MOCA TAIPEI

 Heyy everyone,
     We haven't really been to many museums or exhibits since we've been here and I've been thinking it might be nice to check out some Taiwanese artists while we still get the chance, so today we made a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei. Admission was 50NT so a little under $2  and they gave us these neat little light boxes as tickets. The first artists' work that we saw was full of pelvis bones and little army men. I didn't really understand the concept though.

The main exhibition was the work by Hsi-Shih-Pin. We were shown fragments of beautiful, masterfully crafted sculptures as we walked through the exhibit. They appeared mechanical and were so detailed. These pieces were meant to be viewed in dim lighting because the reflections casted of the metal created amazing forms on the walls and floor. After walking through a room full of blue prints of these mechanical pieces put together to form a variety of larger pieces we entered a large space where these marvelous creatures took on their ultimate forms.  We were confronted these colossal beasts that looked like horses and across the room was a Griffon and a Unicorn. These creatures were made up of many many pieces with such detail it was difficult to view each part and instead we were forced to focus on the whole but my eyes kept trying to break them down. The title of this exhibit was The Memory Palace and it was the artists goal to challenge the viewer to visualize and interpret the memories brought about by these forms. He wanted people to reflect on them and correlate the small parts to their own memories. It's difficult to try and explain based on what he was saying in a video at the end but it was truly a magnificent sight to behold.

    After The Memory Palace we saw a familiar face that I recognized from the other art museum we had visited. We entered into Chang Chia Ying's solo exhibition called Fairy Tale Reincarnation. Her style is very recognizable to me because it reflects pop surrealist aesthetics which include very large eyes and vivid coloring. Many artists I admire work in this particular style. Ying's work is much less "cutesy" than many others I've seen and instead has a more uncomfortable slightly creepy vibe moslty because they eyes of her characters are very big, but also very creepy. I did not understand the concept whatsoever even after reading the thoughts behind the work. Her aim was to recreate Eastern and Western fairy tales and mix them together somehow. I didn't really get it but maybe I'd need to have a more thorough grasp of the stories behind the work. The coolest part of this exhibit was the presentation. The pieces on the far wall both lead the viewers eyes to a small door blended into back wall. There was a line waiting to get in and once we made it to the front they give us each a fox mask to wear inside the room behind the door. The room was made to look like one of the artist's paintings and you were meant to feel as if you were a part of the work. It was very neat.

This was by far one of the most interesting art exhibitions i've been too and I highly recommend anyone reading to go check out the artists mentioned.

~Savi