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About the event
RIVER ART GALLERY will host a group show of female artists titled “ANTIFRAGILE,” featuring six artists from different countries: Ginny Casey from the United States, Linda Wallis from the United Kingdom, Winnie Truong from Canada, and Taiwanese artist Pei-Han Lin, who currently resides in Norway, along with Chinese artists Xinyan Zhang, based in Germany, and Baoying Huang, based in New York. Through their distinctive creations, this show explores how to not only navigate the uncertainties, chaos, and challenges of today's world but also to thrive amidst them.
When handling delicate items like glass, they are often labeled “Fragile” to alert logistics personnel. However, complex packaging does not change the essence of the contents; thus, the term “Antifragile” highlights that the opposite of fragility is not strength, but rather resilience and flexibility in the face of pressure. This concept is echoed in the exhibition's main visual identity, where the gallery's external lightbox resembles a label marked “Antifragile” affixed to the gallery’s building, which symbolizes a shipping box. The artists, in turn, represent the seemingly fragile objects inside the box, yet embody remarkable resilience and adaptability. From the global pandemic and post-pandemic periods, to the current crises of security, political instability, and climate change, this concept of “Antifragility” has become a critical capability across various domains. At the 16th Lyon Biennale in 2022, curators Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath reexamined the meaning of fragility, making the “Manifesto of Fragility” the theme of the biennale, which resonated widely. Both curators will also oversee the 14th Taipei Biennale in 2025, further underscoring Taiwan's embeddedness in this global discourse.
RIVER ART GALLERY aims to engage viewers in a deeper exploration of the exhibition’s theme and the intrinsic meanings within each artwork. Through this process, the show seeks to inspire individuals to continually reflect on how to navigate uncertainty and upheaval, and to find ways to coexist with fragility and challenges in these turbulent times. It also presents a lifelong question to humanity in this era: as we look back on the global discourse around “Antifragility,” which appears to have reached a pivotal moment, what new challenges might the world face in the post-2025 era as international tensions escalate? As the exhibition concludes with the poignant question, “How do we live?”, it is a topic worthy of deep contemplation.
About the organizer
River Art Gallery was founded in 1998 in Taichung, Taiwan. The gallery’s initial years were known for, the director, Ray Hung’s interest in sculptural art; and in the process, discovering renowned Taiwanese artists, such as Li Chen and Hung Yi. After over two decades of focusing on working with Taiwanese artists domestically, the gallery gradually opened up its program to an international roster in 2021, with the presence of the new director, Ella Hung, the youngest daughter of gallery founder, Ray Hung. Ella Hung’s present-day program resides in a brand new, four-level, 1600 sqft gallery space in the heart of Taichung City.
The gallery made its first steps to broadening its roster with the addition of artists who are somewhat close to home, such as Taiwanese-Canadian artist; Yi-Shuan Lee, and Taiwanese-American artist; Timothy Bair. The decision for working with these 90s born artists who have spent time living outside of their motherland, is a direct way for the gallery to reintroduce a much more expansive, and yet contemporary, idea of what Formosan culture stands for on an international stage.
Now, a few years into Ella Hung’s program at River Art Gallery, along with the much larger premises to accommodate the demands of the wide range of exhibition practices in its steadily growing roster of internationally recognized artists; River Art Gallery strives to take on an even greater presence on the global stage, with a commitment to invigorate academic as well as educational purposes. The gallery’s program is based on a determination to build and grow alongside the top innovative figures of today, in radically rethinking the exhibition as a form and taking it as a critical medium.