Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

This year’s nomination list is populated with curatorial projects and planned works. TSAI Ming-Jiun’s work “Court/yard” shows the resurrection of spatial aesthetics, where curators and artists jointly create emotions within spatial imagination, though this facet has been covered up and forgotten in the face of mainstream topics. However, spatial exploration is not a type of exploration based on formalism but a process of breaking up and reconstruction centered on the history of the school art center and its exhibition functions, spatial identity and environmental context. Thus, a critical part in this exhibition is that it tries to entice the audience to escape the “wall” present in traditional art spaces. Tsai as a curator uses an artist’s approach to allow us to view the work from the place we’re used to and reinterpret the site of the exhibition via artistic movements. In this dialectal process, space is transformed into a piece of artwork via a carrier, arousing and provoking our emotions toward the environment and summons our memories of the court/yard.   Committee member:LIN Ping

Yard is one of the rare exhibitions at Tunghai University Art Gallery that has an outside curator, as well as, participating artists from both home and abroad. It is a breakthrough as paintings are usually curated by the art center. The themes of the seven artists' works are closely related to the venue itself, while the space is designed to be interactive, leaving a strong impression on the viewers.

Artwork Introduction

Organized by a guest curator and featuring an international roster of artists, Yard is a place-oriented and site-specific exhibition that not only breaks the mold of showing two-dimensional works at Tunghai University Art Gallery, but also presents artworks that are produced at and connected to the location. The seven artworks in the show were all commissioned for the exhibition and correspond to the site and/or theme. In addition, no extra built walls were built for space distribution, and most of the artworks were positioned around the entire space of the gallery to create meaningful relationships between individual works. Yard was considered a great success, impressing gallery assistants, visitors, students and professors with its unique theme, process, and presentation of how a rare use of exhibition design can transform a mere “place” into a real “space” that generates concrete meaning.

Participating artists: CHUANG Kai-Yu; Olaf Hochherz (Germany); HUNG Yun-Ting; LIANG Li-Ling; David Loom (Italy); LU Yi-Lin; Jinhee Park (Korea)

The Relation Between the Exhibition and the Space

TSAI Ming-Jiun, the curator, remembers playing house as a kid in the front or back yards while her parents and the neighbors were chatting over the fences. Moving into the city, she realized most people do not have yards of their own nor the opportunity to see that of others -- the pretty ones are all for the residents' own appreciation only.

"The campus of Tunghai is where one will find the most yards in the city of Taichung," said Tsai. The lawns, bungalows and scrubs constitute a landscape with lines of curves and waves. At the center of the Gallery, there is an exhibit wall that resembles a condo building, which inspires the exhibition of Yard to see the wall as a community center that has blocks of yards around it. Participating artists create their specific project in response to the theme. The interaction of the different pieces and notions of the artists creates a unique spatial experience.

The seven commissioned artists have interestingly distinct understandings or interpretations of the theme, ranging from living environment to the green grass in the yards. Both artists and the curator hold a tense excitement during the production process as no one knows for sure how the works would look and feel like before the exhibition. Five of the pieces are placed in different corners of the venue, hence discussion among artists and the curator takes place commonly, and bring a strong collective creation feel to the exhibition.

Seven United but Unique Themes

From way of its spatial installation, Jinhee PARK's Fences is not only an independent artwork, but also an important element that separates and integrates the venue. HUNG Yun-Ting's Looking Far Into the Future breaks the spatial boundaries by providing an elevated viewpoint and a telescope for the audience, while LIANG Li-Ling's Seeds transmits outdoor lights into the gallery to create a network of lights that brings a connection to the other artworks as well as the campus. LU Yi-Lin's Go to habitat, or where am I? highlights the problematic environmental issue between natural and man-made areas in responding to several international news of animal habitats. David Loom, on the other hand, uses photographic collage to alter people's usual viewpoints in his Unknown Neighbor - Sensory Series. Untitled from Olaf Hochherz is a sound installation in which he arranges sounds and drawings in space responding to his imagination of people living in the neighbourhood. All the sound of bugs, birds, talking or TV programmes are actually his improvisation with self-build electronic instruments that are based on unstable systems. CHUANG Kai-Yu's Outfielder's Monologue I ~ III visually responds to the theme of Yard with images of events, areas and characters that people often overlook.

According to Tsai, in Yard, an exhibition inspired by and planned around the venue, these seven artists congregate their ideas into various forms and notions, turning the venue into a brand new space. Yard attempts to allow a direct conversation between the works and the space, as well as, to provide possibilities for the viewers to interact with the works and the space.

About the Artist

TSAI Ming-Jiun

Tsai received her MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She has been awarded grants from the National Culture and Arts Foundation for the organization and planning of exhibitions. Her recent exhibitions include “A Gathering” at AVAT (Association of the Visual Arts in Taiwan) 2012 Artist Fair, “In/side/out” at Stock 20, and so on.

Production Team

Curated by: Ming-Jiun Tsai

Artists: CHUANG Kai-Yu、Olaf Hochherz（Germany）、HUNG Yun-Ting、LIANG Li-Ling、David Loom（Italy）、LU Yi-Lin、Jinhee Park（Korea）