2016 One Thousand And One Nights / Nine Sea / An Evening

As a collection of works selected from the past two years (2017-2018), Songs and Bonfires features four subtopics:

Bonfires
Many years ago, I was deeply attracted by Austronesian cultures, which I later employed as a reference to a Taiwanese identity in a consequential exhibition of the same theme in China. Although the subject stopped to be the focus of my artistic exploration in the following year, an art museums’ collection project last year reminded me to look back. I began to search the old bookstores, before one followed another to disappear, for any related documents, and I was thus lost in the labyrinth of oral tales, myths, and stories. The prototypical metaphors are the revelation traveling in time and space, ancient and yet futuristic, humane and yet political. The faith of life is such a fascination to me that the body between its wild nature and civilization pushes me to skepticism: what’s the real pursuit of civilization?

Dictionary
The Dictionary series began in 2013. The set of works Dictionary IV selected for the exhibition uses the pages from an aged Chinese-English dictionary as its materials, with gold foil cutouts on it to make a huge image of “archipelagos and mountain islands.” Meanwhile, It was also in the series that I began to work on single middle-sized works, mostly featuring the general, large-scale outlines of the faces in profile, arches, houses, bowls, the Moon, etc.

We Settled Here
We Settled Here, a series of 12 small pieces, is an artistic sparkle from the collaboration with the Hakka songwriter Lo Sirong based on her album of the same title. Like poetry in singing, Lo’s voice always evokes a strange sense of the maternity at ease in me. Her rich and diverse music is deeply rooted in the earth as it also embraces multi-ethnic sounds, through which we seem to float in the waters, in the mountains, or around the city of montage dissected by glass curtain walls.

Walk along the River Ganges - From Ocean to the Head
It is a single-piece horizontal scroll inspired by Hsieh Wang-Ling’s novel Zou He (translated as Walk along the River). The writer traveled like a gypsy along the River Ganges, from its estuary to the origin, while what he had been through during the journey were all the splendors and sparkles in the mortal world as well as the magic and tricks of the deities. I have never been to India, so I can only depend on my imagination to interpret his words and to visualize the flesh and the river.

Executive Director / YU Yen-Liang
General Manager / Claudia Chen
Publisher / Liang Gallery Co., Ltd.
Editor / Jame WU, Kofu LIN, Daisy SHIOU, Zoe WANG
Editor Assistants / HSU Yuting, Roni LIN, Autumn HUANG, Alison LEE
Translation / Siraya PAI, Laura LYGAITYTE
Display Executive / HONG Ding-Jiun, LU Le-Dao
Lighting / HO Chung-Chang
Photographer / KC, JD, Lin Ko-Fu, LEE Chia-yeh
Designer / LIU Ming-Wei
Printing / Jih-Tung Art Printing Co., Ltd.
Publishing Date / First Edition, July, 2019
ISBN 9789869720014
NT. 1500


《篝火合歌》

「篝火合歌」集結近兩年（2017-2018）的部份創作，將其整理成四個子題：

《篝火》
多年前我曾經深受南島文化的吸引，特別發表了這個題材的創作於中國的展覽，作為台灣主體參照的意向，幾經多年我未再生產其相關作品。在去年，因為一個美術館的典藏案，提醒了我再度回看，我探尋如今逐漸一一消失的舊書店，收集相關的紙本，就在閱讀口述傳說、神話、故事裡迷路了，許多典型的寓意，如同恆走時空的啓示錄，既遠古也未來，既人本也政治。我著迷於那樣的生活信仰，身體處於野性與文明之間，每每把我推向一個懷疑論者：文明的追求究竟為何？

《字典》
字典系列始於2013年，此次展覽「字典Ⅳ」組件作品，以年代久遠的漢英字典為紙材，一慣地使用金箔裁剪，構成「群島嶼山」的大樣。另外，我開始嘗試中型尺幅的單幅作品，側臉、拱門、家屋、碗、月等等為大輪廓。

《落腳》
12幅小作，與台灣客語歌手羅思容「落腳」音樂專輯之合作火花，羅思容的詩歌音嗓，總給我一種母性卻逍遙的奇特感，創作內容涵蓋豐富，深入土地，融合多元族群樂音，彷彿可以置身水上山裡，也可以悠游在蒙太奇的城市玻璃帷幕切割裡。

《走河》
單件橫幅作品，來自文學創作者謝旺霖《走河》文本，作者流浪於印度恆河，從恆河出海口，追溯至河水發源地，途中經歷種種人間煙火與光怪神力。我未曾去過印度，只能倚靠想像力，解讀其文字，視覺化那肉身與河。

發行人 | 余彥良
總經理 | 陳菁螢
出版者 | 尊彩國際藝術有限公司
策劃編輯 | 吳耿禎、林可夫、修天容、王淳容
編務協力 | 徐育婷、林柔安、黃秋均、李玉珊
翻譯 | 白斐嵐、李樂蓉
展場執行 | 洪鼎鈞、盧樂道
燈光設計 | 何仲昌
攝影 | 劉光智、黃嘉達、林可夫、李佳曄
設計 | 劉銘維
印刷 | 日動藝術印刷有限公司
出版 | 二零一九年七月初版
ISBN 9789869720014
NT. 1500 元