Group 13 moves graffiti from the street into the gallery. The curator takes scrawls in an alley and passes them off as legitimate works of art. It's a transformation that has already happened elsewhere but has found a home of sorts in Taipei, at AMPM.
The Canadian aerosol artist Dbsk1 founded the gallery in Ximending at the beginning of the year and it has held a number of graffiti and photography exhibitions, including installations.
The route from avant-garde to mainstream, from the underground to overground, is a well-trodden one and the only surprise is established gallery owners here have not capitalized on it sooner.
PHOTOS: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
"We show the low-brow and underground because no-one else is doing that here. At home [Montreal] there's plenty of shows," says Dbsk1, who uses a number of aliases and is usually photographed with a face mask.
"I have to protect myself. I still do a lot of street stuff and it also keeps the mysterious street scene vibe goin', as opposed to the commercial scene."
Writing graffiti in Taipei is a public order offence under the category of defacing public property and offenders are subject to fines of NT$4,500.
In practice, however, the authorities are fairly lenient and Taipei seems liberal compared with some Western countries. Dbsk1 says he has been pulled a couple of times for tagging but was not fined.
In the UK, former prime minister Tony Blair signed a charter saying, "Graffiti is not art, it's crime," New York set up an anti-graffiti task force and Chicago fines perpetrators US$500.
"It's more easygoing than back in Canada. There's places here where you can do stuff legally - like the levee walls - and where it's kinda accepted," Dbsk1 says.
You can check graffiti out for yourself at sites like the Jianguo Beer Factory, Huashan Culture Park, all around Ximending (especially Cinema Park) and the East Side shopping district around Zhongxiao East Road.
CityStalker is possibly the most famous/infamous local graffiti artist and has been working since 2000, when tags in New Zealand inspired him. He was caught once in Ximending.
"I was working on a piece and this guy was watching me, but I paid no attention. Then the police turned up and it turned out the guy watching was a community officer," CityStalker says.
"They started writing me a red ticket when the [community officer] says, 'Why don't you let him finish the piece, it will look better if he does.'"
Despite the gallery, Dbsk1 emphasizes the "close-to-the-edge" buzz of illegal graffiti work. He admits to walking a "blurry line" between sellout and commercial artist.
Though he has done work for Philips, the city's MRT company and worked as a graphic artist on games, the credibility factor is important to him.
CityStalker, on the other hand, seems more comfortable with the transition. He studied art at college and calls himself a "new school artist," working primarily with stencils and spray paint.
He sees the AMPM show as a way to move out of the shadows and into the spotlight, where he can make a living doing what he's good at.
From its anti-establishment roots in 1970s New York, graffiti has moved from the underpass into the art arena where it is commoditized.
It mirrors the history of art production, which often begins with outsiders and the critics saying, 'That's not art,' then it becomes the norm.
Writing graffiti is as ancient as cave painting and tagging is about as basic as a dog marking its territory by urinating against the wall. Even so, in addition to being ascribed a value, graffiti has developed an aesthetic.
As such, the artist's medium has changed even though the intent is the same, namely to express something. The 13 local and international artists presented at AMPM all do so in fresh, colorful and innovative ways.
From the lettering and anime-inspired work of Jahan, to the graphic designs of Winston and combo lettering of Dabs1, the Group 13 Exhibition shows off the best in local street art.
Trick and Utah's photo installation, Setr's freight train documentary and the film Reefer Madness add to the mix. There will also be DJs, refreshments and an art raffle at the opening.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50