TAIWAN ART ART MUSEUM SHOWS SOLO EXHIBITION
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM) in Taipei, Taiwan is currently exhibiting the works of Taiwanese artist Tsong Pu. The exhibition, entitled “Art from the Underground: Tsong Pu Solo Exhibition“, displays over 100 works representative of Tsong Pu’s thirty year career, ranging from his earliest works from the 1970’s to his more recent installation pieces, drawings and paintings. It comes amid rumblings from the art community that the Taipei Fine Arts Museum is failing to represent local artists.
“My first exhibit was held in this space 20 years ago. It seems that I haven’t improved much over that time because 20 years later I’m still … underground.” Tsong Pu, as quoted in the Taipei Times.
You Are The Beautiful Flower, Mix Media, 1996:2010 (re-presented in TFAM)
Tsong Pu was born in Shanghai (China) in 1947. He attended Fu-Shing Commerce and Industry High School in Taipei, Taiwan, and went on to study at Las Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de Madrio, Spain. He professes to choosing a school where he would be forced to draw realistically, a style that is in direct contrast with the abstract work he has created since leaving Spain and returning to Taiwan in 1981.
Tsong Pu, the artist. Photo taken in TFAM
Tsong Pu has had a keen interest in European and American abstract expressionism since he was quite young. His early influences included Western art magazines from Japan and the US; the knowledge he took from these separated him from his peers.
In 1984, Tsong was presented with an award in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum sponsored “Contemporary Art Trends in the R.O.C. Exhibition”, an award hailed as being “an index of progress for Taiwan’s contemporary art world.”
He has held numerous solo exhibitions since 1983 in Spain and in Taiwan, as well as participated in domestic and international group exhibitions all over Asia, in Spain, the US, the UK, and Australia.
Tsong Pu is most well known for a painting style he developed during the 1980s, in which he paints an abstract pattern based on a grid, occasionally with diagonal lines of white. This is a method often praised by art critics as it has the ability to promote an emotional response while being thoroughly mechanical.
Transition, Acrylic on canvas, 130x193.5 cm, 1999
Tsong Pu is often viewed as one of the most progressive artists working in Taiwan today. His 1983 solo exhibition, “A Meeting of Mind and Material”, broke with established rules of painting, the result of his desire to abstain from simply drawing realistically and seeking new ways to present his ideas. He has been praised for his ability to embrace new concepts and new media, as he composes his paintings using inspiration from his everyday surroundings.
Enticing Encounter II, Mix Media, 193x130 cm, 1983
Editors’ Note:
We have since published a three-part interview in which Tsong Pu discusses six of his artworks in depth. This is framed by some discussion of the Taiwanese contemporary art community, past and present.
Read Part I
Read Part II
Read Part III
MM/KN
Related Topics: Taiwanese artists, museum shows, painting
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