Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalist

New Work Project is a joint creative project by NIU Chun-Chiang and LUO Jr-Shin. The two each chooses a work by the other, and makes a new work to converse with it. It is the battle between two gifted and determined artists. Exciting, serious, and surprising sparks are all over the place. They have presented something more interesting than just a curatorial work.

Young artists see the laziness, stubbornness, emptiness, and pretentiousness of mainstream curative authority in the ecosystem, yet they brightly and cleverly avoid going head-to-head with it; through talented and technical expressions, they solemnly and masterfully showcase themselves in a seemingly humble way—the two artists of New Work Projectconsciously turn passiveness into aggressiveness, and cleverly upgrade “solo exhibition” into a “curatorial” version, further internalizing and enhancing the theme. This trend has enabled the artists to regain the independent right of speech originally belonged to them. (Written by HU Yung-Fen)

Artwork Introduction

From receiving stimulation, finding collision, deconstruction to reconstruction, this chain effect marks a necessary path of artistic creation. At the same time, it also enables us to more easily  imagine the intersecting point of this art project carried out by the two artists. The exhibition title unveils a disorderly scene about the right to interpret, and hints at the intention conveyed by this experimental project: “does inspiration really exist?” “How does an artist work?” “Does an artist’s process of self-stylization matter, and does it come with any restraints?” “Outside the realm of art, what do artists care about respectively?”

In New Work Project, the two artists each select three works created by the other artist previously. After more than one year of discussion and communication, the artists dive into the other’s creative world to each produce three “brand-new old works” in their idiosyncratic way. Under the absolute premise of a “project,” the exhibition is like a beam of light that penetrates the works and radiates into the spectrum of artistic creation. Upon entering the exhibition, audiences will see twelve pieces of works under six titles. Do these “new” works, made after the artists’ re-reading and reproduction, merely reveal different material and approaches? Or do they instead possess a deeper level of meanings uncovered by a different artist? Moreover, given the premise that the new and old works share the same artistic ideas and content, can they really be viewed as “identical” works?

About the Artists

NIU Chun-Chiang

NIU Chun-Chiang holds an MFA in Tech Art from Taipei National University of the Arts. A contemporary artist, Niu mainly works with video and film. He is currently based in Taipei, and is also an adjust lecturer at Shih Chien University and Yuan Ze University.

Niu’s recent work mostly draws from his life experiences, and invites participants to co-compose the narrative process. During such creative process, he investigates the subtle connection between people, invisible encounters, as well as the life consciousness of individuals and communities. In his practice, he also resists the disintegration of materiality and the creation of singular visuality.

Niu has been a contender at the FFR Short Film, Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Pixilerations Tech Art Exhibition (USA), cutlog NY Art Fair-Urban Illusions (USA), Aguilar Film Festival (Spain), Tours Asian Film Festival (France), ARTchSO Video Festival in Rennes (France), Beijing Summer Digital Entertainment Festival (China), VAFA - International Video Art Festival (Macau), “It Takes Four Sorts: Cross-Strait Four-region Artistic Exchange Project” (Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Macau), Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Taipei Arts Awards, Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition, and Taipei Film Festival. He won the 35th Golden Harvest Awards – Best Experimental Film Award with his work, Even They Never Met.

LUO Jr-Shin

LUO Jr-Shin (b. 1984, Miaoli, Taiwan) holds an MFA from Taipei National University of the Arts. A visual artist, Luo works with installation comprising mixed media, such as sculpture, video, and photography. He is now based in Taipei.

Luo draws his inspiration from everyday objects found in life. His practice aims to subvert the idea of “readymade” through a humorous tone, and uncovers unconscious creations in life and concealed traces of the body through found objects. Recently, he is keen on exploring disappearing and unstable material, as he believes that its fragile and unretainable quality provides his work with a certain, immediate agency.

His recent solo and group exhibitions include from one to all (Ke Yuan Gallery, Taichung, 2012), the shape of a pocket(Nanhai Gallery, Taipei, 2009), Taipei Art Awards (Taipei Fine Arts Exhibition, 2012), New York Travel Program(Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, 2012), New Work Project (Hong-gah Museum, Taipei, 2013), and 2013 Queens international (Queens Museum, New York, 2013). In 2013, Luo conducted three-month residencies respectively at Tokyo Wonder Site (Tokyo) and the ISCP (New York). His works have been exhibited in Taipei, Japan, Brazil and the USA.