GROUP EXHIBITION

In the five participating artists Wu sees several relationships emerge that mirror his own life experiences with art. Dino, Wu’s best friend and playmate when Wu worked as a journalist at the Pots Weekly, indulged Wu with chitchat about art stories on the fringe of the art circle. Lai Chih-Sheng, Wu’s closest confidant during this past year, has forged a friendship with him where despite Wu being a curator and writer, rarely do they converse about art purposely. Niu Jun Qiang participated in Wu’s 2012 curatorial project, Compound Eyes: Killing Image Lots in Taipei, where Niu presented one spartan work of art, while in 2021’s creN/Ature, Niu ponders the act of creation through a carefully selected array of manuscripts and documents from his past creative process as a dialectic between objects’ history and the attestation of art making.

Chung Chung-Yu, whom Wu found surprisingly, after having established the focus of this curatorial project, to be an ideal candidate as someone who blurs the boundary between creation/non-creation, work of art/non–work of art. As an artist, Chung is known for his deft handling of cement and painting, as well as manoeuvring materials to conjure an environment his art inhabits. As part of the TKG+ Projects staff for the past four years, he has been involved in exhibition implementation. This time, his participation in creN/Ature accentuates his dual role as a gallery staffer and an artist. Shan Chung-Chieh was a senior to Wu in a gifted math class during middle school. Years ago, Shan was the centre of attention as a trailblazing hacker in the early age of the Internet. After nearly three decades, and a recent serendipitous conversation between Wu and Shan about possibly making art, Shan decided to participate in this exhibition, during his break from his teaching position at Indiana University amidst the Covid pandemic.

As this is not an exhibition curated according to a specific topic, Wu says, it will certainly not be ‘transparent at first glance.’ Even Wu himself has been in a state of uncertainty from the planning stage up until before the exhibition opens, where he vacillates between the vantage points of the five artists. Wu considers the exhibition as a radical act that foregrounds the concept of art making and the nature of an exhibition. The techniques of exhibition execution and display recede into the background, while the intent of art making comes to the fore. Ultimately the exhibition examines how the psychological states of the artists are manifested in the objects they have created, and sheds light on what art making is.