Discovering a good location for modern art

• Source: Global Times
• [10:16 July 21 2010]
• Comments

Heat Flow By Huang Chengyuan. Photo: Huang Xi

By Huang Xi

The weekend saw the opening of I am Muttering to Myself at 23 Degrees North Latitude, 121 Degrees East Longitude, a mouthful but an intense group exhibition featuring works from three Taiwanese artists: Pang Yao, Huang Chengyuan and Nian Bihua, at the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art in Hongkou district. The title refers to the navigational location of Taiwan.

More than 50 works are on display on the third-floor showroom of the museum, mostly recent works that are making their first appearance on the Chinese mainland, all featuring the distinctive feel of Taiwanese contemporary art: emotional expression rather than technical skill.

Pang Yao, also known as Yolanda Pang, a female artist born in the 1970s whose paintings are on the ground floor, has a style that is simple and abstract. Using wires, doorbells, nails and metallic colors, her paintings appear quite masculine.

Obsessed with metals, she insists on using iron as an element in her creation. "Every artist has a different taste in material, and I am fascinated with iron. So I started doing this iron-based series several years ago," said Pang.

The materials from the US collected during her studies there in 2001 and 2004 are a constant source of innovation to her works.

"I often ignore the quality of the iron items but treat them as lines or other elements in the composition," she said. "The wires are the boundaries of the imagery."

Pang is often compared to her father Pang Jun, a famous artist who studied with Xu Beihong, a master in the Chinese contemporary art scene.

"I found that I loved painting very much and restarted my creations in 1999," said Pang, referring to her sabbatical from painting during the 90s.

Pang is planning a new series Similar to Furniture, which will involve chairs or other pieces of furniture. "I want to introduce more traditional ornaments into my works, which can enhance the meaning of my paintings," Pang said.

Apart from her artistic endeavors, the artist has crossed into the television programs, hosting on the Discovery Travel and Living channel in Taiwan.