An exhibition of British street artist Banksy’s Love Is In the Bin opens today at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Taipei — the first stop on its international tour.
It is to be displayed in the middle of an individual showroom, giving visitors the opportunity to enjoy the piece from every angle, museum director Loh Li-chen (駱麗真) said yesterday.
Getting Love Is In the Bin to the museum was challenging, because the frame weighs 50kg and the artwork includes pieces of shredded paper, she said.
Photo: CNA
“When opening the box, some colleagues commented that the piece resembled princess Snow White or Sleeping Beauty lying inside a thick, heavy box,” she said, adding that the pieces of paper were wrapped up and placed in another box — and that the total package weighed about 300kg.
“While we were trying to fix the frame or move the artwork, we tried our best not to shake the pieces of paper,” she said, adding that this type of artwork had never been seen before, which made the whole experience extra tricky.
The creation of Love Is In the Bin was in itself an accident. During an auction in 2018, Banksy tried to use an inbuilt self-destruction mechanism to destroy his Girl With Balloon artwork. However, the shredder broke down and only half the painting was shredded — prompting Banksy to rename the work Love Is In the Bin.
The artwork was sold at an auction in 2021 for more than ￡18 million (US$22.8 million), a record for the artist.
“Banksy shredded his work to convey his resistance against capitalism,” Loh said.
Since starting as a street artist, Bansky has used his art to highlight injustice and unrest.
Although his work has appeared on streets, walls and bridges all over the world, few people know his real identity, and plans for the international tour were kept highly confidential before the schedule was announced, Loh said.
As for why MOCA was chosen to be the first location to display the artwork, Loh said the museum has held numerous exhibitions highlighting social issues.
“For example, MOCA was the first official museum to address LGBTQ issues in Asia,” she said.
The exhibition runs until Aug. 13. Admission is free, but visitors must make reservations first.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
RSS