Art lovers can be quite content in Taiwan and no longer have to fly to New York for their cultural fix as there's a MOCA, even plans to build a Guggenheim and now a newly opened space: TaipeiMOMA.
TaipeiMOMA's inaugural exhibition features the work of 16 Taiwanese artists. However, TaipeiMOMA is more like a small gallery space than a museum, as it has no permanent collection and is free, unlike New York's vast MOMA that charges outrageous admission fees. One reason for the name is that the stable of artists produce museum-quality work and their works are in museum collections around the world.
The space is tiny with two rooms separated by an office area, so most of the work is two-dimensional: works on paper, photos, paintings or digital printouts with the exception of one video work as it would be difficult to show large sculptures or installation here.
PHOTO: SUSAN KENDZULAK
For Taiwan's art market, the artists who work with traditional means, such as ink painting on scrolls tend to sell more to local collectors rather than artists who use more experimental or conceptual means.
Several of the featured artists are well-known, highly respected masters of Chinese brush ink painting but done with a modern twist. The prices of their work also reflect their high status in the art market with one painted scroll costing NT$300,000.
Yuan Jai's (
PHOTO: SUSAN KENDZULAK
Huang Chih-yang's (
Lin Chuan-chu's (
The ink paintings are installed together while the newer media works such as digital photography and C Prints are on the other side of the space, setting up an interesting dialogue between the works -- as the artists are contemporaries of each other but their art concerns are radically opposed.
For these digital users, the touch of the artist's hand and actual mark-making is not a concern in their work. The idea or concept of what they are trying to convey is the first step, and how that idea should be expressed is secondary.
So, in showing a picture of Taipei's bustling Ximen District that is stripped of pedestrians and vehicles, an absence of life, becomes much more powerful a statement as a digitally altered photo rather than if it were painted in thick oils on canvas or watery ink brush strokes on paper. The medium is the message. So here Yuan Goang-ming (
Wu Tien Chang's (
The only video work in the exhibition is by Chen Yung-hsien (
Exhibition note:
What: Opening exhibition
Where: Taipei MOMA Gallery, 3F, 19, Ln 252, Dunhua S Road Sec 1, Taipei, Taiwan (台北市敦化南路252巷19號3F)
When: Tue to Sat, 11am to 7pm (by appointment) Tel:886-2-87713372
On the Web: http://www.taipeimoma.com
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