The content of mankind is our subject and our inspiration.

—British Art Duo Gilbert & George

 

Pop art emerged in the 1960s, and artists began to embrace popular culture, extracting the events and objects around people and daily life as creative themes, just like the main discourse of “phenomenology”: “Back to the things themselves;” Since the 2000s, Taiwanese contemporary art has seen the rise of Japan-inspired and cute elements. This period of flat or virtual expressions given rise by the aesthetics of cuteness has become an important expression of Taiwanese artists after the 2000s, which can be described as a cultural hybrid phenomenon that fuses Japanese, European, American, and Taiwanese cultures. 

 

This exhibition aims to utilize the methodology of phenomenology to give intuitive descriptions of phenomena or things, and to search for their essences. The exhibition features three subthemes: Cuteness vs. Power, Aesthetics of Cuteness vs. Mass  Culture, and Kawaii vs. Kowai to explores the relationship between Taiwanese contemporary art and the aesthetics of cuteness. Through the select artworks of Art Bank, the exhibition examines the artistic languages of manga and cartoon, video game, smartphone and social media, and the virtual world, and also manifesting the influences of the culture of cuteness on our lives.

 

 

Opening: 2018/6/8 Fri. 14:00
Artist: WANG Chien-Yang, YU Sheng-Ruei, WU Tzu-Ning, LU Hsiao-Han, LU Chih-Wen, LEE Min-Tao, LIN Chia-Hung, Lin Cheng, CHIU Chih-Wei, HONG Dong-Lu, CHANG Che-Jung, CHANG En-Tzu, KUO Cheng-Chang, CHEN Tzung-Shiun, Mr. OGAY, CHAN Chieh-Ping, TSAI Shih-Hung
Curator: May YEN
Space Designer: SU Cheng-Pu
Visual Designer: LIN Huan-Chun
Venue: Art Bank Taiwan (No.150, Sec. 1, Ziyou Rd., West Dist., Taichung City 403, Taiwan)