Chiu Wei-Hsiang's solo exhibition lâi-chē-chē at Fotoaura Institute of Photography, Tainan, reviewed by Cheng Sheng-Hua in ARTalks, presented by the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture.
Since antiquity, the relationship between the “homeland” and painting has been one of humanity’s most fundamental artistic themes. Through depictions of our immediate surroundings and environment, we reflect on our own state of being, and imagine idealistic possibilities: realized as hopeful visions of the future, or environments of decay and irreconcilable loss. Such expressions can be observed throughout history, from 17th-century Western landscape painting traditions, to the hidden cosmology and life philosophy imbued in ancient Chinese shanshuihua (landscape painting). Put simply, artistic representations of home—whether as landscape painting, shanshuihua, or environmental intervention—are never purely representational or objective observation; rather, these depictions are loaded with questions worthy of excavation and discussion.
The homeland has been a particularly central theme in the development of modern Taiwanese art (or, arts and culture in a broader sense), having traversed through at least three distinct stages: the “local color” of the Japanese colonial period; the orthodox shanshuihua of the early post-war era, characterized by shattered mountains and rivers mirroring the lament of a broken nation, and the “nativism” movement of the 1970s, that appealed to reflection on the long-neglected and disparaged homeland, and land beneath one’s feet. Today, however, does revisiting the homeland risk being dismissed as reheating leftovers? Or is the homeland still worthy of reflection?
This is at least one of the insights that Chiu Wei-Hsiang addresses in lâi-chē-chē, which takes the artist’s home as its starting point (the fleeting ability to locate and remember one’s home, as is the loss and denial of home, is itself another contemporary artistic point of interest).
Chiu Wei-Hsiang grew up in his grandparent’s home in Dayuan, Taoyuan. Filled with childhood memories of catching shrimp, chasing cicadas, playing basketball and games; the chickens his grandmother raised, nearby rice paddies, and lively gatherings of neighbors in the courtyard and living room (thanks to his grandfather’s role as village chief), the bustling warmth of the village encapsulated well the beatific image of homeland. Yet in recent years, due to the Taoyuan Aerotropolis project, Chiu’s home was expropriated, facing demolition. Confronting the imminent loss of this ideal homeland, Chiu, who comes from a background in painting and calligraphy, came to the realization that one of painting’s primary functions is to simulate (create) symbolic objects of desire. Thus, the core driving force of his practice was ignited.
Excerpt translated from original text in Chinese. Courtesy of ARTalks.
Images: Chiu Wei-Hsiang, lâi-chē-chē, Fotoaura Institute of Photography, 2025 (installation view). Courtesy the artist and Fotoaura Institute of Photography.
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