One of the most interesting places I visited during my recent Taiwan trip was the Hua Shan 1914 Creative Park. According to internet sources, it used to be the site for one of the largest wine producers in 1920s Taiwan, the distillery being founded in 1914. The abandoned site was discovered in 1997 by a group of performing artists which used part of the run down buildings for staging plays which quickly caught the attention of artistc circles in Taipei. They were soon joined there by other artists and in 1999 a non-profit making Association of Culture Environment Reform Taiwan was formed to renovate the premises into a full fledged art center and serious rebuilding started in 2005 and the place acquired the name Huashan Creative Park but since 2007, its renovation and renewal has been done by the Taiwan Cultural-Creative Development Co. Ltd, which renamed it Huashan 1914 and is now a flourishing centre of artistic creations for all kinds of artists.
I saw an exhibition there of the works of 5 new artists whose works I shall introduce later. Before that, I would show photos of some of the outdoor exhibits by an artist called Hsi Shih Pin (席時斌 ) born in 1977 at Taipei who got an BA in Fine Arts from Shih Chien University (實踐大學) in 2004 and a Master in Fine Arts degree in Plastic Arts from the Taipei National University of the Arts (國立台北藝術大學) in 2007 and has since been involved in sculpture of mixed media space, concentrating on the basic forms of daily objects through construction and deconstruction, combining traditional techniques with techniques of natural creative interpretation and has been actively involved in the transformation of public space through environmental art and is the artist in residence of one of the big steel manufacturers in Taiwan. He is a bold and most creative artist who was greatly influenced in his artistic thinking by her mother, a seamstress who used to do alteration work for others and who therefore had to constantly cut and stitch together cloths of different sizes and patterns to form new patterns and transformed old clothes into new ones. His sculptures are characterized by sharp triangles, which seem to jab into the space around them. He won the 2008 Selected Prizes of the Kaohsiung Awards and also the 2007 Outstanding Art Work Prize for Fine Arts of his alma mater. He now lives and creates in Taipei and his works have been exhibited in Beijing, Shanghai, Korea. What follows is a short history of his solo exhibitions:
2011 Attack on Resources, Tungho Steel, Miaoli Plant「資源攻擊」, 東和鋼苗栗廠
I saw an exhibition there of the works of 5 new artists whose works I shall introduce later. Before that, I would show photos of some of the outdoor exhibits by an artist called Hsi Shih Pin (席時斌 ) born in 1977 at Taipei who got an BA in Fine Arts from Shih Chien University (實踐大學) in 2004 and a Master in Fine Arts degree in Plastic Arts from the Taipei National University of the Arts (國立台北藝術大學) in 2007 and has since been involved in sculpture of mixed media space, concentrating on the basic forms of daily objects through construction and deconstruction, combining traditional techniques with techniques of natural creative interpretation and has been actively involved in the transformation of public space through environmental art and is the artist in residence of one of the big steel manufacturers in Taiwan. He is a bold and most creative artist who was greatly influenced in his artistic thinking by her mother, a seamstress who used to do alteration work for others and who therefore had to constantly cut and stitch together cloths of different sizes and patterns to form new patterns and transformed old clothes into new ones. His sculptures are characterized by sharp triangles, which seem to jab into the space around them. He won the 2008 Selected Prizes of the Kaohsiung Awards and also the 2007 Outstanding Art Work Prize for Fine Arts of his alma mater. He now lives and creates in Taipei and his works have been exhibited in Beijing, Shanghai, Korea. What follows is a short history of his solo exhibitions:
2011 Attack on Resources, Tungho Steel, Miaoli Plant「資源攻擊」, 東和鋼苗栗廠
2010 Blood Crossed Taipei, Shanghai, Hong-gah Museum, Taipei「混血 台北、上海」，鳳甲美術館，台北
2009 Beatting me, S.L.Y Art Space, Taipei 「對我施暴」，新樂園藝術空間，台北
2009 Taoist Ritual of River&Sea, Bamboo Curtain Studio, Taipei河海建醮」，竹圍工作室12柱，台北
2008 The Lose Style, 435 International Artist Village , Taipei「走樣系列」，板橋435藝文特區，台北
2007 Linear Shell, T.N.U.A Nan-pei Gallery, Taipei「Linear Shell」，臺北藝術大學南北畫廊，台北
2007 The Euclidean Bough, T.N.U.A Nan-pei Gallery, Taipei歐幾理的枝」，臺北藝術大學南北畫廊，台北
2006 Animal Structure, S.L.Y Art Space,Taipei「動物結構」，新樂園藝術空間，台北
The following photographs were taken at the exhibition area at the lawn outside Huashan 1914 Creative Park.
An overview of his works.
The following photographs were taken at the exhibition area at the lawn outside Huashan 1914 Creative Park.
An overview of his works.
Two animals facing each other, sitting ?
Two other figures bowing to or greeting each other, rising up?
Two figures dancing with each other?
Same dancing figures with higher positions?
Two figures in dominant or subservient positions?
A figure dancing alone?
Two figures adjusting their positions to each other?
Figures on the ground in various positions?
Is that supposed to be the head of a human being?
What is that? An animal?
Another animal?
The same figure from a slightly different angle.
A horse?
What is this? A tree?
This is the area outside of the cafe restaurant. There are further exhibits out here too.
What is this? Is that supposed to be a plant or flower of some sort?
Is this supposed to be a tree?
Another metallic tree?
There are further exhibits on the verandah on the first floor.
A toy horse being held by a boy?
A lady bowing?
Or an animal being trapped by a rope or loops?
The same figure from a different angle.
A man being pursued and trying to escape with holding his drawing board?
Two figures, the one in further leaning forward and the other nearer leaning backwards
upon seeing some trees or plants?
The figure trying to figure out something or others?
The figure trying to protect itself from the sun or something it doesn't want to see?
The same figure at closer quarters.
Thank you very much for introducing Hsi Shih Pin and his works. Hsi is quite creative in his own ways but somehow I think I like JuMing's works better.
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/23/2011 11:59:28]Their backgrounds, materials, styles, emphases are quite different. You find sharper lines and that the display of force in Hsi's works is much more visible than in those of Ju Ming. To each his own taste. The same work may evoke quite different responses in different people. That is only natural. I like the works of both. Each is unique in his own way. But I think you may well like the works of the next artist I shall write about tomorrow.
oh... I was also there in my Aug trip in Taipei. My purpose is to see the exhibition show of DREAM....it's also posted in my blog before :)
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/23/2011 16:39:34]I saw the exhibition too, though in quite a hurry. I shall be writing about it when I got time.
I think Hsi’s sculptures are more of the surrealistic genre while Ju’s sculptures mostly retain the basic form of the objects being depicted. Yes, each is unique in his own way. Thanks for sharing.
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/23/2011 18:21:08]I am more inclined to say Hsi's work is non-realistic than surrealistic. Dali's and Margritte's works are surrealistic. I don't think Hsi's work fall into the same category. But thanks for your views.
席時斌近期替 Hermès設計的知識之馬系列，較商業化但也相當不錯。^_^ ... http://studio-bin.blogspot.com/
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/23/2011 18:47:38]Thanks. I knew. But since it's commercial, I have decided against including such information in my blog, which is stictly non-commercial. I agree with you though that his work in that regard is good too.
對大型雕塑展看得很少， 不敢大恣批評， 只憑直角觀之。 ~~~~~ 席時斌與朱銘的作品、固然各有千秋， 個人較喜朱銘的磅礡大氣、 天真渾然！~~~~~☆☆ 席時珷的作品意念彌新， 帶有年輕的銳氣， 雖亦有啟迪，但容易讓人覺着勇於創意， 內蘊稍弱！ 略欠深墜！~~~~ 就是嫌它揉着造作、夠渾然！............☆☆ 也該如此、 到底年輕！
回覆刪除[只微回覆09/24/2011 10:35:10]完全同意！！
[版主回覆09/24/2011 09:40:56]Me too. I also rely upon my own subjective impressions when I look at art exhibitions. I agree with you that Juming may seem more congenial to more mature people. Perhaps the young feel much more acutely than we do the way modern life has reduced us to to mere bits and pieces joined together mechanically instead of organically. Hsi may feel instinctively the sharpness and the potential of conflict and injury in human contact in a commercial society where man lives in an entirely artificial environment completely cut off from Nature and is alienated both from Nature and from one another. Art need not produce only harmony. It may serve also to expose the disharmony and destructive tendencies which daily surround us in a modern metropolis.
作品令人有点難消化！..哈.像未剪髮前的感覺..^^
回覆刪除[ariesg回覆09/24/2011 22:12:03]嗯..設計者的專注亦留下了印象給我！週日愉快~^^
[版主回覆09/24/2011 21:43:03]Perhaps the artist was trying to show to us his feelings about what contemporary man has become: flattened into two dimenional fragments and soldered together mechanically and full of conflict and yet longing for contact with each other. The rusty color as well as the sharp edge do give us that feeling of unpleasantness..