ART REVOLUTION TAIPEI
(May 8th to 11th, 2015)
The “Art Revolution Taipei” Art Fair was held at Hall 3 of the Taipei World Trade Centre, which is right next to Taipei 101.
It was a very well run and well curated show, with a good mixture of Chinese, Taiwanese and international artists and galleries. I spent several hours there seeing every booth on Saturday afternoon, and went back on Sunday morning to take a closer look at a few of the more interesting pieces. Although the show was very well attended, it did not seem crowded at all and you never had to ellbow your way through throngs of people in order to see the artworks up close (as can be the case at art fairs in Hong Kong occasionally). Getting information about the artworks was not always easy for a non-Mandarin speaker, since many of the booth attendants although helpful did not speak much English.
Here are some impressions from the fair, and artworks by some of our favorite artists as well as a few interesting new discoveries:
Our favorite Chinese artists Qiu Shengxian was presented by the Duke Gallery from Shanghai, showing several of his most recent works (all from 2014):
(see our artists pages for more details about Qiu Shengxian)
Here is one of my new discoveries. A fairly young Chinese artist named ‘Flora’ (born 1983). These are gorgeous monochromatic, partly abstract and partly figurative oil paintings, that according to the lady at the booth are representations of his dreams. They are fairly large in size (the larger ones were 160 X 100). He works in Beijing, and he was not represented by a gallery at the fair.
The next one is a particularly interesting piece called “Scent of a Woman” by Peng Qi (Chinese, born 1972). It is fairly large at 180 X 90 and looks to have been painted on three separate canvases. The complex patterns in the image are inspired by fractal geometry:
These works were quite interesting as well, by an artist named Wang Xiaojin (born in Mongolia 1968, now works in Beijing). These are very subtle portraits painted in oil on carefully selected newspaper articles from the 1970s:
Zhang Xiangming is not exactly a new discovery, since I have seen his works many times before at various art shows in Hong Kong. These are fairly simple paintings, yet there is something quite mesmerizing about these large scale portraits from the Beijing Girl series:
It is difficult to convey in a photo the impact these paintings have when one sees them in full scale. Here they are in size comparison next to an actual person:
This was the only piece by Wu Yiqiang (born 1970) shown at the fair. It is another large piece (150 X 200cm), which I thought was quite stunning:
Overall is was a very enjoyable and interesting show, in which we discovered a few new artists to follow. It was definitely worth the trip from Hong Kong.
Please contact us by e-mail (info@ceartpartners.com), if you have any questions about any of these artists, the prices of their works shown or contacts to the galleries representing them.