2022 Jut Art Museum Off-Site Project—Manifestation - Tak-Leong Kou Solo Exhibition

2022-10-15 to 2023-10-15

The “Off-Site Project,” as a long-term artistic practice, is launched and run by the Jut Art Museum. It invites artists to create on atypical exhibition sites instead of in established venues of museums, whereby they can liberate themselves from spatial and institutional limitations, and meanwhile define the term “off” through their creative praxis. The project this year features Manifestation—Tak-Leong Kou solo Exhibition which brings the neighborhood of the Jut Art Museum into focus. In this project, artist Tak-Leong Kou attempts not only to find clues in the museum’s surrounding neighborhood, but also to reinterpret our quotidian spaces through physical senses and discover the visible and invisible demarcations and contours.

With an educational background in architecture, Tak-Leong Kou tends to capture the existing elements in the environment through spatial layouts and corporeal experiences, and then perceptively refine these elements into his creative media. His work Pin is installed in a corner of the Liugongzun Park. By dint of physical movement and observation, the artist serendipitously found a straight, narrow gap in the exuberant verdure that provides a stark contrast to the organic environment. Such a contrast also ingeniously suggests that the strip-shaped park in the concrete jungle resembles a serene crevice in the city. The work installed here is tantamount to a distinct marker that turns the crevice in the city into a hold on our imagination. In contrast to the openness of the site for the work Pin, Kou’s another work Roaming installed in the entrance hall of the Jut Headquarter reinterprets the boundary between the public and private spheres. This work defines the possible wandering paths of different identities and roles with the physical properties of materials and colors. In such a wandering process, a collaborative relationship seems to be formed among the viewer, the work and the space per se, in which the entire venue metamorphoses into an interpretable large-scale installation.

Since its inception in 2016, the “Off-Site Project” had collaborated with artist Ming-Wei Lee on The Living Room and artist Ruey-Shiann Shyu on Cityscape, both faithfully embodied their personal vision for the city as well as the ethos of the Jut Group. In 2019, the Agravic Starry Sky—Off-Site Project and the project Yes! Try Out run by the Songyan Creative Lab worked in tandem. They not only sparked the viewers’ imaginations about the vastness of outer space, but also demonstrated their common tenet, viz., “art knows no bounds, and one should innovatively experiment with great intrepidity.” In 2021, the Jut Art Museum collaborated with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma and staged the exhibition Kengo Kuma: Place/Inspiration, inviting the visitors to experience the enlightenment and creativity inspired by the “site.” The “Off-Site Project” this year, namely Manifestation—Kou Tak-Leong Kou Creative Exhibition, once again focuses on the definition of “Off-Site” by guiding the visitors to experience the visible and invisible boundaries in the city via physical actions.

 

Artist

Tak-Leong Kou

Born in Macau in 1991 and currently lives and works in Taipei, Tak-Leong Kou earned his master’s degree from the Department of New Media Art, Taipei National University of the Arts. He has devoted himself to light art as well as spatial and landscape installation characterized by his use of diverse media. With an educational background in architecture, he tends to blend interior layout and corporeal perception into his works. He observes and captures the existing elements in the spaces, and then transforms them into part of his creative praxis. He also explores the viewers’ imagination and extension of their own existence and corporeal perception by virtue of environmental monitoring and the poetic interplay among light, people and objects.

 

Works

 

《Pin》 

DYNEEMA, Stainless Steel / 55m x 30cm x 30cm / 2022

Featuring a fine linear structure in the park beneath the leafy canopy, the work flips this space with a minimalist material intervention. Just like a pin, this work creates a narrow, straight crevice in the park, seeking to harness such an intervention to transform the environment into a state we can explore in detail. The viewers can discover the park’s inimitable spatial texture when they wander around, and meanwhile re-explore the green crevice in the city through this work, which makes the park a place for sensory experience and imagination.

 

《Roaming》

Stainless Steel, Optical Plexiglass, LED, Optical Foil / 12m x 9cm x 9cm / 2022

This work comprises the optical properties of PET and the stream of visitor traffic. As the visitors enter the museum from outside, they will visually experience the variation in color as well as in light and shade with the change of their relative position to the work. Public and private spaces for different groups at the site where this work is installed are demarcated by their spatial nature, while the color spectrum of this work has some visible and invisible boundaries as well owing to different roles, identities and traffic paths in the venue. It is such a characteristic that allows the viewers to stand in a physical relationship to the spectrum when experiencing the work. The viewers measure this space with their senses when experiencing this work, and the entire site is tantamount to an interpretable large-scale installation.

 

  • Date｜2022.10.15(sat)-2023.10.15(sun)
  • Venue｜Jut Headquarter Lobby (No.178, Sec. 3, Civic Blvd., Da'an Dist., Taipei City 106, Taiwan) and the outdoor park area
  • Opening Hours｜Opening Hours｜Mon-Fri 10:00-17:00, closed on weekends and national holidays.* (Outdoor on view till  2023.02.12)
  • Admission｜Free

 

  • Exhibition Team
    • Exhibition Supervisors｜Aaron Y. L. Lee, Alex Y. H. Lee, Shan-Shan Huang
    • Exhibition Coordinators｜Yu-Kuei Peng,  Ying-Peng Chen
    • Assistant Coordinators｜Wei-Jie Ou, Yen-Hsiu Chen
    • Communications and Marketing Coordinator｜Szu-An Chen
    • Communications and Marketing｜Yen-Shan Li, Shu-Yuan Chang, Yu-Hsuan Lin, Chi-Yun Chang
    • Public Service Coordinator｜Shu-Yuan Chang
    • Public Service｜Chieh-Yun Hsieh, Yi-Chen Hung
    • Administration Coordinator｜Kuo-Ming Miao
    • Exhibition Assistants｜Tzi-Wei Su, Chen-Yu Chu, Hui-Chi Chih
    • Visual Designer｜Cheng-Jie Sung

 

Albums

2022 Jut Art Museum Off-Site Project《Manifestation - Tak-Leong Kou Solo Exhibition》
2022 Jut Art Museum Off-Site Project《Manifestation - Tak-Leong Kou Solo Exhibition》Workshop Salon

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