Saturday, Aug 2 2014 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Queens Museum New York City Building
Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, NY 11368
On View: July 29 to August 17, 2014
Opening Reception: August 2, 2014, 3-5pm
This exhibition is binary and binocular. We peer through a small aperture to see a spectacular world that is composed of Taiwanese artists in US. On another level, the exhibit will be meaningful if it encourages the community to recognize Taiwanese artists, to admire, and to support them.
This exhibit combines different generations of expatriate artists – old and the new settlers – which adapted to various aspects to the new culture. The correspondence is also extended to artists in Taiwan rooted in their native land. Different geopolitical periods display both differences and commonalities in creativity.
The exhibit does not separate artists who live and work in the US from those from Taiwan. However, viewers will find subtle cultural influences revealed in their art. These works might tend to express inner thought or to reflect the external environment; therefore, one can glimpse traces of the expression of nourishment from their own local motherland, as well as contemporary Western art trends.
To observe the moving flow of this minimal art group, recall New York’s Soho art district of the 80s; this is where the first generation of overseas artists settled; they were quite active within the main western artist circle, and they created a splendid historical moment. The second wave of artists from Taiwan in the 90s faced a changing, confusing insecure world of economic and immigration difficulties. Artists based in the United States find themselves awash not only in the conflict between Eastern and Western, but also in the cultural whirlpool that is urban America. So it may be that residence in one’s native country and language enable an artist to better sift through various trends and create strong new art. A metropolitan life – especially in New York – famously requires toughness and resiliency; at the same time metropolitan artists absorb multicultural influences to enrich their inherited outlook. For artists of the last ten years or new students, fixed residence in the United States is not mandatory, and the use of new media is indispensable; their work shows is clearly more diverse and more challenging.
For more information about the event, please visit:
http://www.queensmuseum.org