The Other Shore 3.0

作品賞析

The artist Hsu Chih-Wei has been playing with model toys all his life, as if he lives in a world of toys. For him, models are like entire cities to him, but here his city has completely collapsed! In his work The Other Shore 3.0, a man who is naked except for an invincible-looking iron helmet sits on a small boat; he peers through the helmet into the distance, with firm resolve. He holds an oar with both hands and looks as if he is preparing to paddle off toward an unknown land. All around him, discarded model parts float on the water, making it difficult for the boat to move. In the background is a city under a gray sky. The distinctive architecture of the 85 Sky Tower marks the city as Kaohsiung, but the debris in the water suggests that civilization has collapsed in a doomsday scenario. No one can predict the ending of this story, just as the artist felt when the pandemic was raging—looking forward to the pandemic’s end, but not knowing when it will end. Escaping from everything may have seemed the best option.