Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture

Comments on the Finalists

NI Xiang draws inspiration from his experience of looking after a close family member in illness to portray a state of a chaotic standstill characterized by the threat of death, hoarding, homelessness, abusive relations, drugs, and the emotional burden of the caregiver. The space-time of the still person is like a shattered scene of a car crash. The artist selects objects from his father’s hoards, and adds discarded everyday items made by himself to indirectly yet freely show his confessional writings and hand-drawn objects in this relationship between the receiver and giver of care. He then connects this art of blankness born under the shadow of death with a declining state of life stuck in recurring and hopeless stillness and the inability to move forward before tearing up such connection into a smashed, disintegrated aesthetics of a marginalized life. (Commentator / GONG Jow-Jiun)

Artwork Introduction 

Interlude draws inspiration from NI Xiang’s experience in looking after and accompanying elderly patients who are his family members, and his observations of mental patients and psychiatric wards. He views this solo exhibition as a presentation of a residency that is his home care experience. The artworks, the hoarded everyday objects, the notes on his own position in the ward, his role and changes, as well as the spontaneous illustrations and small sculptures in the exhibition convey the artist’s self-dialogues in silence. The everyday life of the caregiver is portrayed as a never-ending interlude that cannot be separated from providing care, making himself a co-conspirator and a caregiver in the process of transformation and caregiving.

About the Artist 

NI Xiang (b. 1982) was born in Chiayi, and received his MFA from the Tainan National University of the Arts. In 2009, he was awarded the Grand Prize at the Taipei Arts Awards for his work, Compensation Soon. In early 2012 onward, he moved to Dalinpu, an area in Kaohsiung that was surrounded by heavy industrial factories, and subsequently launched several projects, including the “2012 Dalinpu International Public Hazard Photography Award,” “Boss is so blue that you can eat his fish for free,” and “Captivating Taiwan – Dalinpu in Makeup.” With his idiosyncratically stylized art practice, he has responded to issues that he is concerned with in reality. His important solo exhibitions in recent years include Interlude (2022) and Please follow me when you're unaware (2021).

Production Team 

Wu yen hong -- huge capsule, and customized soft tin tube

Ciou Zih Yan -- An ingenious wooden frame with a unique cable routing system

Tsai Erh Ching -- Laser targeting precision

Chien Chih Feng -- Master hand-paints

Feng chih ming -- Live audio

Hsiao ya sin -- Sparked joy on the art of decluttering