Curator │ Chun-Lan LIU

08/20 Sat
14:30-16:30 Curator Lecture
‧ Presenter │ Chun-Lan LIU
16:30 Opening

08/26 Fri
17:30-19:00
Nick DONG Artist Talk

09/24 Sat
15:00-16:30
CHANG Yung-Ta Artist Talk

Curator: Liu Chun-Lan (Professor, National Taiwan University of Arts)

Heavenly Questions by the poet Qu Yuan during the Warring States period, with its first question about the genesis of the cosmos and the creation of the world, poses more than one hundred and seventy questions manifesting a grand vision that surpasses space and time, while conveying profound thinking about and exploration of the formation of heaven and earth, natural order, life, society, and history.

The question about the cosmos has always been a focal point in technology as much as philosophy. It transcends generational differences, history, disciplines, and genres, as well as involves both the progression of times and changes of viewpoints. From ancient theology to modern sciences, our cosmic views and cognitive framework have undergone a recurring process of re-discovery and re-definition. Since the ancient time, human exploration, perception, and imagination of the cosmos have also been a driving force behind aesthetic experiments and multiple topics, which enable us to break through existing frameworks and ways of thinking. In early 20th century, hyperspace philosophy and cosmic consciousness, which combined science and spirituality, and the concept of the tesseract and the fourth dimension, have brought forth innovative experimentation carried out by the avant-garde art. Moreover, space research and cosmic technology after the war have also driven artistic imagination and practice informed by modernity in the Western society and Taiwan. In the summer of 2022, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the U.S.A. announced the latest images of the deep space. The splendid, colorful pictures are not simply visually pleasing and emblematic of technological advancement, but also re-launch the issue of the cosmos in a more tangible way, shaking our current perception and customary imagination, while encouraging people to re-examine our homogenous, centralized thinking about and mode of the world.

Borrowing the title of the poem from the ancient Pre-Qin period, the exhibition features the latest works by Nick Dong and Chang Yung-Ta, and concentrates on the artists’ viewpoints and investigation of the cosmos. Furthermore, the exhibition focuses on their respective technical deployments, medium languages, and aesthetic conversions, placing an emphasis on the spatial-temporal perception and unique sensibility embodied and introduced by their works, along with their fundamental reflection of and inquiry into the environment and the subject of existence. Using the title of a two-thousand-year-old poem, the exhibition not merely highlights the transtemporal (and transcultural) implication of the cosmic question –a motif to all humanity indeed – but also aims to view the artists’ distinctive contemporary expressions and different viewpoints in a macrocosmic context to further ponder on things that are eternally unchanged or constantly changing in the cosmos.