ART SOLO 2022: “A solo show of the art” art fair makes its grand return

The creation of art is like a novel, and an artwork may be just a short sentence or chapter in the entire novel. It is only after reading the whole story that the context of art creation will appear in front of you, what you feel will become broader, what you experience will become deeper, and the pleasure of appreciating artworks will become more fun. Taiwan Art Gallery Association (TAGA) has always held the raising of the level of art and promoting art education as its goals, and so in 2014, with the concept of returning the arts to the artist, the Association held the “ART SOLO: A solo show of the arts” art fair, allowing artists to present their creative processes through the form of solo exhibitions. In 2022, where the times are rapid changing, a time of information overload, a time before we step into Web 3.0, when facing NFTs, the Metaverse, and various emerging social media, TAGA has been busy in the process of optimizing ART SOLO, and the event make its grand returns with a list of 40 galleries and 65 participating artists!

Solo exhibition x Curation – an intimate collaboration between artists and galleries

Inheriting the concept of “expressing the artist’s creative process in the form of solo exhibition”, and on the wave generated by the self-media age, TAGA hopes to use ART SOLO 2022 to create an exhibition platform with depth, so that galleries can also present their own curatorial methods at the fair, and to use the format of solo exhibitions to show visual effects that cannot be easily presented standard exhibits, thus enhancing the imagination of art. For example, the format of Thierry Feuz’s works takes inspirations from natural sceneries transforming them into flowers and creatures in nature in an illusionary manner. The forms of representation for diverse paintings, ranging from classical still life to abstract expressionist drip technique and surrealism’s symbolic meaning, make the works a kind of magic moment where beauty exists in an instant in time. This type of works may be very suitable for presentation in a loft-like space, and a solo exhibition-styled fair allows the gallery to use the exhibition space to match these works and present a beautiful and splendid moment. Thierry Feuz was born in Vienna, and his latest series of works, Hyperboreal, combines the burst of color and light, which strongly shows the artist’s strong and wild vitality and presents the creative concept of “cherishing every living moment”.

Double Square Gallery is an art space that focuses on art promotion, curatorial practices, research publication, and collection services as its core concept for operation. The gallery name is derived from the two rectangular exhibition spaces that form the main body of the gallery, which also act as the spiritual axis of the venue and its extension. Double Square also has the meaning of ‘both you and I’, and the meaning extends to the ideas of artists/curator, gallery/collector, exhibition/public, local/international as well. ART SOLO 2022 will use curatorial expertise to present a solo exhibition from artist Huang Hai-hsin, and the planning of this exhibition draws from the creative processes of the artist, combining Huang’s past experience of living in numerous countries and residing in art villages, to record various humorous yet realistic scenes through paintings. With a dramatic and narrative viewpoint for painting, a unique sense of humor, coupled with colorful brushstrokes filled with context, the exhibition seems to be a reflection of a bizarrely colored reality, attempting to present to the audience with beautiful and strange moments in life.

Another important feature of ART SOLO is that through solo exhibitions, collectors and art lovers have a platform for deeper exchange, cooperation and dialogue with works, artists and galleries in an era of information overload. This is exactly the case for the works from Paco Uong. Through the oils and canvas, his works preserve the stirring of his heart after walking every inch of the countryside and is adept at capturing the flow of light and color, while the impressionistic brushwork and strokes satisfy his rigorous pursuit of light and shadow. Using paint knife as a brush, or even a cement spatula used by masons as a tool, the speed and power of the brushstrokes over a large area are stacked up in layers to create thick oil colors, carving the strength of life deep into the picture. His rich life experience and the powerful force in his brushstrokes are only possible to be seen when presented through a solo exhibition format. Art galleries holding solo exhibition for artists is a refined approach for presentation, requiring the experiences of the artists to be displayed in a focused manner. For collectors, the refinement of information provides greater assistance in interpreting artworks, the original creative intentions, allowing them to escape from the various interferences posed by the age of information explosion and to be immersed in the world of art appreciation.

At ART SOLO 2022, photographer Juan Sea presents his solo exhibition “Dear Car, Who are You?” in collaboration with Each Modern, in which his cellphone-based photography series “Car, Car” (2018), and ‘Who are You?” (2019) are on display. He has always been searching for interesting scenes of chance meeting in life, using large-scale photographic images to cover walls, to interpret the interesting perspectives that artists find in different physical environments. Sea’s “Car, Car” series captured the many vehicles parked on the streets of Taiwan. The vehicles photographed at close range are like half-body portraits of human beings. The mottled hoods, battered bumpers, and windshields filled with stickers, and it is as if we can imagine the owners of these vehicles through the vehicles’ appearance and speculate on how they are treated and used. “Who are you?” is a series of photography works created by Sea during his residency in Lishui, China, using the negative image function on cellphones, reflecting the fact that the audiences have to use their own cellphone’s negative image function to take a snapshot of the image on display before they can see the original image (the Chinese title is actually a homophonic phrase for ‘who are you’ to match this reverse viewing). However, without the use of the cell phone to flip the colors or without any equipment, the scenes and objects captured by Juan Sea look like landscapes and abstract painting at first glance, teasing at the nature of viewing by humans.

Organizing the history of collaboration between artists and galleries

In the era of self-image, Andy Warhol’s statement about “in the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of fame” seems to become more and more valid. The relationship between galleries and artists seems to be getting weaker and flimsier in such a time. Through solo artist exhibitions curated by art galleries, where a single series of work created by the artist, or the history and evolution of their work can be organized, galleries can also pen their own perspective on art history. Take the collaboration between Chihiro Nakahara and Chuan Cheng Art Center as an example. Their collaboration began at an art fair in Osaka, and the Nakahara’s wild and colorful world of characters, drawn from her awareness of life and her own reflections, captivated Zhang Yijun, the director of Chuan Cheng Art Center. Heritage Art Center is the exclusive distributor of Chihiro Nakahara’s creations, which have been seen at major art fairs. Through the solo exhibition format and the gallery’s introduction, collectors can get a deeper understanding of the gallery’s strategy, brand positioning, and future approach in managing artists, all of which is very important information for art collection.

J. P. Art center has been attending fairs using the solo exhibition format in recent years. For example, the center held solo exhibition (Chang Teng-yuan and Yang Chi-hung) in two consecutive ART TAIPEIs; similarly at two consecutive ART TAICHUNG (Li I-cheng and Cheng Su-ya); ART TAINAN in 2021 saw the works of Han Choong-seok on display, while 2022 was the solo exhibition of Lin Hsin-pei. Through all this, the determination and confidence that J. P. Art center has in managing its stable of artists can clearly be seen. At ART SOLO 2022, J. P. Art center is holding the solo exhibition of Li I-cheng; in 2021, Li put on his solo exhibition “Out of Focus – the Deconstruction of Disorder” with the Center, where the recreation of the inner landscape and expressing a new visual order is the man theme. He attempts to create a spiritual space that belongs to each single person. The works creates a rhythmic, aesthetic effect with gradations of colors, containing infinite possibilities and imagination.

The rise of young collectors has been an important event in the art industry in recent years, and this has been silently fermenting at every exhibition and every art fair. How to let the millennial generation and younger collectors systematically understand, starting from the creative processes of the artist, to look at the intricate relationship between the gallery and the artist, to the business context of the gallery managing the artists, are all important facets that ART SOLO is trying to promote. Through in-depth contact between artists, galleries and collectors, it is possible to facilitate the galleries documenting the prices of works by artists in their stable at each and every exhibition, fair, or sale, which in turn can provide important historical information for art history in Taiwan.

The precursor to ART TAIPEI, the touchstone of the art market

Based on the original intention of establishing a reasonable market order, TAGA has been actively organizing different types of art fairs in the hope of meeting the needs of the diverse market and industry development; ART TAICHUNG and ART TAINAN, both of which focus on balancing the regional development, are organized to improve the health of the Taiwan art market. ART SOLO, on the other hand, is being shaped to act as the precursor for ART TAIPEI, and thus in the future, the fair will mainly focus on overseas exhibitors, and by introducing solo exhibitions, it can act as a palate test for Taiwanese collectors, while also giving collectors more opportunities to get to know overseas exhibitors and promote international art exchanges.

Kobayashi Gallery from Japan will present the works of Saito Shiori, who was born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. Saito is a graduate of Tokyo University of the Arts, but her works are rich in the European and American contemporary style, captivating the audience in a mysterious way. The distinctive colors in her images, the casual depiction of everyday life, leave one to wonder what force is being released from her work and drawing the audience in. Her works often attempt to create a mysterious world, dreamy and mystifying.

Taiwanese artist Chen Pei-yi is an example that is worth exploring by foreign art galleries and Taiwanese artists. Chen has been collaborating with the Japanese art gallery Shukado, and her work focuses on cats, using brushstrokes outlining life stories with cats. Her work has been hailed as by the Japanese galleries as “the best cat painter in the East”. Overseas galleries thus not only bring different art creations from Taiwan, but also have the opportunity to collaborate with Taiwanese artists to bring Taiwan’s art works onto the international stage, which is the original intention for establishing the ART SOLO art fair.

ART SOLO 2022 will be held at Taipei Expo Park from April 15-17, right next to the Taipei Fine Art Museum Art Park expansion set to be completed in 2024. The ongoing ART SOLO fair will combine with the new Taipei Art Museum Contemporary Art building, which is also near the main museum complex, Taipei Story House, WDH House Theater, and outdoor children recreation facilities, and become an important art fest that connect with visitors to the Taipei Fine Art Museum. TAGA will take the lead in the visual art sector and set an example, in the hope that by making ART SOLO into a foundational international platform, it can become an innovative base for the promotion of art exhibitions and art education, and all can work together to market and promote Taiwan’s artistic and cultural image!