Roundup from Taipei Dangdai 2020

Following a chilly week of erratic rainy weather, the sun made a welcome appearance during this year’s Taipei Dangdai fair, now in its second edition. Set between a general election—which resulted in a landslide victory for president Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party—and mere days before the start of Chinese New Year holidays, the mood at Taipei Dangdai was festive and relaxed, with a packed crowd at the VIP preview. Regional institutional and gallery directors, curators, artists, and collectors were seen wandering the booths at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, though sales have yet to be confirmed, with low-profile, serious Taiwanese collectors expected to return to the fair over the next few days to make their decisions.

Featuring 99 galleries, 83 with spaces in Asia and 23 in Taiwan, and a majority of them returning participants from the first edition, Taipei Dangdai was split, as before, into five sectors: the main Galleries, Young Galleries (subsidized participation for spaces founded within the past eight years), Solo artist booths, large-scale Installations, and Salon, offering artworks priced at or below USD 8,000. This year’s fair saw a stronger public talks program curated by fair co-director Robin Peckham and Taiwanese political and cultural writer Chang Tieh-Chih, centered on themes of technology, ecology, pop culture, and tradition. The fair has also expanded into the city, with Michael Lin’s colorful projection of a traditional Taiwanese window design taking over the modern glass facade of Taipei 101, and special presentations at Dong Gallery, a 90-meter-long digital screen along Zhongxiao East Road in downtown Taipei.

Within the fair, many galleries showcased Taiwanese artists, including Wu Chi-Tsung at Sean Kelly Gallery (New York) and Galerie du Monde (Hong Kong). Chou Yu-Cheng’s enlarged screenshot of a computer desktop was imposed on the walls of Edouard Malingue’s (Shanghai/Hong Kong) booth, while Taipei-based TKG+ showed his gigantic sculptural grains of rice against a background of electroplated gold.

The fair’s curated large-scale displays included Chen Wan-Jen’s installation of swimmers gliding across a pool of screens, Midnight Black (2019). Presented by Eslite Gallery, tech-art collective LuxuryLogico’s kinetic sculpture Poetry of the Sun (2020) was a sight to behold. Built from stainless steel and measuring nearly four meters in diameter, the motorized structure undulates with the grace of leaves in the wind. Marking the collective’s debut at Taipei Dangdai, Poetry of the Sun was emblematic of the fair, which has continued to propel itself toward its goal of becoming a major regional art event.