The Secret of Art World—Narrating the 10 Years Milestone of the Next Art Tainan.

The Secret of Art World— Narrating the 10 Years Milestone of the Next Art Tainan.

Curator｜ Lin, Ping

Artists｜Li, Kuei-Pi×Chen, Fei-hao

Date｜2022.03.10 (Thur.) - 2022.04.10(Sun.)

Opening｜2022.03.13 (Sun.) 16 : 00

Forum｜2021.03.13 (Sun.) 16 : 30-18:00

Guest｜Chen, Hsiang-Wen

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Embracing instincts, ancient legends, and scientific inquiry, indigenous botanist Robin W. Kimmerer studies the function of mosses in the forest. Though areas covered by mosses only make up a tiny fraction of the vast rainforest ecosystem, mosses support all the different species in the forest, allowing interdependent lives to coexist and connect. Mosses are simple in structure, but they provide ecological protection and energy supply for most plants to grow tall or build deep roots. Moss stems and leaves, like a dense mat or web, weave together all the survival elements for animals and plants. Mosses provide shade and water retention. It is easy to disregard them, yet they play the role of an indispensable support system for floras and faunas in the forest.

The reason to talk about mosses is because I think a well-established art ecosystem resembles that of a moss forest. Just like how the lives of a plethora of species are intertwined, for an art ecosystem to grow and mature, it not only depends on the creative energy of artists, but also on many other factors, from gallery support for emerging artists, audience participation, to collectors’ enthusiasm. Founded in 2013, Next Art Tainan will soon celebrate its tenth anniversary. We are committed to showcasing emerging artists and their works, and introducing them to commercial galleries and the general art market. Over the last decade, we have awarded close to 130 emerging artists. These artists have their own career developments and fluctuations, but collectively their form an inspiring artistic current.

Next Art Tainan has become an influential interface that nourishes the artistic creativity of avant-garde artists, promotes public showcasing, cultivates aesthetic sensibility, broadens the collector community, and supports the art collection and trading market. Despite limited resource, Next Art Tainan continues to grow and expand. We also partnered with Art Tainan Expo in recent years. Thanks to the persistent engagement of all stakeholders year after year, we have gradually created a vibrant art industry in Tainan that embodies diverse art forms with pluralistic themes.

Most mosses are small and inconspicuous, but they hold the key to the secrets of the lush forest. They are the medium for exploring the wilderness. Over the last decade, Next Art Tainan has spread and broadened its influence like spreading mosses that form a green carpet, and has provided the nourishment for emerging artists to grow and flourish into a giant tree, and even a vast forest. During the award selection and curatorial process, different ideas concerning aesthetic appreciation, cultural critics and contemporary art creativity mingle and collide. This is like how water and air flows among and nourishes the various species, and together with the rocks on the land, form an extremely abundant moss scape.

Art schools, art museums and galleries all try to survive with each owns merit, yet there is also a symbiosis among them. Each of them carries out its own appropriate role in the micro-ecological zones and habitats. Robin W. Kimmerer describes these habitats to be very inclusive and nurturing, like “one’s own room” by Virginia Woolf, which allows species to grow and flourish without competition. The same concept applies to how art institutions and galleries can work together to nurture diverse artists.

Inspired by how mosses play a vital role in the development of natural ecosystems, Next Art Tainan aims to exert its energy to support the local art landscape. During the one month at the Next Art Tainan event, we bring together artists, art works, and galleries to put on these dazzling art shows, some might not be easy to understand, some intimate, while some very inviting. Next Art Tainan is not a huge event, but we dedicate every effort to showcase this city-wide creative festival, where each gallery is given the liberty to curate its own exhibition tailored to the award-winning artist whom it works with. With our long-term efforts, we hope we can continue to support more emerging artists, like nourishing the growth of ferns and trees that thrive on lush mosses in a green enchanted forest.

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【About Li, Kuei-Pi】 Li Kuei-Pi was born in Tainan in 1991. She received her MFA from Taipei National University of the Arts in 2017, and currently lives in Taipei. Her work engages in transnational mobility and labor experience, in which she converts objects created from labor and intervenes in the labor process, transforming the meaning of the products to convey her critical viewpoints about the modern material world. Li specializes in utilizing objects from the site of labor work before employing means of imitation, reproduction and remaking to entrap the audience in her elaborately conceived works, in which the audience become performers as well as part of the exhibited works. Meanwhile, she makes use of historical clues embedded in the objects to include issues related to the identity of different communities in her discussion about production systems. For the artist, history is not simply a string of linearly associated events but the result formed through a gradually changing process of production systems. The changes in the latter also indicate changes in techniques and instruments. Therefore, one of her constant focus is how to incorporate these changes into her creations while involving the audience in the completion of these works.

【About Chen, Fei-hao】 born in 1985, is clever at writing and resorting to conceptual photography and moving images to interpret various issues associated with history and culture as well as social changes, and he also combines images with such media as installations, videos, and literature to probe into the possibilities of the convergence among different media. He was the participating artist of 2016 Taipei Biennale, 2017 "Jodori Khiang－Community Artfest" at Taipei Artist Village, “Yao-Chi City: Taiwan Paranormal Literature and Contemporary Art Exhibition”at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab, "Shattered Sanctity" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei and Taiwan Air Force Innovation Base (TAF),"Hold the Mirror up to His Gaze: the Early History of Photography in Taiwan (1869-1949)", Taipei National Center of Photography and Images. 2020/2021 Tokyo Biennale.