What happens when Ai Weiwei puts thousands of bicycles together?
Ai Weiwei – Forever Bicycles, 2014. 1,254 bicycles. Dimensions variable. Installation view, Waller Creek Delta, The Contemporary Austin – Museum Without Walls Program, Austin, Texas, 2017
Photo: Brian Fitzsimmons
Bicycles have always featured in Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s installations. The very first time that Ai used bicycles was in his installation known as Very Yao in 2008. As the years have passed, his use of bicycles has only gotten grander as is evident in his piece titled the Forever Bicycles. In Forever Bicycles, Ai used Shanghai-based Forever Company bicycles to make his massive installation. The repetitiveness and the size of the installation were intended to allude to China’s mass production, which is well known to fuel the Chinese manufacturing industry.
Homelessness and the sense of having a home
I-Hsuen Chen – Still Life Analysis II – The Island, Taipei, Taiwan
I-Hsuen Chen is a photographer, artist, and filmmaker that was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan but is now based in Brooklyn, New York. As a photographer, Chen is well known for surveying and photographing foreign objects such as garbage as the main subjects of his photographs. In Still Life Analysis II: The Island, I-Hsuen Chen continues his survey of garbage and unfamiliar objects, which started in his first exhibition titled The Still Life Analysis. In both series, Chen concentrates on collections of typical household objects that a homeless person would have beneath the Civic Boulevard.
Why are these golden balloons all over Taipei?
Silence Was Golden – Snobs, Eslite Spectrum Songyan
In 2015, Public Delivery collaborated with the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art, Taiwan’s first museum to be dedicated exclusively to contemporary art and one of the most prominent art institutions of Asia. Silence Was Golden is our on-going global public art project which is centered around words or short phrases made out of golden letter shaped balloons, chosen by performers to express their feelings towards their environment and the histories surrounding it. Words were collected through an open call, and then performed together with a variety of people, including students from Tainan National University of the Arts, National Taiwan Normal University, Tamkang University and Taipei Jingmei Girls High School in different locations all over Taipei.
Up until now, the project was performed 253 times in 1/4 of the world’s countries (179 cities, 48 countries, six continents).
Silence Was Golden – Anxious, Huashan Creative Park
Silence Was Golden – Boss, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall
Silence Was Golden – Date, Bitan Suspension Bridge
Silence Was Golden – Fear, Xindian ghost house
Silence Was Golden – Hustle, 228 Peace Memorial Park
Silence Was Golden – Noisy, Museum of Contemporary Art
Silence Was Golden – Nose, Elephant Mountain
Silence Was Golden – Savour, Guang Hua Night Market
Silence Was Golden – Tea, Bitan tea house
Silence Was Golden – Temple, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
Map of balloon performances in Taipei, Taiwan
New project: Public art project with the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art
