After a smaller edition last year due to Covid restrictions, Taipei Dangdai welcomed back international exhibitors and many new ones this week to Taiwan’s capital city. The locally focused art fair, held at the Nangang Exhibition Center and part of the Arts Assembly portfolio, opened to VIPs on Thursday afternoon.
At the fair’s opening, there was quiet, relaxed excitement as local collectors took time to view the fair’s 90 booths, including ones from blue-chip enterprises like David Zwirner, Gagosian, and Whitestone Gallery.
A few dealers reported first-day sales, with WOAW Gallery selling works by Kila Cheung and Charlie Roberts, and Soka Art quickly selling several of its pieces by Japanese artist Yuya Hashizume by early afternoon.
Below, a look at the best on offer at the 2023 edition of Taipei Dangdai, which runs until May 14.
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Paul Rouphail at Stems Gallery
Image Credit: Karen K. Ho/ARTnews In his oil canvases, Paul Rouphail nods to artists like Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth, putting a crisper spin on their well-known tableaux and bringing them into the 21st century. His use of light make these luminous images worth taking a second look.
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Bingyi at INK studio
Image Credit: Karen K. Ho/ARTnews Bingyi’s art concerns itself with how large-scale applications of ink on paper capture the shifts and movements of water. Her works are as much in conversation with historical Chinese ink as they are with contemporary issues like climate change and the environment. Her work is on view alongside artists like Jeong Gwang-hee, Lao Tongli, and Kang Chunhui, making for an extremely well-curated booth that highlights the different technical skills and concepts required to make ink paintings.
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Parham Peyvandi at SARAI Gallery
Image Credit: Karen K. Ho/ARTnews Drawing on his bachelor’s degree in urban planning, Parham Peyvandi creates paintings of Brutalist architecture and other industrial structures that harshly impose their presence on their surroundings. There’s a certain tension in these works between their dream-like landscapes, with their portrayal of trees, mountains, and perfect blue skies, and an overall ominous mood, emphasized by the harsh edges of the structures.
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Lee Bae at Johyun Gallery
Image Credit: Karen K. Ho/ARTnews It’s hard to miss the large charcoal works by Lee Bae at Johyun Gallery. The works on view here chart the artist’s shift away from hyperreal depiction of charcoal in the early 2000s to studies of movement and markmaking.
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Cristina Lama at VETA by Fer Francés
Image Credit: Karen K. Ho/ARTnews There’s a surreal, dynamic quality to Cristina Lama’s paintings. Scenes of a beach and a portrait of a woman in front of a variety of cacti are comically obscured by thick, almost floral-like smears of vibrantly hued paint. As you stare at the mesmerizing results they begin to appear like a the veins of a heart or a leaf, or even the dozens of tributaries that create a complex river system.
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Jonni Cheatwood at Makasiini Contemporary
Image Credit: Karen K. Ho/ARTnews Jonni Cheatwood’s paintings combine textiles, colorful abstraction, and everyday scenes of people. Cheatwood first started using textiles in his work, which now frame the sides of the paintings or are incorporated into the scenes via patchwork, when he couldn’t afford canvas and had to use materials sourced from secondhand stores. These colorful, anonymous images seem both familiar and strange at the same time.