Over the past few months, there has been much buzz around town about a possible new art fair in Taipei. Yesterday, the rumors were laid to rest by veteran art fair director Magnus Renfrew at a press conference held at Humble House in downtown Taipei. In partnership with the financial services company UBS Group AG, Renfrew and his team jointly announced the unveiling of Taipei Dangdai (台北當代), an art fair that will debut in January of next year at the Nangang Exhibition Center.
Renfrew, the fair’s director, is a seasoned player in the Asian art market and former director of Hong Kong’s first international art fair, Art HK, which was acquired by Art Basel in 2011, and continued his directorship of the fair until 2014.
The veteran art director sees great potential in Taiwan’s art market.
Photo Courtesy of Taipei Dangdai
“Taipei has ... a long established gallery scene, a extensive community of collectors, a vibrant cultural scene and the pure fact that Taipei is great place to visit,” Renfrew says.
While Art Basel Hong Kong has established itself as the international art fair in the Asian region, Dangdai will be defined differently by garnering its strength from a more regional market niche.
“There is a big gap between Art Basel Hong Kong and other fairs in the region, in terms of quality and how they are progressing. It’s necessary to have other fairs that have real quality and don’t necessarily aspire to be the global fair for the region,” Renfrew told Artnews.
The first edition of Taipei Dangdai will bring together 80 galleries from Taiwan, Asia and the rest of the world. The show will present a range of established and young galleries in four exhibition sectors, including a main gallery sector for leading galleries; a young arts sector for galleries of 8 years or less; a solo sector for single artist presentations; and a affordable art section for artworks valued at US$8,000 or less.
A series of talks will take place during the fair to build greater connection between art and other fields of knowledge including archaeology, urban planning, science and technology. Further details will be released this autumn.
Renfrew envisions Taipei Dangdai as a quality regional art fair that “adheres to global standards of practice in terms of selectivity.”
To ensure an objective selection process and avoid domestic politics, the fair has put together a selection committee of non-Taiwanese art professionals who have extensive knowledge of the Asian art market. The committee will be in charge of selecting participating galleries for the fair.
“We wanted to find gallerists with a strong understanding of Asia, and the ability to put the work of Asia in a global context,” Renfrew says.
Dennis Chen (陳允懋), head of UBS Taiwan, says Taipei Dangdai should elevate Taipei’s already burgeoning art market.
“Taipei Dangdai ... has immense potential for the development of the local art market and Taipei’s cultural ecology. The growth in the number of art collectors in Taiwan over the past 10 years has been matched by the quality of local connoisseurship,” Chen says.
In addition to financial sponsorship, UBS will be contributing to the fair program with a series of engaging activities for their clients, employees and the public. They are also planning educational events catered to a younger audience.
The second expedition of Commodore Matthew Perry of the US to Japan in 1854 sent ships to Formosa on the way back to the US to assess Keelung’s potential as a coaling station. Far-sighted, Perry recommended that the US establish a presence on Formosa, as Taiwan was then known. His suggestion went unheeded, but others were watching, few more closely than Prussia. The Prussians had wanted to follow up the Americans with an expedition of their own. In 1858, when William I became regent, the idea of entering the colonial race in the Far East began to take shape in the
June 27 to July 3 “The Sacred Tree (神木) is on fire!” Tseng Tian-lai (曾添來) didn’t believe it at first as it was pouring rain, but he sensed the urgency in the caller’s voice. The Alishan Forest Railway station master stepped out and saw smoke billowing from the direction of the beloved 3,000-year-old red cypress. The tree was struck by lightning in the afternoon of June 7, 1956, and a fierce blaze raged inside the eroded trunk, requiring nearly 200 people 20 hours to put it out. The authorities were especially nervous, according to a 1997 Liberty Times
To the consternation of its biological father — China — the young nation of Taiwan seems to prefer its step-dad, Japan. When the latter was forced out, a semi-modernized iteration of the former returned. And just as some people thrive as adults, despite an unstable childhood, Taiwan has become a democratic success. Unfortunately, the island’s biological father behaves like a parent who is no use, yet who continues to meddle. A combination of rose-tinted retrospection and growing mutual respect has given many Taiwanese a highly positive attitude toward Japan. Physical reminders of the 1895-1945 period of Japanese rule are treasured,
Born in Aldershot in 1959, Russell Foster is a professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford and the director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. For his discovery of non-rod, non-cone ocular photoreceptors he received numerous awards including the Zoological Society scientific medal. His latest book — the first he has written without a co-author — is Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health. The Guardian: What is circadian neuroscience? Russell Foster: It’s the fundamental understanding of how our biology ticks on a 24-hour basis. But also it’s bigger than that —