Ninth Asian Art Biennial Opens in Taiwan

Spotlight 8th Asian Art Biennial Looks Back to Look Forward Esther Lu

The ninth Asian Art Biennial opened at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung over the weekend.

Curated by Fang Yen Hsiang (Taiwan), Anne Davidian (Armenia), Merv Espina (Philippines), Haeju Kim (South Korea), and Asli Seven (Turkey), the exhibition invites viewers to take a deep breath and reconnect with the rhythms of our bodies and the planet.

Featured works include: Portal (2024), a site-specific installation with oil lamps and wheatpasted poster images by Malaysian artist Sharon Chin; Golden Lion winner Nil Yalter‘s poster series ‘Exile Is a Hard Job’ (1975–ongoing); and Indigenous Taiwanese artist Milay Mavaliw‘s colourful textile installation The Unseen Presence, Series III, The Coalescing Breath (2021–2024).

Other participating artists include the Philippines’ Kiri Dalena, Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and New York-based Chinese artist Cici Wu.

‘The artists in the 2024 Asian Art Biennial propose alternative imaginaries and practices of world-ordering, both political and aesthetic, inspired by knowledge and ways of living grounded in relationality, reciprocity, and response-ability,’ the curators said in a statement.

‘Through a variety of media, the artworks presented in the Biennial challenge progressive and universal notions of time, revealing instead how histories are tied to people, places, and positions,’ they added. ‘By tracing the entanglements of colonial violence within ongoing imperial politics and new social systems that govern life, they open spaces for alternative liberatory futures.’

Chen Kuang-Yi, Director of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts said the Biennial’s strategy of bringing together curators with diverse backgrounds and disciplines had led to a greater diversity of artists.

‘This year, in addition to inviting artists from Taiwan’s neighbouring countries to participate in the exhibition, we also invited emerging artists from Turkey, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Lebanon, Lithuania, and other places to jointly present diverse cultural perceptions and artistic experiences to Taiwanese audiences,’ she said. —[O]

Main image: Sharon Chin, Portal (2024). Site-specific installation with oil lamps and wheat-pasted poster images, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.