Taipei Biennial 2023 announces the opening week program and highlights

16 October 2023, Taipei –– Organised by Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), Taipei Biennial 2023, which will take place from 18 November 2023 through 24 March 2024, is pleased to announce special programs for the opening of the 13th edition between 18 and 19 November. Curated by Freya Chou, Reem Shadid, and Brian Kuan Wood, this year’s edition of the Taipei Biennial, titled “Small World”, will feature works from more than 50 international and local artists and musicians, transforming the museum into a space of listening, gathering and improvising.

The Biennial will launch with a two-day opening program on 18 and 19 November 2023, consisting of conversations, live music performances, and listening sessions presented by artists, musicians, and writers from the Biennial. The conversation series of Artist on Artist invites groups of participants to share their work in the exhibition and exchange thoughts on their artistic practices in general including dj sniff, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Samia Halaby, Lai Chih-Sheng, Ellen Pau, Wang Wei, Alexander Provan, alongside special guest Terre Thaemlitz (a.k.a DJ Sprinkles).

Taiwanese artist Li Jiun Yang, together with the band Buddha, Tiger, Dog, will perform as part of his presentation The Psychedelic Spiritual Ceremony, an installation on view in the exhibition that traces his artistic journey over the past few decades. Samia Halaby, a 86 year old New York based Palestinian abstract painter who is recognised as the pioneer of Kinetic Computer Painting, is showing a series of kinetic paintings that she wrote on her Amiga computer since the 80s. The program transformed the keyboard of her computer to a piano keyboard for abstract paintings. The digital paintings are produced through a live performance of her interacting and improvising with other collaborators, and the vivid colour will change along the music melody. During the opening week, Halaby will be doing a live performance on kinetic paintings together with Indonesian artist Julian Abraham (Togar). Additionally, she will engage in a conversation with leading Hong Kong video artist Ellen Pau.

Music and ways of relating to music plays an important role in Taipei Biennial 2023 as a form of cultural energy and performative tension, but also as a counterpoint to the modes of attention and embodiment ascribed to visual art. The Biennial transforms a gallery into a music room, designed by AAU ANASTAS Studio, founded by Palestinian architects Elias and Yousef Anastas. During the opening program, Listening sessions focused on artist-run music labels will take place in the Music Room and invite presenters to share stories, challenges, and most importantly, music from the various artist networks that the labels have nurtured over the years. Participants including Comatonse recordings by DJ Sprinkles, YesNoWave Music by Julian Abrahm ‘Togar’ and Wok the Rock, Ting Shuo Hear Say by Alice Hui-Sheng Chang and Nigel Brown, and Senko Issha Records by Chi-Guang Wang.

Throughout the exhibition period, the Biennial invited three groups of musicians and sound practitioners, including dj sniff from Los Angeles / Tokyo, Julian Abraham (Togar) & Wok the Rock from Indonesia and Ting Shuo Hear Say from Tainan to host programs dedicated to gathering, recording, jamming, and music programming. From 10 to 16 December, 2023, the Music Room will present its first program ex-DJ with a one-week open studio hosted by dj sniff featuring three experimental turntablists from around the globe: Mariam Rezaei from Newcastle, UK, SlowPitchSound from Toronto, and DJ Rex Chen from Taichung. They will present a series of performances together with dj sniff. Various programs at the Music Room will run through March 2024, and more details will be announced soon.

Highlighted artworks by Taiwanese artists to be revealed for the first time

In addition to the various public and Music Room programs, 19 new works and commissions will be featured at the Biennial, including the new works of artists such as Yang Chi-Chuan, Hsu Tsun-Hsu, and Jen Liu:

Yang Chi-Chuan explores the intimate psychological relationships between people and places, objects, and events. She employs a delicate expression in her sculptures and sound installations and draws on personal experiences and memories to invite viewers on an intimate narrative journey that offers probing questions about our surroundings. Your tears remind me to cry, is a newly commissioned sound installation for the Biennial. The work comprises several sets of ceramic sculptures which are transformed from the imaginary tiny organisms and fear of nightmare, reflecting on struggles with anxiety and fear when they collide with each other and make sound.

Hsu Tsun-Hsu documented Taiwan’s turbulent social changes and progress as a democracy. The Biennial features The More We Get Together, a collection of photographs Hsu took between 1986 and 1998 during a decade of unpredictable moments and pivotal events in Taiwan. The photographs capture micro moments ranging from the misfit and banal to the macro perspectives towards historic and transformative events. The images exemplify the originality and aptness of Hsu’s gaze as well as his eye for social absurdity. In her research-based work, Taiwanese-American artist Jen Liu fabricates speculative narratives to contest dominant accounts of the past and present. The Land at the Bottom of the Sea (2023) is the last chapter of Pink Slime Caesar Shift, a multi-year body of work in a variety of mediums and new technologies to create alternative networks for overseas female labour activism.

Another highlight is the works of New York based Taiwanese-American artist Arthur Ou that were created during the isolated living experiences and strict confinement of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ou examines the complex mechanism behind image generation in his alone time, his photographs explore the close relationship between pictures and light, reminding oneself to stay curious to the minor things through the innocent lens of children.

Taipei Biennial Supports

This year, CTBC Foundation for Arts and Culture continues as the lead sponsor of Taipei Biennial. FENG Chi-Tai, chairman of the CTBC Foundation for Arts and Culture, remarks: “Taipei Biennial is an iconic event in the contemporary artworld, it raises the awareness of Taiwanese contemporary art on the international platform and fosters the conversation between Taiwan and the world. Under the theme of “Small World”, the Biennial explores the reconstruction of relations in the post-pandemic world. With contemporary artworks as the medium, we are thrilled to lead and provoke the contemplation of public on the present and future faced by the humankinds in this ever-changing era.”

Special thanks to National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF) and ARTWAVE for their support of Taipei Biennial 2023 and their dedication to connecting arts in Taiwan with the world by hosting international curators and institution directors from America, Netherlands, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and more. They established the intercultural international network and fosters the exchange and interaction between the artists and arts practitioners from all over the world.

The Music Room is generously supported by Stephen Cheng. And special thanks to AUSPIC PAPER to support the opening event.

For more and latest information on the participating artists, the opening programs, please visit the Taipei Biennial 2023 official website (https://www.taipeibiennial.org/2023), or follow us on Facebook and Instagram (Taipei Fine Arts Museum).

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