May 17–July 13, 2014
MoNTUE
Museum of National Taipei University of Education
No.134, Section 2, Heping East Road
Taipei
www.taishinart.org.tw
Talks
montue.ntue.edu.tw
The Taishin Arts Awards, an award for Taiwanese contemporary art given by Taishin Financial Holdings Co., is in its 12th edition this year, and at the same time, it has completely revamped its award system. Starting this year, the Grand Prize winner has been selected from a single cross-disciplinary category. Amid great anticipation and suspense, the award ceremony was held on June 21st, with the amount of the Grand Prize raised to 1,500,000 NTD (approximately 50,000 USD). Chairman of Taishin Financial Holding Co. Thomas T.L. Wu was personally on hand to announce the Grand Prize winner and present the awards. Employing exquisite technique, young artist Su Yu-Hsien took folk ceremonial rites and transformed them to encompass multiple layers of political and social metaphor in the work Hua-Shan-Qiang, earning him the Grand Prize distinction.
The Grand Prize winner was chosen by Chiu Kun-Liang, Lin Yu-Ping, Chen Tai-Song, Festival/Tokyo Director Chiaki Soma, and Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain Curator Grazia Quaroni, who formed the international jury. Over the course of three days of deliberations and meetings with the artists, the Grand Prize winner was chosen from the five shortlisted works. In making their decision, the jurors concluded: “By combining Taiwanese funeral ceremony, architectural form, the “house” for the spirit of the deceased made by paper craftsmanship, and theatrical text, the work elegantly crosses the boundaries between documentary, performing art, and movie genres in the way of storytelling. The “house” embodies the unfulfilled desires in this life. The artist opens the door to new possibilities for alternative thinking for theatricality within the context of visual art. The narrator is sometimes humorous, sometimes sentimental; his voice controls the emotion presented in this ‘Drama of Death.’ The modest narration without providing psychological analysis effectively imprints the story in the memory of the audience. The artist delicately implicated the disrupted colonized history of Taiwan and the uncertainty about the nation’s future. It is an awakening metaphor about the passage from the life and death of human beings to the life and death of a nation.”
With initiatives in encouraging arts reviews and written commentary, and making nominations instead of accepting submissions, the Taishin Arts Award is an innovative mechanism for evaluating works across disciplines and presently regarded as the highest monetary prize in the art field in Taiwan. In the revamped 12th edition, the annual five shortlists comprised a single multidisciplinary category. The Grand Prize winner, chosen from among them, received 1,500,000 NTD, while the other four finalists each received 500,000 NTD for a grand total of 3,500,000 NTD in the monetary prize.
Furthermore, this year’s ceremony for the Taishin Art Awards broke new ground, namely through a collaboration with TEDxTaipei, in which the five shortlists each shared their own experiences through TED’s celebrated format of 18-minute speeches. The collaboration allowed a wider audience to become familiar with the artists and the ideas behind their work, and the speeches were made accessible to anyone worldwide in both Chinese and English via the TED website.
Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture Chairman Simon Cheng expressed in his speech: “From the deeply moving speeches made by the artists, we can better grasp the dedication of each artist to their work and understand the deeper significance of the works themselves. This also represents the core mission of the Taishin Arts Award, which is to showcase Taiwan’s finest artists to the greater public. With ongoing nominations, the construction of the ARTalks website, open dialogue with the public, exhibitions that present the quintessence of works, and the annual festivities of the award ceremony, this very thorough process is constantly promoting the greatest artistry that Taiwan has to offer, which is also represented in the significance and value of this award. The nominated and prizewinning works reflect Taiwan’s diversity through the full spectrum of works in the Taishin Arts Award, allowing the most outstanding works to once again resonate with the whole of society.”
To emphasize the works of all five shortlists and introduce the 15 finalists, the 12th Annual Taishin Arts Award exhibition is currently being held at the Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE) until July 13. The exhibition is open to the public, who are welcome to visit and appreciate the dazzling achievements of Taiwan’s leading contemporary artists.
The 12th edition of the Taishin Arts Award
Grand Prize winner: Su Yu-Hsien for Hua-Shan-Qiang
The full video can be viewed here.
Shortlist:
Li Ming-Chen (StyleLab) for Dear All—2013 Young Stars New Vision-Theater II
Kao Jun-Honn for The Ruin Image Crystal Project: 10 Scenes
MeimageDance for My Dear
M.O.V.E. Theatre for Dear John
(Listed according to radical order by Chinese name.)