The earliest material used by the ancients to paint their eyebrows – “Umber-black dye”. The pronunciation of “umber-black” in Mandarin, dai, is the same as the word for generation or time. Hantoo is a Taiwanese artist group founded in 1998. There is a 23-year age gap between the oldest and youngest artists. Yet they bond like a family and have been building each other up.
“+1 Dai: OldWays, Young– Hantoo 2020”, this year’s collaborative exhibition, views Hantoo as a cohesive subject. “The 13 artists aim to challenge themselves and Hantoo as a whole through three different concepts of old + old, old + new, and old concepts + new applications,” explained by the curator Patrice Chou.
YANG Mao-Lin has been known for breaking down taboos. His works blatantly challenge the authority and display a strongly critical attitude. This time, he departs from his usual brooding and vagabond persona. The exhibition seeks to bring to the audience his strength as well as weakness with grace.
WU Tien-Chang, famous for displaying Taiwan’s diverse and multilayered collective memory, combines his newest work “Love Song in Harbour City” and old work “Farewell, Spring and Autumn Pavilions” to discuss the ideological currents of subject and other, body and nation.
LU Hsien-Ming’s works have been evolving with corresponding encountering and time. He incorporates notes from his early works to his newest 2020 piece, “The Period Of The Old Tree”. He hopes to bring the once relegated flora of the past into the new era and into a newly cultivated dialogue.
When LIEN Chien-Hsing created his 1992 work “Jin-Gua-Shyr and Gold and Bronze Mines”, he hoped for the chance in the future to once again use the same scenery to paint an even larger work. 28 years later, this wish was concretely granted within this exhibition.
Abstract expression seems to be YANG Jen-Ming’s method of interpretation for human consciousness and social order. This time Yang brings together his never released, more realistic dessins from 15 years ago and a new abstract work entitling “An Angle”.
LEE Min-Jong positions 2 of his earlier works back to back in a V-shape as an all-new work. It is encouraged to examine it by circling the exhibition. The setting intends to induce the audience into the mind of the artist when he is creating the artwork.
Between 2006 to 2008, LAI Hsin-Lung did a series of “Studies on Reading”, incorporating chairs of various sizes and materials. At that time, Lai also expressed his creative mood through dessins and graffiti. The artist deftly combines the 2 series recently. Even he is surprised by the chemistry of the new combination.
Through the deconstruction and declassification of hegemonic symbols, CHEN Ching-Yao’s works often appropriate cultural symbols from Japanese and Korean popular culture. His new work continues the sense of ludicrousness, displaying for the first time a handmade costume.
CHANG Ling’s recent creative habitus is very “chill”, in comparison to his previous known “precision” style in art. For this exhibition, he puts together both large and small new works with a series of mixed media photographs. The creative process is meant to be “just right”.
KUO Wei-Kuo boldly experiments with honey wax and tempera, allowing diverse base materials to present themselves to the viewer like the memory of a millefeuille cake. The work moves from “artificial” to “organic”, giving new life to wood chips, with the resulting combination sprouting out of the walls to the surface.
DENG Wen-Jen’s embroidered work “Les Fleurs de Mort” draws from Taiwan’s aboriginal Atayal peoples’ cosmology. The work evokes different forms, from ramie fibers, to skin, to stems, spectrally expressing the elevation from death into decadence.
TANG Tang-Fa’s works encompass mixed modes of expression as painting, sculpture, installation and performance, re-evaluating the familiar traditional market. The new work features a large banana in suspension. His delicate artworks can be very down to earth visually.
TU Wei-Cheng’s “Robotic Creatures” combines clay with industrial spare parts and architectural rubble collected from abandoned factories. Tu also partners with his son Tudou by incorporating Tudou’s toys to a dinosaur’s tail.
