Art fairs are mostly business affairs. No high-falutin high-brow theories, abstract mumbo-jumbo, just the straightforward buying and selling of goods; in this case, art. These types of events are springing up in major cities around the world and are proving to be highly lucrative and fashionable. Demand is so great that some galleries can't supply enough art for eager collectors.
Art Taipei 2006 (台北國際藝術博覽會執行委員會), organized by the Art Galleries Association (AGA), will open its doors for business at Huashan Cultural and Creative Industry Center (華山藝文專用區) from tomorrow through Tuesday. The 32,000-square meter space is currently run by the Executive Yuan's Council for Cultural Affairs.
Begun in 1992 as a local exhibition for AGA members, the Taipei Art Fair became international in 1995. The exhibition was closed in 1999 after Taiwan's devastating earthquake of Sept. 21 that year, and, as a result of SARS in 2002, the fair was not organized again until 2005.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHI-WEN GALLERY
In collaboration with the government, AGA resurrected the fair last year with the new name Art Taipei, which rang up US$3.2 million in sales.
According to the organizers, local galleries have been key contributors to the Chinese art market. The island's sound economic system and democratic structures make Taiwan a favorable place to market Asian art.
Taiwan's art community is small, and fueled by a core of devoted and passionate practitioners that include scholars, professors, curators, artists, writers and a growing rank of collectors. Many of Taiwan's collectors foresaw emerging market trends and started replacing Japanese buyers in the auction market.
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHI-WEN GALLERY
TV personality Kevin Tsai (
The Council for Cultural Affairs sponsored the Asia Live section of the fair which will focus on contemporary art and new trends in Asia.
The theme for Asia Live is New Figure, New Art and will exhibit work from galleries and artists that focuses on the body in relation to biotechnological evolution and metamorphosis, or transcends stereotypes of the body. Australian-based artist Patricia Piccinini has been named artist of the year for this part of the art fair as her figurative sculptures exemplify Asia Live's theme.
Additionally, the Ela-Asia (Electronic Arts Asia) section will show how Taiwan is rapidly transforming into a digital art center.
Most universities in Taiwan now teach courses on new media and are training new generations of digital artists, while high-tech companies such as Acer and Yageo regularly sponsor digital art exhibitions. Co-organized by the team who put together DiVA, a digital and video art fair that took place last month in New York, Ela-Asia will focus on new media art, video art, photography and film.
Artist Huang Chih-yang (黃致陽) will debut his video I Am Cute Germs, which was filmed through a microscope.
Exhibiting galleries at the fair include: Art Beatus (Hong Kong); Dimensions Art Center (Taipei, Beijing); Chi-Wen Gallery (Taipei); Goethe Art Center (Taichung, Taipei); Lin & Keng Gallery (Taipei); Nature Morte (New Dehli); Thavibu Gallery (Bangkok) and Yeh Gallery (Seoul).
The art fair is not all commerce though. There will be some information gathering conducted by the Asia Art Archive which invites attendees to bring their Asian arts-related materials to their Scan Taipei booth to be scanned, donated or photocopied for its huge public-access archive in Hong Kong.
What: Taipei Art Fair 2006 (
Where: Huashan Cultural Center (
More information: Visit www.art-taipei.com, www.aga.org.tw, or call (02) 2321-4808
When: Tomorrow until Tuesday from 7am until 7pm
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and