On the eve of Art Basel in Hong Kong's private view on Wednesday, the Beijing-based artist Huang Rui took to the streets of Central for a paint-splashed performance about the cyclical nature of history. The piece was a tribute to Lee Wen, the pioneering Asian performance artist who died early this month.
Chen Chieh-jen's exhibition at Lin & Lin, After the Financial Crisis and Automated Production, featured a selection of his old and recent works exploring ways in which Taiwanese have been affected by neoliberal capitalism and technological developments. The show revealed how Chen's approach to these themes has changed since the 1990s.
On May 21, Taiwanese artist and filmmaker Chen Chieh-jen received the prestigious Artist of the Year honor at the Award of Art China (AAC) ceremony in Beijing. In its 12th year, AAC is an annual award founded by Chinese art media group Artron, recognizing the best of contemporary art within Greater China. Chen was presented with a trophy for his...
While I was writing this article, in February 2018, the artist Zhao Yao received permission to rent the iconic Workers' Stadium in north-eastern Beijing for one day in May. His intention was to show an abstract composition on fabric, measuring 116 × 86 m, which was produced in 2016 and initially displayed 5,000 m above sea level on a mountainside...
The Fondazione Marconi in Milan dedicated a museum-sized retrospective to Chinese artist Hsiao Chin, including more than 200 works from the gallery's collection. Showcasing paintings on canvas and paper dating from the late 1950s to the present, the exhibition traced the development of Hsiao's colorful abstraction infused with principles of Taoist...
On the occasion of the solo show The Bianwen Book I, running from December 6, 2016 to January 15, 2017 at Lin & Lin Gallery, Taipei, we interviewed the artist Chen Chieh-jen (born in 1960, Taoyuan, Taiwan). The artist currently works and lives in Taipei. Since the early 1980s, Chen Chieh-jen has been an influent figure of Taiwanese conceptual...
Zhao Zhao and I first met on November 27, 2004. We have known each other for more than 10 years. He graduated from the Xinjiang Arts Institute, one of the top eight art academies in China. The institute is something between a teaching university and an art academy: a comprehensive art school offering classes in fine art, broadcasting, dance, and...
Modern China continues to distance itself from the days of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). The Open Door policy, introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, enabled a new age of consumerism and commercialism in China, which increased Western influences in the country that led to its integration into the modern international community. In the...
The 10th Shanghai Biennale that opened Saturday asks visitors to consider what else China can be, besides a fast developing economy. Apt for both the venue and the timing, the show represents the latest attempt to use art to peer beyond a China that is all high-octane expansion.
An initial press release from the communications agency behind Art Taipei 2013 – the longest-running art fair in the Asia-Pacific region – praised the event’s demonstration of the “variety” of the region’s art market. An emphasis was placed on the large number of high-cost works present in the fair, which...
TAIWAN'S MARTIAL LAW provisions included laws clearly suppressing assembly, demonstrations, and the forming of organizations. Nonetheless, one afternoon on a holiday in 1983, five youths appeared on Ximending Street dressed in white khaki pants and wearing cotton bags over their heads. They walked, shoulder-to-shoulder, from the Red House to the...
I HAD ALREADY BEGUN WORK ON HAPPINESS BUILDING I when I was invited to participate in this Taipei Biennial. As with my previous 'staged' video projects, which are sometimes shot on site, at the actual places that the film refers to—as with Factory (2003), Bade Area (2005), and The Route (2006)—I created the film in...
Even before the current documentary about him was out in theaters, Ai Weiwei had become the poster child for China's repression of dissenting artists.