HOW WE BECAME ARTISTS

DURATION: 2022-02-19 ~ 2022-04-30
OPENING: 2022-02-19
VENUE: TKG+ Projects
ADDRESS: 2F, No.15, Ln. 548, Ruiguang Rd., Neihu Dist., Taipei 114, Taiwan
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Curator Tsai Ming-Jiun
Participating Artists Yang Mao-Lin, Yuan Goang-Ming, Yao Jui-Chung, Tu Wei-Cheng, Su Meng-hung, Hou I-Ting, Tsai Char-Wei, Chen Ching-Yuan


The path to the creation of art has a relatively low barrier to entry. Anyone might be discovered some innate talent for painting when s/he was a child and began attending art tutoring classes or art talent classes to train and hone the skills. However, not everyone pursues this path, and not everyone possesses the determination to continue making art.

Since attending my first art talent class in junior high school, I have remained in this field for almost 30 years. Now, as a curator teaching in the art department, I have the opportunity to instruct and engage with students across various art departments in different universities. This exhibition is inspired by an observation that has crystallized over the past few years: More and more students are aspiring to become full-time artists who can support themselves through their artworks. But apart from the commercial art market, are there other channels through which an artist can support themselves? Are there certain paths or methods one must follow to become an artist? Such questions abound within the academic sphere. Moreover, what role does the arts academy play in nurturing and preparing artists for this paths?

‘How we became artists’ is the culmination of these ideas and inquiries. This exhibition features eight artists represented by Tina Keng Gallery or TKG+ who were born between 1953 and 1984. Through insightful dialogues, this exhibition seeks to discover, organize, even reinterpret the people, remarks and events throughout their careers, both large and small, that have shaped the artists they have become. With time as the main axis of the exhibition, viewers witness a matrix of intertwined relationships with people, schools, institutions, and environments that these eight artists have encountered along their paths to becoming artists. As we reflect on varying phases of Taiwanese art molded by different generations, methods, and milieux, we might further contemplate how divergent paths of artistic nurturing may take shape today.


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