An exhibition featuring works by six Taiwan and one French artist will kick off Sept. 27 in Paris as part of an annual festival aimed at showcasing artistic affinity among the world’s cultures.
Organized by the Taiwan Cultural Center in Paris, the show “Carnets du flaneur” is being staged at Galerie Frederic Moisan for the 2017 Week of Foreign Cultures in Paris. The participating artists are photographers Cheng Jen-pei, Wang Hsiang-lin and Wu Chuan-lun, installation artist Lin Cheng-wei, and filmmakers Lin Shih-chieh, Niu Jun-quian and France’s Gwenola Wagon.
According to the cultural center, the event features diverse works on the theme “flaneur,” which refers to a person who saunters around observing society. Based on this approach, the artists explore such topics as historical reflections, social interactions and urban development.
Exhibits will include the short film “Grandes lignes de desagregation,” or “A Short History of Decay,” by Lin Shih-chieh. The six-minute production—winner of the Best Experimental prize at the 2015 Golden Harvest Awards, Taiwan’s highest honor for short films—intermixes footage from a 1970s U.S. Army propaganda movie and modern recordings to highlight the political ideologies underpinning the five-decade-old work.
Also featured is Niu’s short film “Carnets du flaneur,” or “Travelogue,” an abstract piece exploring what it means to make a personal connection. French filmmaker Wagon’s contribution to the show is a short film that examines the impacts of pollution by tracking fireflies in urban environments.
The exhibition includes three photography collections. Wang’s “Changement qualitatif,” or “Metamorphosis,” seeks to convey the social pressures people face and the loneliness of individuals in contemporary cities. The 12-image series earned the Grand Prize at the 2015 Taipei Arts Awards.
Wu’s collection, comprising photographs of potted plants and their plastic containers from his neighborhood in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City, examines the paradoxical aesthetic of adding greenery to an urban setting using modern industrial materials. Cheng will exhibit her latest series “Toi et moi en pique-nique,” which highlights the relationship between the changing urban environment and people’s daily lives through images of trash cans on the streets of Paris.
Also seizing inspiration from streets of the French capital, installation artist Lin Cheng-wei will showcase his collection “De la boue.” The exhibit consists of discarded objects sourced from across Paris that Lin has painted gold so as to prompt discussions on the artistic and intrinsic value of everyday items.
According to the cultural center, the opening ceremony for the show will feature a new work by France-based performance artist River Lin titled “After My Alarm Wakes Me Up.” The exhibition is scheduled to run through Oct. 8. (CPY-E)
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