Oct 22 2019

Roundup from Art Taipei 2019

by Pamela Wong

In the center of the fair, visitors stopped by to take photos or scribble on ALIXE FU’s sculpture Sign Me For Earth (2019), commissioned to increase environmental awareness. All photos by Pamela Wong for ArtAsiaPacific.

Co-organized by the Taiwan Art Gallery Association, Taiwan Ministry of Culture, and Taiwan External Trade Development Council, the 26th edition of Art Taipei returned to the Taipei World Trade Center under the thematic heading “Reproduction of Light.” While this year’s fair featured 141 galleries representing 12 countries and regions, the show remained largely East Asian in focus, with a significant number of Japanese galleries and artworks in particular. The 2019 edition proved fruitful; the preview day alone resulted in robust total sales of TWD 36,000,000 (USD 1,178,400).

Interest in Mono-ha was strong, with Lee Ufan’s minimalistic paintings and Nobuo Sekine’s golden canvases shown at several booths. Gallery Olym (Tokyo) showcased drawings by manga artist Osamu Tezuka, whose watercolor of comic-book character Astro Boy (c. 1970s) was recently auctioned off for HKD 187,500 (USD 24,000) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. The modern and contemporary ink category remained popular, represented at the fair by artists including Fung Chung-ray and Xu Bing. Among the few booths exhibiting contemporary Euro-American artists, Bluerider Art (Taipei) displayed Swiss media artist MARCK’s video sculpture depicting human figures trapped in wooden boxes.

Occupying a corner of the show floor, the special exhibition “Art Revives Beyond Discipline: Post Martial-Law and the Development of Taiwan Contemporary Art,” curated by National Taiwan Normal University professor Pai Shih Ming, centered on the development of contemporary art in Taiwan after the end of martial law. For the first time, Art Taipei also invited Japan’s Contemporary Art Dealers Association to curate a selection of post-war Japanese art, including works by Tomio Miki, Takesada Matsutani, and Jiro Takamatsu. Meanwhile, the Public Art Project corners displayed commissioned interactive installations by Jerusalem-based artist Beverly Barkat, Hong Kong artist Victor Wong, and Shanghai media art collective MOTSE.

Here are some highlights from the fair:

ShanghArt Gallery (Beijing / Shanghai / Singapore) featured the photographic duo BIRDHEAD, with the walls of the booth covered by two major bodies of work commissioned by Tokyo’s National Art Center in 2011.

A wall of YOSHITOMO NARA’s sketches were displayed at Whitestone Gallery (Taipei / Hong Kong / Tokyo).

Swiss artist MARCK’s video sculpture and body clock attracted a crowd at the booth of Bluerider Art (Taipei).

Chini Gallery (Taipei) had a duo exhibition featuring abstract geometric paintings by HO KAN and the latest cat sculptures by LEE KUANG-YU.

XU BING’s Background Story: Spring Clouds and Layered Mountains (2019) was presented as one of the Public Art Projects, at the booth of Ink Studio (Beijing).

Asia Art Center’s (Taipei / Beijing) solo presentation of LI CHEN was staged to resemble a tearoom, and showcased an early Buddhist sculpture and his recent Ethereal Cloud series.

Detail of SAGAKI KEITA’s work at the booth of Donna Art & Consulting (Taipei). The gallery had just held the artist’s first solo exhibition in Taiwan, and nearly sold all of his reinterpretations of famous paintings, composed of miniature cartoon characters.

Galerie Nichido (Taipei / Nagoya / Tokyo) represents a number of emerging Taiwanese artists including HUANG PIN-LIN, whose oil-on-canvas A Rainy Night was shown at the gallery’s booth.

MITSUHIRO IKEDA’s canvases depicting bundles of wood were on view at Soka Art (Beijing / Taipei / Tainan).

DAIDO MORIYAMA’s Whore, Yokosuka (1970) was displayed at the Taiwan Collectors’ Collection Exhibition, “Standing Still to See Afar.”

SHYU RUEY-SHIANN’s mechanical installation Couple (2013) was shown at the special exhibition “Art Revives Beyond Discipline: Post-Martial Law and the Development of Taiwan Contemporary Art.” The two beer bottles occasionally made contact.