bear hole | TING Chaong Wen x WANG Hsiang Lin | Exhibition Information

Solid Art is honoured to present its annual curatorial project “Citing Bar”, the title of which is derived from the term “Politics of Citation” to correspond to the core spirit of the project, that is, to acknowledge origins, borders and ordeals, thereby building a sense of solidarity for the purpose of enabling land, the environment, human and more-than-human to prosper together. We wish to explore various forms of knowledge, ecological wisdom and non-Western worldviews and to transmit such transformative energy into this planet that is bombarded by multiple crises and conflicts. Apart from exhibitions, participatory events including research, reading, writing and publication will be organised to raise sustained awareness of care and justice.

Titled “bear hole”, the first exhibition within the project draws its inspiration from Canadian indigenous oral narratives and the live experiences of the two participating artists, TING Chaong-Wen and WANG Hsiang-Lin, aiming to examine the creative burnout in art production and the state of physical and mental exhaustion in the wake of the milieus of homogenization of time, linear development and capital growth as a whole. By rethinking and resetting the notion of one-dimensional time perspective, the exhibition presents alternative flows, scales, and forms of life that initiate a more dialogic relationship, thus allowing ways of worldmaking to become more sustainable and creative.

The artworks on show bring into focus TING’s and WANG’s experiences of short breaks, returns, dreams and road trips as sources of creative inspiration for them. The barren and solitude landscape scenes in their works act as portals to other worlds. In moments of retrospection, monologues, and getting lost in unconscious dialogues with the “good-for-nothing” frontiers, one no longer perceives time as linear when being present in nature and witnessing its intersectionalities of accumulation and being recycled back into the environment, which render one’s vision and sensation sharper. Hence, the field of seeming emptiness is where the materials speak their languages; and where the body and mind settle.

Exhibition Details

• bear hole | TING Chaong Wen x WANG Hsiang Lin
• Date: 4 Mar - 29 Apr 2023
• Time: Wed-Sat 13:00 – 19:00
• Venue: Solid Art
• Address: 2F., No. 9, Aly. 79, Ligong St., Beitou Dist., Taipei City, Taiwan

About the Artists

TING Chaong Wen

TING Chaong Wen is skilled in dealing with mixed media, such as space installations which mixed with images and sounds. TING's works are often inspired by his own experiences and often include ready-made objects, which through the context of a particular exhibition, become part of a particular historical narrative. Thus artist deconstructs, interprets, and reinterprets our shared history in surprising and innovate ways. He examines dominant values, historical conflicts such as colonialism, migration, and cultural collective memory and their cross-border existence.

Recent exhibitions include “Repeat Itself” , Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2021) ; “Asian Art Biennial”, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung (2019) ; “HIGH TIDE 17 FREMANTLE BIENNALE”, Artsource, Fremantle (2017) ; “NAKANOJO BIENNALE 2017”, Former Hirozakari Brewery, Japan (2017) ; “Citation From Craft”, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (2017) ; “Taipei Biennial 2016: Gestures and Archives of the Present, Genealogies of the Future”, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei (2016) ; “Koganecho Bazaar 2016”, Koganecho Area Management Center, Yokohama (2016) ; “URBAN SYNESTHESIA”, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung (2015) ; “SPECULATIVE DUST”, Corner Art Space, Seoul (2015) ; “Image/ Sound: Concept and Position”, LE CENTQUATRE 104, Paris (2014) ; “NO ONE RIVER FLOWS”, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei (2013).

WANG Hsiang Lin

Hsiang-Lin Wang was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1984, and after receiving her master’s degree in music performance from the City University of New York, she then received photography training at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. Wang began receiving classical music training as a child and later gradually shifted into music education and visual art after completing her education.

Working predominately with images, most of her artworks are related to her personal experiences, with the relationship between the self and the world reflected through examining the connection between herself and the external world. She is recently revisiting the concept of cryptomnesia to explore the uncertainties with time and space, seeking to explore different ways of seeing by departing from images embedded in her memory. Wang has exhibited at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Galerie Frederic Moisan in Paris, Gallery 456 in New York, and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei. Winner of Taipei Arts Awards first prize in 2015, she was also an artist-in-resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany 2022 and Cite International des Arts in France in 2017. Wang is currently based in Taipei, Taiwan.

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