Duration：2016.07.09. Sat. – 2016.08.07. Sun.
Opening：2016.07.09. Sat. 3pm
Artist：TSAI Kuen-Lin

“Can sound be seen?" – Tsai Kuen-Lin

Liang Gallery is pleased to announce Tsai Kuen-Lin’s solo exhibition “The Invisible Sound." The exhibition will run from 9th July to 7th August 2016.

For his first exhibition at Liang Gallery, Tsai Kuen-Lin presents a diversity of artworks created in recent years from mixed-media sculpture to video installation and from printmaking, to photography installation.

Tsai attemps to elaborate his practice from “auditory interface" to the whole “environment" that has developed in recent years. He is also trying to extend the definition of the “sound" into the area of visual arts. The artist believes that the only way to understand the whole picture of things is through constantly revised perception.

“Invisible sound" is the narrative and representation of the inside and outside of the world. It could serve as the projection of real world through the artistic practice combining the daily experiences with nearly neglected experiences. The core idea of the exhibition is to present the sound, “unseen, yet to be experienced.”

Having developed this idea, the centerpiece of the exhibition is an assembled installation of variable dimensions Outside Inside (2016) with a scenario of the urban city. There are two parts of the installation, the lower one is formed with the artist’s signature material pipeline, which contains various models and sound. The upper part is a 200 meters high platform where visitors are invited to step on to view the manmade landscape with models and digital images. This installation presents the contrast between fabricated and real world that help the audience to imagine the city they should have anticipated.

As an artist regularly enrolling into international residecy programs, Tsai often graspes the inspiration during his residencies. The new still-life photography series was developed during his residency at Cleveland Foundation in the USA showing consumerism in daily life. Still Life – Non-Organic (2013) is the photography installation with a light box with a text “fake food" on it. The artist uses this playful text and display to offer the irony of the relationship between food and affordability. Still Life – Consumed (2015) uses the technique of classical painting such as staging and triangle composition to show that re-using and recycling is not encouraged in the USA.

In Akiyoshi Stage (2016) the artist uses the short focus projector to stage his residency in Japan. French window serves as a screen to show the fragment of the scenery in Akiyoshidai during different seasons. The video is also accompanied with deconstructed Noh music.

Tsai borrows the idea of the fiction to present this exhibition. The large-scale installation Outside Inside (2016) is the prelude, and the work Wuji (2016) serves as a closing part. Wuji is a sculpture inspired by the Chinese philosophy Taoism – the mirrored-polished chessboard with the sunk stone-made grey chess. The artist aims to show that the dichotomy of universe is not as simple as it might look – it is not only black and white.

About the Artist

Born in Tainan in 1979, Tsai Kuen-Lin graduated from the MFA Program in New Media Art at the Department of New Media Art of the Taipei National University of the Arts, BFA Program at the Department of Fine Arts of the National Taiwan University of the Arts, and Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School respectively.

Currently, the artist works in Taipei. In recent years, he has been using sound and plastic pipes as the basic elements for his creative expression. He aims to use hearing in order to affect the inertial thoughts people usually have towards space and place. By means of dislocation the audience is allowed to rediscover the space, while the medium itself is the communication material of the artist.

Solo exhibitions include: “Treesure House” at Waterloo Arts in Cleveland in 2015, “As We Hear/Say” organized by the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture in 2015, “Transformation of Experience” at 789 Chicken Farm in Taoyuan in 2013, and “Sound Home” at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in 2011.

The artist has also participated in various group shows at Soka Art Center, Very Fun Park, VT Artsalon, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and National Art Museum of China.

Important Colections:

Artworks have been collected by White Rabbit Gallery in Australia, Taipei Metro, Yeh Rong Jai Culture and Art Foundation in Hsinchu, and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store. His works have also been included in other public and private collections domestically and abroad.

Residency Experience:

• 2016 Akiyoshidai International Artist Village, Mine, Japan
• 2015 Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland, OH, USA
• 2012 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA, USA
• 2010 Koganecho Area Management Center, Yokohama, Japan