Art by any other name

For those who can't afford to have a Picasso or a Henry Moore in their home but still want to own beautiful -- and more importantly, original -- pieces of art to enjoy themselves and impress their friends with, there is more choice than ever before.

The arts and craft movement that has taken off gradually over the last couple of decades in the US is increasingly making itself felt in Taiwan, with numerous boutiques flogging the works of, as yet, relatively unknown artists working in textiles, ceramics, glass and other materials that are not conventionally credited with "high art" status.

So it doesn't come as any great surprise that Page One, Taipei's newest bookshop has jumped onto this bandwagon. In addition to books, Page One is also offering a selection of original art works drawn from around the world as part of a consumer concept in which even the designer chairs and tables at the coffee shop are on sale.

The theme for the following month will be glass art from New Zealand. According to Dennis Liu, Page One's corporate affairs manager, the bookshop will change themes each month, exhibiting and selling work by artists around the world.

Ola Hoglund, one of the eight artists featured who visited Taipei for the opening of the show, pointed out that works by artists such as himself are one-off originals, unlike work by the major glass labels such as Kosta Boda, with whom Hoglund cut his teeth as a young glass blower in Sweden before moving on to New Zealand.

"For them, there is the designer who will make designs for the craftsmen to create," he said. "For us, we design and make each piece ourselves. Often we are inspired by the nature of the material itself."

On display are works that can be seen strictly as "art" -- such as David Murray's Territory, a wedge of frosted green glass, the thin end a jagged knife-edge, the image redolent of the wide open spaces of central Australia. Then there are more utilitarian pieces, bowls, plates, perfume bottles, many of them excitingly decorated with multiple layers of colored glass. The price of these works ranges from just over NT$5,000 for a perfume bottle to as much as NT$350,000 for some of the larger and more elaborate pieces.

The display is unashamedly commercial, but adds a splash of color to the entrance -- some of Hoglund's larger works invite the book buyer in -- while most of the small pieces are displayed in and around Page One's coffee shop at the back of the store. Rather like public art, they provide the bookshop with some unlooked-for visual appeal, and then of course, there is the option to purchase.

Like ceramics and textiles, glass is now filling a niche between those unable or unwilling to afford the astronomical prices demanded for traditional art, and those who are simply content with whatever dross is cheapest at the department store.

With the well-heeled seeking to differentiate themselves from the crowd, Hoglund said that the market for his work and that of other New Zealand glass artists is very strong, with the US being a major market.

Page One doesn't wear its artiness quite so obviously on its sleeve as archrival Eslite, and comes across as rather more hardheaded. It is something about the bar code on some of the objects on display.