Few ink painters can win over curators to include them in contemporary art exhibitions. College art students have long been discarding Chinese painting in favor of installations and videos. Leafing through any contemporary art publications, you almost never come across ink. The connection between ink painting and contemporary art would seem to be a flimsy one at best, but the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (
An exhibition at the museum, curated by its research staff, showcases the often overlooked modernity of ink. Contemporary Ink Painting and Ink in Contemporary Art, (當代水墨與水墨當代) according to Lei Yi-ting (雷逸婷), the curator of the show, aims to illustrate the two meanings of the term "contemporary."
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
"One of the meanings is more literal. We include works representative of the development in ink painting in the past 20 years. The other meaning is the contemporary characteristics of the artists. They do not see themselves as ink painters and they abide by no codes of Chinese painting. They often put up installations or other works. They use ink as just one of their media," Lei said.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
About one-third of the 45 works by 13 artists come from the museum's collection, while the others are on loan from private collectors in Taiwan. The best known among these artists is Yu Peng (
Since the 1980s, Yu has followed the footsteps of ancient students of ink paintings who imitate the works of their predecessors. While ancient imitators did so to emulate the old masters, Yu made slight changes to the well-known works to express his personal quirks and also to reflect on modern life.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
The 10m-wide Dwelling in the Fu-chun Mountains (富春山居圖), named after Yuan painter Huang Gong-wang's (黃公望) famous scroll, shows childlike dots for lotus flowers, dark craggy hills typical of Taiwanese landscapes rather than those of Zhejiang province. The work seems a humorous comment on the impossibility of today's Taiwanese ink painters following the landscape traditions handed down by ancient Chinese ink painters living in a very different natural environment.
This probably explains the many landscape works (landscape is still a prominent theme in ink painting) that disregard conventional ink techniques to come up with their own ways to portray the environment of Taiwan. Lee Mao-cheng (李茂成) paints the hills around Keelung in short, dry strokes in On the Road (路途上), while his brother Lee An-cheng (李安成) applies layers of wide brush strokes to represent the humid air near mountains around the island in his Landscape (山水) series. Chang Fu-Chun's (張富峻)Circling Homeward (那載浮載沉的呻吟者向家園打轉) highlights Taiwan's island topography with a bird's eye view similar to what one sees on the plane when flying over Taiwan.
Apart from the landscapes, the sampling of works are mostly abstract studies in shapes and shades that make good use of ink's organic character. Walking around the circular gallery is a tranquil experience.
"Ink is now no more than a medium for contemporary artists, but this medium still attracts the more introspective and well-composed artists," Lei said.
Contemporary Ink Painting and Ink in Contemporary Art will run through April 25 at Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 181 Zhongshan N Rd, Sec 3, Taipei. (
Recently the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its Mini-Me partner in the legislature, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), have been arguing that construction of chip fabs in the US by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is little more than stripping Taiwan of its assets. For example, KMT Deputy Secretary-General Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) in January said that “This is not ‘reciprocal cooperation’ ... but a substantial hollowing out of our country.” Similarly, former TPP Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) contended it constitutes “selling Taiwan out to the United States.” The two pro-China parties are proposing a bill that would limit semiconductor
Institutions signalling a fresh beginning and new spirit often adopt new slogans, symbols and marketing materials, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is no exception. Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), soon after taking office as KMT chair, released a new slogan that plays on the party’s acronym: “Kind Mindfulness Team.” The party recently released a graphic prominently featuring the red, white and blue of the flag with a Chinese slogan “establishing peace, blessings and fortune marching forth” (締造和平,幸福前行). One part of the graphic also features two hands in blue and white grasping olive branches in a stylized shape of Taiwan. Bonus points for
March 9 to March 15 “This land produced no horses,” Qing Dynasty envoy Yu Yung-ho (郁永河) observed when he visited Taiwan in 1697. He didn’t mean that there were no horses at all; it was just difficult to transport them across the sea and raise them in the hot and humid climate. “Although 10,000 soldiers were stationed here, the camps had fewer than 1,000 horses,” Yu added. Starting from the Dutch in the 1600s, each foreign regime brought horses to Taiwan. But they remained rare animals, typically only owned by the government or
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
RSS