Curator: WANG I-WEN

In his 2023 series entitled “Borders．Crests”, Yang Shang-feng brought his reflections on these topics - were gained over many years in working in fashion design, iron sculpture, synthetic wood, paper and mixed media. His experiences allowed him to create objects which could be strong but light, stable but also gracefully elegant: abstractions of his thoughts and inner world. 

While from a distance, his work looks as if hard metal grasps tightly on wall in a flying motion; or on close examination, his sculpture looks like broken iron pieces, crowded together, resembling the crashing of water on rocks, generating broken waves, their peaks pushing and overlapping, one after another.

靜觀/凝視/天地所共有的形體

鄭宏章

　　繪畫與凝視是以一種雙向的交互作用，一種間歇改變彼此的串連運動。一次次將光線照映入眼睛的影像透過畫筆描繪在畫幅上，這樣的積累讓我們對世界的認知隨著經驗而加深厚度、視線也能更寬廣地涵蓋更多的空間維度。

　　當然繪畫不只限於事物顯露的表象。以繪畫工具在畫面上留下的痕跡、各種細碎的線索，能夠傳遞心靈震動的能量。這些量能得以物質的形式留存，作為介質傳遞藝術家的精神世界。

　　靜觀世界，傾聽空氣中的耳語，並在韻律與節奏中找到與世界共存的方式。以凝視對應宇宙的變化；以座標丈量方向，並以沈澱的心靈書寫那些無法名狀的波動。

郭書瑜

　　創作之所以有趣，正是因為它能夠反映與傳遞個人對事件的態度，一直以來筆者在創作中誠實面對自我的想望，將個人無法用語言文字理清的、不願告人的，以一團曖昧隱晦的人物打包呈現。畫面中如同麵團的人物自2021年起，融入個人的生活經驗、觀察與想像，甚至與觀者交換故事，緩慢的發酵，將關注的課題從自身與框架間的關係，轉移到個人價值思考上。

　　繼前陣子的「理想生活」系列後，本次以「有用的人」為主軸，描繪的是在過度努力的社會風氣下，有許多客觀標準，能夠方便的量化一個人的價值，人們也在無形中參照這些標準來衡量自己，無意義的行為幾乎可以被視為一種浪費，如果說天生我材必有用，人們似乎更應該要把握自己的那一道光，好好地在時間內發揮最大價值，越有效率越好。然而從「有用的人」的角度，主觀的看待生活中無所事事的時刻，一方面在內心譴責無效生活的浪費，一方面難掩對於總有些人能夠自在地浪費，其實感到相當羨慕。

　　人們在努力追求高效率時想著好爭取片刻的空暇時光，卻在空暇時想著：據說偶爾放空有時候更能提升效率。就連想要無所事事的能力都已經退化，即便說服自己停下腳步，空出一段時間什麼也不做，心跳與呼吸不會停止，頭髮跟指甲也不斷以不可見的進度生長，想像努力文化已深植生物細胞之中，如同搭上一班無法停止的列車，眼角可以瞥見巷弄小路間的浪漫，卻只能直往目的地前進。

Art and Variation – Exhibition of Chu-Sheng Yeh’s Work

Hsien-Yiu Tsai

Chu-sheng Yeh, a graduate of the Madrid Royal Art Academy of Spain, is an avant-garde artist whose ideas have been an essential driving force in the development of modern art in Taiwan. Over the past four decades since 1980, Yeh’s thoughts in the classroom have inspired countless students in the creation of modern and contemporary art. As to the practice of art, Yeh’s pioneering attitude remains unchanged:

“Art is my language and form, which I use to express my central thoughts and to communicate.’’ ─ Chu-Sheng Yeh

Chu-sheng Yeh uses different forms of art to express the complicated feelings of individuals. His early artworks explore the relationship between human beings and the natural, living environment. These works are of two main types: painting with mixed media, and installations. Both types achieve expressive effect though the materials used.

In the past ten years, after undergoing much transformation externally and internally, and after undertaking much reflection on the twists and turns of life, he looked inwardly to search for the real meaning of art. The understanding he gained, returning to the essence of life itself, has been reflected in a series of exhibitions: in 2015, “Submerged, Bursting Forth”; in 2017, “Art and Meaning – Chu-Sheng Yeh’s Works of Art” and “Joy, Life and Art – Chu-Sheng Yeh’s Works of Art”; in 2019 “A Journey through Art – Exhibition of Chu-Sheng Yeh’s Oil Paintings” and “Trial and Rebirth – Exhibition of Chu-Sheng Yeh’s Oil Paintings”; and in 2021 “From 2012 to 2021”.

And now in 2023, we are hosting his latest exhibition “Art and Variation – Chu-Sheng Yeh’s Work.” As with previous exhibitions, this is a dialogue between the artist and art in a journey towards the rediscovery of authenticity. Chu-sheng Yeh once said: “My work has been evolving all the time, and there has been no limitation in its frame of reference. I use ideas and concepts to set up styles, rather than the other round. Metaphysical style is something we should all pursue.”

There are 22 pieces in this exhibition. They include 12 works from the “Metamorphosis” series which started from 2021 and ended in 2022. From these works we can see the challenge that the artist puts on himself. “Metamorphosis” can also be regarded as “reverse-change” because every new work challenged the form of previous work. Although at each stage we see some shape of “transformation”, it is rather more about “putting down”: withdrawing from existing forms and creative techniques, and starting over again with new ones.

As Alberto Giacometti said: “Truth seems hiding behind a layer of thin veil. After the layer is removed, one after another then re-appears. However, I am getting closer by one step every day.” When Chu-Sheng Yeh gets rid of layers of veils, what is left on the picture is the first cycle of original and initial life of the chaotic universe. Lao Tzu said: “Dao is something without shape, which seems both to exist and not exist.” This means there appear to be some shapes and objects, within a confusing universe. Lao Tzu also said: “The dao reveals operates through the opposite direction; weakness is where dao exercises and works to support.” When putting away all restrictions on form, Yeh’s principle of creation mirrors his philosophy of life: reflecting emotions, truthfully and momentarily, while returning to the origin of innocence.

Glance back – Light, Shadow and Slowness

The tranquil prospect of Chang Wen-Ching

Curator: Tsai Hsien-Yiu

Opening

Gaze, though short, is peaceful. Long perspective allows me to keep distance from what I saw, just like the scenery on the skyline during my travels. A reflected view goes into my eyes unintentionally, but calms and soothes my unsettled mood: from up and down, from fluctuation to peace. Finally, I see light and colour through cloud, across the skyline. I am also able to observe my daily practices and experiences.

Life should be able to take a break at a particular moment and space, if the moment and space are worthy. In so doing, we are able to reflect in ease and peace. Emptiness should be persevered in daily life, because it allows feelings to add colours. Such desires should be rewarded in the flow of life, because they are humble things.

Therefore, I reorganise myself and prepare to depart. I look back to the past and try to re-capture the lost time with my own interpretations and stories … I want to share them. I do so through paintings: some are as surreal as a collage, some as abundantly elegant as poetry. Colours and melodies are added into life. Tales and stories are passed on. 

Timeless deep travel, monophonic tunes

The window itself becomes the view, access to the world; and yet it also transforms into a theatre within our imagination. In paused time, it seems like works of art are out for us to contemplate. Only aloneness is left as heart turns simple. And only monophonic tunes remain in the throbbing heart. The earth becomes the platform, while the blue sky is the curtain: sun, moon and stars are lights. When the curtain is opened, pictures come one after another, reflected in deep thought and projected on the stage.

There is a cloud in every picture in the “Meditation” and “Windows” series. Sometimes the cloud is outside the windows, sometimes inside. The cloud carries the dream and flies along the skyline, waiting for the dream to come true. The scenery outside the windows embraces endless imagination, self-appreciation, and the resonance of internal monophony.

Slowness, Light, and Shadow

Where light and shadow meet, it is at the point of ‘black’, where the curtain of the universe opens, in complete silence and emptiness. At this moment there is no separation between shape and shadow; only a wait for light to break through sky and separate it from earth. The works of the “Silence” series are made to express the first light of day. When the dark curtain of the sky is lifted, time is not detected as it moves so slowly; and yet every subtle change indicates a shift in time and space, from coldness to gentle warmness. The falling, hair-like light wakes up the world.

There is a deep love of ‘slowness’ in daily life, a pace which is completely the opposite of hurry. In embracing slowness, the soul gains an opportunity to calm and settle; the movement and flow of life can be oriented. It turns out that the flow of light and shadow is not only part of daily practice, but also determines the pace of life. In the universal tempo of slowness, light and shadow meet and merge together, reflecting each other and eventually becoming one.

Text by Cheng-zhu Weng

Free/Responsible－Free/Responsible—Chi-Chang, Hsieh's Artworks Exhibition is about a representation of the artist’s spirit and soul.

Introduced by Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995), postmodern French artist and thinker, the concept of the fold is about the unceasing changes of life that is akin to countless folds on a piece of fabric; and the existence of life seeks similarities among all variations, like the connection between the artist and his work. The exhibition Free/Responsible will guide its audience into the core theme of the artist’s creation–which is his representation of mind and soul. Life with unceasing changes is like repeated layering paint, for in a creator’s perspective, the artist’s life journey corresponds to the creative process of his work. Thus the works are presented to the viewers according to the artist’s transformation of life. To an artist, one of the fundamental issues about creation is about perspective on the past while seeking and making a difference. To viewers, the choice application of multiple media in the works ushers in a deeper sense of meditation on life, rather than just a discussion of the variations in media. Take the distinction between on paper and on canvas for example: paper easily absorbs the paint although it doesn’t support repeated layers on paint, and canvas is the opposite. The difference between these two kinds of medium can also alter the pace in a creative process, constructing some comparable development to life in different seasons and environments.

Viewers may recognize the signs of transformation of human life, marked by the time and the space, from the paintings in this exhibition. The unique symbolic trademark of the artist’s creative style may evoke the unintentional drawings in our daily experiences and recollections of life. On the other hand, human life experience has in fact tinted the life of painting, the flow of paint on each painting implies the artist’s body movement as well as unpreventable gravity, just like the spirit of freedom in the artist. Hence an artist can demonstrate the rhythm of life via his creative deeds, and so lead us to meditate: on the connection between life and art, also on how time and space may induce art and life of a man. Like the exhibition of Free/Responsible at two art sites, inviting an audience to come and thus experience appreciation and contemplation in a heterotopia.

This End Versus That End discusses the interconnection between seeing and being seen in photography. It is about how photography—providing an entrance to culture and male/female gaze—as one of the most direct creative languages, produces both images and the reference of how they are perceived. It is also about how images can form an imagination of genders that is like a kind of index, and an introduction to its cultural context. As for its visual presentation, this end of image is frankly displayed for its audience, while that end refers to a particular visual realm that belongs to the author, and thus represents an intuitive and diverse language of imagery with the posture of a producer in the creative context.

In this exhibition, to guide viewers into Chou’s diverse world of image in a way that is similar to reading an index, we particularly selected a series work.
In Red Sleep Bed, an item from older generation becomes a symbol and a metaphor through her direct closeup shot. Being more than a feeling of nostalgia for old things, it is a study of her life experience through these things and items. Thus the artist has created the diffêrance of image with her intuitive memory and nostalgia via photographic montage.
In the conceptual narrative language of Reflection/Nothingness, the drifting image displays a bizarre and slightly rootless background, rewriting our external visual experience of reality with a pragmatic approach; like a film festival with structure. As an experimental work, it is more like a kind of backtracking and denial of the era of information explosion and anxiety.
The Other End of the Red Cord demonstrates an imagination of marriage by unmarried women—the wedding dress becomes a mirror, while happiness is the narcissistic wish. This piece is a fictional depiction of the repression of women from a culture with prejudice. A wedding dress may symbolize women’s desire for marriage; it can also be a sign of invisible restrictions and irony. Perhaps this series may stimulate viewers to contemplate that the term “Leftover girl” signifies description of a single state as well as sexism.

As the photographer penetrates through a cultural perception via her image, clicking the shutter button takes more than a moment of time; it requires the photographer’s presentation arrangement of the image. Using photography as a meaningful tool in the world of representation, Chou represents another kind of cultural language through photography. In her creation, all the motifs and themes are in mutual referencing connection under the arrangement via her viewing window. It is seemingly her intention to detach her image from stereotypical historic point of impression. The text structure of her artistic expression places the metaphor out of sight via photographic techniques; her work wanders at the boundary of the invisible, roaming about the distinction between seeing and being seen, whether it is about a visible body or a metaphorical gender issue.

Chou’s images present a rearrangement of the existing world through photography, which provides her work a characteristic of self-reflective ideal. Her photographic work is like a message without a code, in Roland Barthes’s words. Fro her, photography is like a way to quest for self, on a creative journey that provides a free yet steady artistic expression through which she can unpretentiously express in a visual language of her own. The meaning in her work is not limited within the visible; its weight of memory and consciousness brings us to contemplate, and hence, to create a kind of imagination—an interrelationship between gender, material, and society.

The title Behind the Image signifies an innovative concept and its continuation throughout Liu Yao-bin’s work over these years as a photographer. It suggests the misconception of visibility in the core of photography, as a confirmatory experience to a present viewer, the authenticity of image does not suggest representation of reality but the way which the photographer interferes in the world of reality. The title also suggests an invisibility, which responds to the reoccurring motif of female as maternity and primitive memory, and thus implies the existential truth of a desire behind the symbol of female body through a sophisticated glimpse. The invisibility of image refers to total transparency of every image at the presence of its subject, it echoes the photographer’s interference to meaning, although coming across a representation, the contemporary digital images demonstrate a pastiche of the mind of its creator.

The representative characteristic in Liu’s photographic work surpasses the visible reality, presenting his grasp in image themes with an invisible posture; as a response to contemporary art feature and its irreversible destiny, these works stand on the edge between producing and feigning. The 3 series In Bloom, Not a Flower, Bóng-tshī and Zhao Di, Hiding is no Equal to Forgetting are selected on display in this exhibition, for a series of work contains the developing context of how the artist created a connection between art pieces and himself in the images. The gaze upon affection and gender has always been the core essence of exploration in his works. Rather than merely an aesthetic judgement in the perspective of direct phenomenon of sex and desire, his photography skillfully applies a visual language with profound cultural meanings in his allegories of image; it wanders between the realm of intuition and of reality, in it exists a dual-affection of a subconscious subject with desire on female as a kind of maternal attachment and dependance, albeit dreamy. As the photographer wrote in his artist statement: he wishes to elaborate his own ideas and concepts via a language of images… for one must wear his mask and cope with his workplace in the world of reality, while seeing is not equivalent to understanding.

As Roland Barthes proclaimed, vision is the most mysterious among all senses, it is on the other side of the spectrum from knowledge, because magic lies within vision. Liu transferred from the career path of being a professional pharmacist to the role of a photographer, and having been through losing his mother he begun to ponder the sexual attachment of maternity. He reviews his personal history and memory through creative process, and thus constructs this kind of Lacanian lack of his own interpretation in the world of photography. Hence he constructed a paradox of seeing and being seen through the seemingly in sight character of image, and thus demonstrates that the moment a viewer sees an art piece, they see their inner truth.

I see value in Liu’s photography, not only for his representative ability in emotional expressions, but also for his capability to see things via a viewfinder, allowing viewers to connect with the truth of his memory and the perception of seeing through his image creation while being aware of the invisibility character of photography himself.