Double Square Gallery
Taipei Dangdai 2019

Double Square Gallery is delighted to announce our exhibition in this first Taipei Dangdai, which opens at Nangang Exhibition Hall from January 18 to 20 and features a brilliant selection of ninety art galleries from forty-two cities around the world. Taipei Dangdai serves as the overture for all Taiwan’s grand art events to come in 2019. The exhibition of Double Square Gallery that showcases four artists, including Cynthia Sah, Hsu Yunghsu, Shyu Ruey-Shiann and Chen Wan-Jen, is curated based on the spirituality of sculptural art. Using seemingly irrelevant materials, such as stone, ceramics, kinetic installation and video, the four artists employ the intervention of their physical body to create a unique connection between the materials and their works, combining techniques and intensive labor while using technology to respond to the aura bestowed on traditional sculpture. Double Square Gallery also collaborates with Samsung and hopes to perfectly display Chen Wan-Jen’s videos with Samsung TV to provide audiences a fresh visual experience.

In this era that emphasizes on technology, virtuality, speed and consumption, the works that have taken the artists’ time and labor to carve and polish with hands and tools seem even rarer and more extraordinary. The texture created by hands and time is now hard to find in artworks in this technological era. Although the aesthetics and culture of reproduction that tailgates the popular taste and the artistic creations crafted with artists’ life and aura both possess respective place and value, the spiritual energy injected into artistic creations molded and touched by artists’ hands during the creative process is undeniably irreplaceable. Therefore, audiences can surely perceive the unique union of warmth and temporal layers that introduces a rich sense of poetry and the romantic persistence of the artists.
Cynthia Sah’s work shows a refined and elegant contour, fully and exquisitely conveying the artist’s minimalistic aesthetics and the subtle, delicate variations in material texture. After the artist’s long hours of hand-carving, the solid marble seems to manifest a captivating spirit. Hsu Yungshu employs elaborate labor-intensive procedures and merges his subjectivity and body with the material. His work materializes his resolution and perseverance of committing his body to artistic creation and focuses on the dialogue between the self and the artworks to present the purest sculptural creations. Shyu Ruey-Shiann demonstrates his profound exploration of life through mechanical elements. With hand-crafted, precise components as well as mechanical rhythm and energy created through repetitive movement, Shyu’s work can be seen as an extension of his feelings in life and the embodiment of the life force he gives to his works. Chen Wan-Jen’s work shows an endless continuation of quotidian scenes or destructive moments. During the creative process, the artist usually spends extensive periods of time with each of the filmed characters via the screen. Frame by frame, he handcrafts the subjectivity of the characters in the images of 24 fps and familiarizes himself with every moment of each character in his work, forcing himself to repeatedly experience every moment of his video. The content of his work might immerse viewers in a sense of unrest and absurdity at first, however, his profound insights into the present moment can be soon discovered with a closer observation.