Living in Kaohsiung, where haphazard zoning and general disregard of environmental-protection regulations is the norm, Huang Cheng-jen (洪政任) is keenly aware of the environmental problems facing Taiwan and has made them the subject of his art.
In a solo exhibition titled The Cosmic Garden II, that opened yesterday at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Huang approaches the issues of environmental degradation and conservation through four installations that are as simple as they are arresting in their visual impact.
About five years ago, Huang wandered through an abandoned lot in Kaohsiung that was a field of discarded logs and other accumulated detritus that tends to pile up over time in unattended urban spaces. The bleak landscape of wasted trees and trash made him think of a dead forest and the sight inspired the pieces currently on exhibit, he said on Friday while setting up his installations.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF TFAM
Three photos he took that day of the abandoned lot, reproduced over 5,000 times, have been cut up and arranged in concentric circles on transparent plastic boards or on plywood. Three of the installations are a series of these montages hung in rows, while the fourth is a collection of the montages mounted on the exhibition space's far wall.
Hanging the two-dimensional montages in rows evokes the three-dimensional shape of a log that has been cut in many places and infers the destruction of forests, which are visible in each of the mounted photos. The motif of concentric circles extends beyond the representation of the rings inside the trunk of a tree to encompass the broader, philosophical themes associated with circles -- eternity, nothingness, the sun, Mother Nature, etc.
"The circles are contained within a frame because I want to show there are limits to the amount of space in the planets represented by the circles," he said.
On the far wall of the space, the two-dimensionality of the fourth installation appears like a giant map of the solar system with the montages representing planets, sun, stars or galaxies. Huang uses this effect to emphasize the relative unimportance of humans at the cosmic level, while the photos used in the montages provide testament to the damage we are still capable of inflicting on our planet.
The Cosmic Garden II will be on exhibit until Dec. 7. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is located at 181 Zhongshan N Rd, Sec 3, Taipei (
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