Home / News / Fiction in Social Reality : Taiwan & Mexico Photographic Art Interchange Exhibition

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Artists: Yang Shun-Fa, Shen Chao-Liang, Yao Jui-Chung, Raul Gasque, Adam Wiseman, Juan Carlos Coppel Curator: Cheng Shao Hung About Exhibition VT Art Salon is pleased to announce its last show in 2016, Fiction in Social Reality—Taiwan/Mexico photographic Art Interchange Exhibition. Through this rare opportunity, VT Art Salon invites you to explore the development of Mexican contemporary photography. Three famous Mexican photographers are invited to join this exhibition, Adam Wiseman, Juan Carlos Coppel, and Raul Gasque. Being preferred photographers of ESPN, the Wall Street Journal, and TIME, student of Pulitzer Prize winner and special contributor of the US media VICE, they are experienced in artistic and interdisciplinary practices. Meanwhile, three important Taiwanese artists in the field of photography, YANG Shun-Fa, SHEN Chao-Liang and YAO Jui-Chung are also joining in this show. These participating artists can be considered a dream team of the collaboration of photographic art of Taiwan and Mexico. Furthermore, new works of YAO Jui-Chung and Raul Gasque will be first exposed to the public in this show. The six participating artists are all skilled at field research and tend to investigate current social-behaviors, politics and culture through space and objects. This exhibition yet aims to explore the role played by images in social reality through methods of psychoanalysis and heterotopias. Adam Wiseman is a freelance photographer and artist. He has lived in New York for 13 years whose works can be seen in mainstream medias in the US and Europe, such as the US media, Rolling Stone Magazine, TIME, the Wall Street Journal, ESPN, Metro New York, UK media, the Guardian, Wallpaper, and COLORS magazines in Italy. In terms of his artistic practices, he has exhibited his works in France, the United States, Switzerland, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Italy, Argentina, Venezuela, etc. The latest exhibition he participated was Paris Photo which ended not so long ago this year. Wiseman obtains a degree of anthropology and cinema studies in New York University, and he once got trained in documentary photography in International Center of Photography. His background education makes him skilled in thinking the fundamental issues of images. As a consequence, he often challenges traditional concepts of documentary photography, especially the idea of subjectivity in his works. The series work, Mexsitecture, is his latest development which was also selected to join Paris Photo this year. With the typological style, he explores a unique area landscape in the globalization age, and discussing the hidden Mexican culture, economic and political issues. Juan Carlos Coppel once learned photography from Pulitzer Prize winner Jay Dickman. As a man with multiple professional backgrounds from different disciplinary, before he started his career as a photographer, he has studied in industrial engineering in Tecnológico de Monterrey, the largest private institute among Latin America. Besides, he has even worked as a farmer before. These capabilities allow him to have an in-depth look at land and industry issues. Former vice director of Tamayo Museum, Andrea Torreblanca describes his images are with an epic sharpness. With this sensitivity, he does not just work for the sake of documenting, but further excavating the hidden structural problems behind the images. La Grieta, literally means the crack. Coppel documents the gigantic crack on the border between the United States and Mexico. These marvelous and memorials-like cracks look like a natural spectacle at the first glance; however, they are in fact the large-scale industrial production lines in that area. As famous photographers in Mexico, Coppel and Wiseman have become regular participants in main international bienniales and prizes with their accurate image language. Raul Gasque is a Mexican artist, writer and journalist. As a writer, he has a tremendous influence. He is a special contributor of the US media VICE (VICE has more than 7 million subscribers on its Youtube channel, and release magazines in 28 countries.). His articles can be seen on international on-line media such as ERRR, BACKROOM, Anormalmag, and 99 Artnet. Gasque started his career as a photographer since 2007, when he worker as PR consultant of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum. During that period, he was exposed to photography with the job as a media editor. Since then, he has devoted himself to image creation and theoretical studies. His work involves in interdisciplinary discourse, and integrates social politics with his personal life experiences to create a unique sensitive critical vocabulary. Sociolpolitical Subconscious Schemata, a new work of him, refers to a journey which enters deep metonymic landscapes. The images combine artist’s life in Taiwan and Mexico, creating an invisible transnational narration. YANG Shun-Fa is a photographic artist and also an expert of blast furnace on the production line in China Steel, with a 30-year experience in iron-making. He has been studying in photography since he started his work in China Steel in 1985, and has received recognition from museums and experts domestic and abroad. In 2016, he was invited to join an exhibition with artists such as YAO Jui-Chung in Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, France, and his works were further collected. Woks of YANG Shun-Fa fully feature his enthusiastic toward local countryside, and get involved in social criticism and humanistic concern. In The Temple of Kaohsiung Series, this panorama work which exhibited in the exhibition with a length of 472cm, realistically create another visualized temple with the large-scale image. SHEN Chao-Linag was once a journalist of Liberty Times, has great ability of documentary photography. Writer CHUNG Wen-Yin describes his works as featuring a long-term recording realistic style: Viewing SHEN’s work is like watching Italian Neorealism Films or A City of Sadness by HOU Hsiao-Hsien. Through long-term practices, the artist is able to achieve details with high quality. His series works STAGE, various local stages transformed from trucks photographed by large camera, took him 8 years for completion. As these works have been widely reported by media in Taiwan, the US, France, UK, the Netherlands, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Italy…, you may tell how fascinating his works are. YAO Jui-Chung can be currently regarded as one of the most appealing visual artists. He is experienced in field investigation, archive and cultural history researches, and tends to integrate the results with art, transforming the soft power into the strength to reorganize social order. For years, he has been developing numerous publication, performances, and art projects. All those practices have great influence on both visual art development and the society. His new work is the result of his long-term, intensive and thorough investigation and field research in every cities in Taiwan. It documents different types of giant religious statues in temples under a broad sense of folk-religion culture. This work periodically summarizes YAO’s years documenting idols and researching the hidden social phenomena. Doubtlessly, it is the most exciting project released toward the end of the year.

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