2023  Highlight

Throughout history, the origins of many civilizations were all located where mountains and rivers intersect. As a country with diverse cultures, Taiwan is like a place where mountains and rivers converge, creating a rich and vibrant art environment. The "2023 Tainan New Art Award" exhibits works from 10 winning artists and 14 invited artists from across the country. Their creative media are diverse and their concerns are different. The exhibition is based on the unique mechanism of the New Art Award and is presented in different dialogue contexts in ten art galleries and art spaces in Tainan.

The curatorial theme "Bifurcation of Confluence" means that the various issues presented by young artists reflect contemporary aesthetic concepts, generational perspectives, and social culture. The epitome of the multiple summaries is a clue, a reality, and the future. The process is like pulling out threads, and we can glimpse how the unique issues that the young generation is concerned about are manifested in artistic creation. While the meaning is converging, it should also generate gaps full of multiple differences, and radiate various unpredictable aesthetic dimensions. Just like the operation of the existing mechanism of the New Art Award, through the dialogue between the works of young creators and artists from all over the world, the creative system that is still in the process of generation is opened up, facing different issues and forms, and crossing the connection between art and society. At the same time, we also hope to provide another possible reference for local art communities and individual creators.

Most of the artists who won the award this time started from visual cultural experience. Several of them extended their creative paths with "artistic issues" based on artistic forms and aesthetic sensibility. Huang Liying's paintings exhibited at the Water Color Art Studio use the reflective properties of pencil graphite to depict the shape of strange stones, presenting the metaphysical philosophy seen by the works and the viewers. Japanese artist Hirakawa Yuki uses neat images to transform the gradual changes of light and shadow under the shade of trees, echoing the characteristics of the exhibition venue and Huang Liying's paintings in form. Also taking "light" as the theme, Hu Shixiang exhibited an interactive light and shadow installation in the most beautiful space, using technology to reflect on the relationship between people and technological networks. Wang Xi'an uses halo as the main axis of painting, presenting the depth of the sky and nebula through brushstrokes. Connection deconstructs the relationship between light and color, combining light and shadow installations with performances to narrate the different forms of the six stages of life.

As a gallery recreated from an old house, Chang Shan-hsueh's work attempts to echo the large number of potted plants planted in the courtyard, and traces the geographical path of ferns during the Ice Age with his past emotions and enthusiasm for ferns. Huang Lan-ya uses colorful acrylic materials to whimsically construct an imaginary and beautiful forest garden. Hu Qing-wen uses ink painting techniques to present the afternoon sun falling on the balcony of the house, reflecting the leaves of potted plants, window grilles, and tiles, quietly presenting the individual's mood and feelings. Ji Pei-chen of the Art Museum of Fine Arts paints Taiwan's sign culture on European cities photographed during his trip to France, creating a unique urban jungle landscape. Li Yongzhi attempts to dismantle the urban landscape dominated by consumerism, neon signs, and shapes nostalgic aesthetics beyond the evolution of urban landscape. Chen Boyuan, who exhibits at Soka Art, uses new media to present the aura of contemporary ink painting, depicting the scene of climate change as airplanes fly between clouds, while Meng Shifu uses power device elements to simulate the intermediate complex of birds and aircraft.

In today's information explosion, the "post-truth era" led by social media and key opinion leaders (KOL) has arrived. Internet culture has gradually guided the development of mass culture in contemporary society. The boundary between reality and the online has gradually become illusory due to the massive reproduction of images. Just like Gu Mengxuan, who exhibited at the Ganle Ash Museum of Art, repeatedly overwrote news, war and disaster images on the Internet to simulate the macroscopic feelings in traditional landscape paintings. Wen Jianing focuses on the body shaped by media images, and interprets it visually through deformation, fiction, and costume. The new media art team 2ENTER (2ENTER) of the Jiali Gallery created another mixed data landscape in the game engine by collaging real-time data and images. Cai Yiru's paintings capture symbols from animation, social platforms, and communication software, presenting people's visual experience with screen interfaces at different stages.

Continuing the exploration of the Internet and information culture, some artists also focus on the exploration of art, society and politics. Yang Jiehuai, exhibited at the Dehong Gallery, explores gender and Internet culture, reflecting on the ambiguous posture of individual desire and power hierarchy. Zeng Yixin starts from the viewing mechanism and gaze subject of women, thinking about the unequal relationship between gender and politics in the images of popular culture. Chen Junyu, who is exhibited in the absolute space, proposes hypothetical solutions in a humorous way, resonating with the serious topics of contemporary society. Zhang Wenxuan's works imitate the teaching method of a success lecturer, implying the situation of democratic politics under the narrative of Asian countries.

Japanese artist Hu Gongxue Na uses the high ceilings of the Dahsin Museum of Fine Arts to exhibit large-scale soft sculptures that combine Taiwanese and Okinawan cultural symbols, reflecting the span of cultural integration under globalization. Under the main concept of globalization and cultural mobility, three artists with different styles are invited to have a dialogue: Fang Weiwen's flat paintings use the "memory" of the individual to capture the cultural codes that appear in his scattered life experience, presenting a flowing and unfixed world; Zhuang Peixin recodes a large number of virtual visual images and transforms them into physical "digital specimens"; Chen Chengyu tries to compare the information, objects, and images circulating in the world to "clouds", and materializes the concept, using multiple objects to piece together a "chaotic" contemporary landscape.

The 11th Tainan New Art Award "Converging Bifurcation Points" exhibited the ingenuity of 24 groups of artists, including outstanding artists from home and abroad. It is hoped that creators with different backgrounds will converge in Tainan and branch out into heterogeneous and diverse voices. In the design and execution mechanism of the New Art Award, which is different from other awards in Taiwan, one of the main goals is to promote artists to connect with the art market. At the same time, it is also hoped that the marketing and promotion resources of the public and private sectors will be combined to gather the cultural energy of all parties and the historical foundation of Tainan, open up the brand characteristics of urban aesthetics, and bloom wonderful performances at ten different points in the city.