How does an artist comprehend another artist’s archives? Artist YEH Wei-Li (1971-) was invited by the curator Johnson CHANG in 2015 to tidy up and renovate the former houses of the senior artist YEH Shih-Chiang (1926-2012) at Wantan and Shuinandong. To execute the project, YEH Wei-Li moved to Shuinandong with his family, laboring over the repairs of the house while studying the archives of YEH Shih-Chiang’s works, images, and artifacts. In the meantime, he also reinterpreted YEH Shih-Chiang’s living space and spiritual world through photographing.
The practice of YEH Wei-Li is not only an act of transmuting with tribute to YEH Shih-Chiang, but also an act of expanding to fulfill the lack of the art archive study. Now the two renovated houses will be the locations of YEH Shih-Chiang Residence Museum and Archive, while the results of study have been included in the book Constellations: Yeh Shih-Chiang/Ye Wei-Li, which was published last year and records the exchange between the two artists across time and space.
As the second public program of the Independent Art Spaces of Taiwan in 2023, the talk invites the artist YEH Wei-Li and the independent curator / Curatorial Director of Hong Kong Hanart TZ Gallery Johnson CHANG to discuss the opportunity of starting the project and share their viewpoints towards the artist’s archives. Besides, YEH will further talk about how he pondered on the other artist’s context from the perspective of “an artist as an archivist” during the execution of the project over the years.
The YEH Shih-Chiang Residence Museum before renovation. Photo courtesy of YEH Wei-Li
The YEH Shih-Chiang Residence Museum after renovation. Photo courtesy of YEH Wei-Li
The interior space of The YEH Shih-Chiang Residence Museum. Photo courtesy of YEH Wei-Li
The interior space of The YEH Shih-Chiang Residence Museum. Photo courtesy of YEH Wei-Li
The YEH Shih-Chiang Archive. Photo courtesy of YEH Wei-Li
TIME: 2023.05.20 (SAT) 13:30-15:00
VENUE: CREATORS’ Space R102 Coworking Space
👉🏻Online Registration
*The talk will be live streamed on the C-LAB YouTube Channel. Advance registration is required before you arrive onsite.
SPEAKERS
｜YEH Wei-Li
YEH Wei-Li was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1971, and immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of eleven. In 1997, he received a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Photography from the Rhode Island School of Design. Graduate workshops at Brown University's experimental Literary Arts Program fueled his thesis work on themes of displacement, assimilation, cultural identity and racial politics. Relocating to New York upon graduation, YEH exhibited work at Columbia University, New York University, and Bronx Museum of Art and the International Center of Photography.
Returning to live permanently in Taiwan in 2002, YEH has been active as an artist, curator and instigator. YEH’s work is shown and collected internationally, and his photographic and text-based projects continue to explore the dynamics of the individual within collective practices, centering on both the personal and the socio-political relationships between the self and the city in which he resides. His collective and collaborative-based practice is seen in major projects such as Treasure Hill Tea + Photo (THTP) and the ongoing Antiquity-like Rubbish Research & Development Syndicate. From 2015 to the present, YEH has been focusing on re-accessing and reactivating the life and work of the deceased artist YEH Shih-Chiang. Through renovation and photography, YEH explores the dynamic connection among heterogeneous elements such as the personal history of the artist, the genealogy of aesthetic sensibilities, and social-historical conditions of a place. YEH currently lives and works in Shuinandong, Taiwan.
YEH’s works are presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Taipei Biennial (2004, 2010, 2012, 2016), Treasure Hill Artivist CO-OP, Taipei (2006), Cité Internationale des Art, Paris (2007), Taiwan Biennial (2008), Centre A, Vancouver (2008), Shanghai Biennial (2012), Saatchi Gallery, London (2015), Hong Kong Art Centre (2015), Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania (2019), Espronceda Center for Art & Culture, Barcelona (2020), etc.
｜Johnson CHANG
Johnson CHANG is a curator and guest professor at School of Intermedia Art, CAA. He is also the Curatorial Director of Hanart TZ Gallery (Hong Kong). Lately focusing on how Chinese contemporary art responds to the world, he has been putting Chinese art on the map through curating since the 1980s.
Recent projects include Jia Li Hall, research on The Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial; West Heavens, an investigation into Sino-Indian exchange of art and social thoughts; Yaji Garden, a contemporary practice of the Chinese connoisseur culture; and Inter-Asia School, which organizes a series of academic events.
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