TSONG PU: Off-Road Aura
2023. 10. 28 — 2024. 02. 18 
(Revised Period: Saturday, OCtober 28, 2023 - Sunday, March 3, 2024)
Gallery street, gallery 103-107, 203-205

Curator  |   SHIH Jui-Jen
Supervisor  |  Ministry of Culture
Organizer    |  National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

TSONG PU: Off-Road Aura, Painted Poem vs. Objects Talk

 “Off-Road Aura” explores how Tsong Pu, under the premise of constructing his personal artistic career through the minimalist aesthetics of modern art, has developed numerous “contemporary” creations that resonate or dialogue between his thoughts and contemporary society.

Tsong Pu’s artistic career, uninterrupted from the 1980s to 2023, is rooted in the concepts of minimalist aesthetics and artistic practice, he has forged a distinctly personal visual form and stylistic path. In various stages of age and life experience, Tsong’s creations have manifested two significant contexts: First, regarding the extension and development of the existing (abstract) path of painting, he has constantly added personal touches, allowing the “Tsong-style” of painting to unfold the intention of “minimalist art, infinitely interpreting reproduction.” Tsong’s early works “let the material speak for itself.” The reason why “blunt objects” can lead to “sudden enlightenment” is because the artist has infused a certain “aura” either intentionally or unintentionally. Second, breaking away from the mindset that “art is the center,” Tsong returns to daily life, alluding to the nuances of contemporary societal transformation, thereby turning ordinary objects into vehicles for messages or objects of interest. In the early 1990s, Tsong’s sudden increase in diffusive thinking and leapfrogging expressions indeed reflected such self-expectation—only those who dare to go “off-road” will encounter new auras.

Concepts such as globalization, diversification, informatization, immediacy, and replication have become daily realities in the 21^st century. Wise observers have pointed out that “aura” is no longer the focus for recognizing an artwork’s value and meaning. In response, Tsong Pu’s solo exhibition conveys that contemporary artists must face this challenge head-on. If a “paradigm shift” is an inevitable cultural development, one might as well employ a courageous “off-road” mentality and action to unlock new “auras” to cultivate new artistic perspectives and panoramas.

Introduction to the Artist

Tsong Pu (1947-) was born in Shanghai and settled in Taipei in 1949. He graduated from Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School in 1969 and went on to study at La Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de Madrio in Spain in 1972; he returned to Taiwan in 1981.

In 1983, Tsong held his first solo exhibition “A Meeting of Mind and Material,” aiming to create a new “reality” by “allowing these non-autonomous materials to speak for themselves.” In 1984, he won the “Taipei City Mayor Award for A New Vision of Contemporary Chinese Painting” from the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, marking Taiwan’s first official recognition of avant-garde art, conceptual art, and abstract painting. In 1990, he co-founded the independent art space “IT Park” with Liu Ching-Tang and Chen Hui-Chiao, nurturing many contemporary talents of the 1990s. In 2019, Tsong received the National Award for Arts, solidifying his status as one of the representative figures in the contemporary art scene of Taiwan.

Tsong Pu’s works have been exhibited and collected by major museums and galleries both domestically and internationally. His art utilizes the minimalist form to express criticism of social inequality while exuding the poetic quality of Eastern philosophy and local culture. In his paintings, he replaces the paintbrush with a one-square-centimeter stamp, initiating a divine dialogue between bodily sensation and materiality. Through the use of culturally ready-made objects and the intrinsic properties of materials in his installation art, Tsong’s artistic style combines rational construction with emotional expression, occasionally infusing a sense of humor. Tsong is an artist who uses rational rules to achieve intuitive poetry, as well as a creator with wide-ranging interests.

Nomadic, 1985.

(Left) Moonset, Sunrise, 1986. (Right)Sunrise, Sunset, 1986