Taipei Cultural Center in New York

Measure Your Existence is organized by guest curator Christine Starkman and produced by the Rubin Museum of Art, featuring artworks by Tehching Hsieh, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Lee Mingwei, Shilpa Gupta, Meiro Koizumi, and Taryn Simon.

The Taipei Cultural Center in New York is proud to announce that two Taiwanese artists—Lee Mingwei [李明維] and Tehching Hsiehg [謝德慶]—are participating the Rubin Museum of Art’s spring exhibition Measure Your Existence on view February 7 to August 10, 2020!

Tehching Hsieh (b. 1950, Nan-Chou, Taiwan; lives in New York), best-known for his series of one-year performances in the 1970s and 1980s, in which he wrote strict rules for conducting his life, tracks the passage of time obsessively. “One Year Performance,” (1980-81) calls attention to impermanence by means of a repetitive, everyday task – punching a time clock – every day, every hour, for a year.

Lee Mingwei (b. 1964, Nantou County, Taiwan; lives and works in Paris and New York) frames the transitory nature of existence through the experience of loss. The Letter Writing Project invites visitors to enter a booth of wood and glass and write letters to a loved one who may be alive, deceased, absent, or missing. Afterwards, visitors make a choice: seal the letter for post, or leave it open for subsequent visitors to read. Based on the artist’s personal experience, the work enables us to reflect on the fragility of life, and possibly make amends.

This group of renowned contemporary artists will address the idea of impermanence. Though tremendously diverse in their working methods, materials, and cultural backgrounds, each artist shines a bright light on the fleeting nature of existence. An array of films, tours, performances, talks, curator walkthroughs, guest speakers, and public programs centered on this theme will be held in conjunction with the exhibition.

Christine Starkman has organized over a dozen high-profile exhibitions of Asian and
Contemporary art. From 2000–2016, she was Curator of Asian Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she established dedicated galleries for the arts of the Islamic World (2007), Korea (2007), India (2009), China (2010), and Japan (2012). She has completed site-specific commissions with contemporary artists Cai Guo Qiang (2010) and Do Ho Suh (2016).

The Rubin Museum of Art is an arts and cultural hub in New York City’s vibrant Chelsea neighborhood that inspires visitors to make connections between contemporary life and the art and ideas of the Himalayas and neighboring regions.

Measure Your Existence is supported by the Ministry of Culture (Taiwan) and Taipei Cultural Center in New York.

Exhibition
Measure Your Existence
February 7- August 10, 2020
The Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th St., New York, NY 10011
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Opening Night
Celebration with Tasha Blank
Friday, February 7, 2020
6:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Admission Free
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Event
Brainwave Talk: Can Time Heal Anything? Lee Mingwei + Dr. Lila Davachi
What lingers in your heart after a loved one is lost? And what can this teach us about the ephemerality of life?
In his work The Letter Writing Project, part of the Rubin’s exhibition Measure Your Existence, artist Lee Mingwei invites visitors to pen a letter to a lost or absent loved one. The cathartic act of writing the unsaid is twofold, as other museum visitors can choose to read the unsealed letters left at the installation. To further explore the mechanics of grief, Lee takes the Brainwave stage with Dr. Lila Davachi to discuss the physical and mental experience of our own impermanence.
February 29, 2020
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
The Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th St., New York, NY 10011
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Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University’s upcoming exhibition “Tong Yang-Tze: Immortal at the River” that opens on February 1, 2020 will feature Taiwanese contemporary calligrapher Tong Yang-Tze.

Immortal at the River references the title of the poem by Yang Shen (1488–1559) that forms the preface to the standard edition of the Chinese historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San guo yan yi). The poem is the subject of a 54-meter-long cursive-script calligraphy of the same name (2003, ink on paper) by Tong Yang-Tze (Grace Tong, born 1942), one of Taiwan’s foremost calligraphers working today. At the Johnson, the monumental scroll circles the perimeter of the Bartels Gallery to provide viewers with an immersive experience of bold and vigorous ink brushwork.

Over a long career spanning four decades, Tong Yang-Tze has received critical acclaim for her large-scale, unrestrained cursive script, and her works have been exhibited in more than sixty exhibitions across the globe. She began her study of calligraphy at the age of eight with the practice of copying ink rubbings from ancient stone inscriptions. Recognized early on for her exceptional talent, she earned a degree in fine arts from National Taiwan Normal University, and then pursued further visual art study in the United States. After returning to Taiwan, her experimental approach fused Western theories of painting with the traditional lines and brushstrokes that form the foundation of Chinese calligraphy. In recent years, the artist has promoted the ancient art of Chinese script in experimental ways that cross disciplines of design, visual art, digital media, and performance to resonate in the modern world.

Tong Yang-Tze is the 2020 Wong Chai Lok Calligraphy Fellow at Cornell. A performance of one of her crossover works will be presented as part of Locally Grown Dance 2020 (March 5–7 in the Kiplinger Theatre at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts), and related student dance performances will be held at the Johnson (to be announced).

This exhibition was curated by An-yi Pan, associate professor in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies, and Ellen Avril, chief curator and curator of Asian art at the Johnson. The exhibition, forthcoming publication, and programs are made possible by major funding from the Ministry of Culture, Republic of China (Taiwan) and a gift endowed in memory of Elizabeth Miller Francis ’47. Additional support is provided by the Wong Chai Lok Calligraphy Fund, Cornell Council for the Arts, East Asia Program, Department of Media and Performing Arts, and the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

Exhibition
Tong Yang-Tze: Immortal at the River (董陽孜《臨江仙》書法展)
February 1, 2020 - June 7, 2020
Bartels Gallery, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, GM 06 Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
Admission: Free