machine governance, and the participation in art performance and art action to facilitate discussions about related issues. In Without Composing, Chang Yung-Ta tries to release the artist’s absolute control over his works, and allows invisible radioactive particles from the cosmos to create randomness of unpredictable movement and decline in a way that is unachievable by AI programs, thus exploring the real nature of randomness. Jao Chia-En’s solo exhibition, Collection Radauer, continues his collaboration with Clemens Radauer, a collector of human zoos literature, and reconstructs the narrative framework of image, display mechanism, and right to speak. This solo exhibition is structured with imperial remnants from Britain, Vienna, Japan, and Taiwan, to create dialogues between the remnants and modern quotidian scenes.
A One and A Two: Edward Yang Retrospective｜2023.07.22－2023.10.22【1F Galleries 1A & 1B】
Co-organized by the TFAM and the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI), A One and A Two: Edward Yang Retrospective is co-curated by the TFAM Director Wang Jun-Jieh and Professor Sing Song-Yong at the Taipei National University of the Arts. The exhibition will feature Yang’s manuscripts, documents and archives organized and well-researched during the past three years. Comprising five sections thematically translated from the central topics in Yang’s creative work, the exhibition embodies the director’s unique aesthetics and spirit. The exhibition also incorporates precious relics and archives from the deceased director, which will be shown to the public for the first time. As one of the pioneers spearheading the Taiwan New Cinema movement, Yang’s oeuvre demonstrates insights and critical visions ahead of his time in terms of urban representation, gender power, political reflection, historical violence, and social change, forming an irreplaceable legacy to the Taiwanese cinema. To showcase Yang’s cinematic world in the museum is to give synchronic audiovisual forms to his reputed works, and enables the audience to be immersed in this cinematic world, opening themselves up to audiovisual perceptions. At the same time, in terms of the diachronic layout of the exhibition, the audience will both see and hear inspiring moments from the director’s life experience and creative career, which are interwoven into the exhibition. Furthermore, many important works aside from Yang’s feature films, including four plays (Likely Consequence, Growth Period, Jiu Ge and Lao Qi, and King Lear), his posthumous animation The Wind, and various manuscripts, are planned to be included in the exhibition to fully map out the creative trajectories and thoughts of the director. An international forum will be organized in concurrent with the opening of the exhibition, and the TFAI will present a retrospective film program based on Edward Yang’s films during the length of the exhibition as well.
The 13th Taipei Biennial | 2023.11.18-2024.03.24【BF, 1F & 2F Galleries】
The 13th Taipei Biennial will be collectively curated by Taiwanese curator Freya Chou; author, editor and educator, Brian Kuan Wood; and curator Reem Shadid. The team of curators aims to co-produce and co-create a curatorial methodology centering on organic collaboration, which will propel the reiteration and reproduction of knowledge and memory to generate a new momentum for the Taipei Biennial. This edition will be grounded by an exhibition, a public program of music, residencies, workshops and various discursive and experiential forms. This biennial takes a closer look at different worlds that are disentangling from larger industrial systems; explores how the pressures of daily life and survival flip the scales on many hyper-performative modern apparatuses, sending their weights and measures haywire, breaking open stubbornly intimate enclosures in a still-growing world. It is hoped that this edition will lead the audience to rediscover, reiterate, and be surprised by what could make a certain lyrical life and creation possible.
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