Mind Set Art Center is pleased to present “Lo Yi-Chun: Black．Gold．White”, the first major exhibition of the artist after she was shortlisted for the Taipei Art Awards 2021. The exhibition runs from 27 July through 7 September, with an opening reception scheduled on 30 July, 4:30 pm. You are cordially invited to the event.
Black．Gold．White respectively stand for air-dried banana peels (black), tobacco leaves (gold), and bagasse (white). Using local and natural goods as mediums, the artist endeavors to facilitate her research on Taiwanese economic crops and dive into the historical contexts behind them. This exhibition, to a greater extent, organizes the interwoven relationships among the mediums and different series of the artist's works. Lo continues the study from her residency in Japan during 2013 to structure the exhibition with the installations made of banana peels and create a 3-dimensional space for visitors to navigate. In “Boycott of Market Basket” and “Umbrella Revolution in HK”, dried banana peels transform into black lines of ink present a variety of stories spanning through time and space. The stages of narratives switch places, such as Boston, Munich, Yokohama, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong and other cities. Hong Kong set as an emblem reveals the historical context behind overseas trades and the complex relationship of politics, economy, and power.
The “Gold” and “White” sections consist of installations created using tobacco leaves and sugarcanes, which also express their inner conversations. They lay out different timelines of individual stories and the tensions within, including the tobacco discovered by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century through the voyages, the sugarcane that many countries raced to chase during the 17th century, the merging trades of banana since the end of 19th century, and further events involving with economic crops under the age of globalization. The artist’s work embodies the rich contexts of assorted mediums: ranging from installations, wall-mounting pieces, sculptural objects, images to animations. “Tropical Collections” is a series of monograph prints on silk fabrics from the archival images of Taiwan, visualizing an imagery akin to water-ink paintings that set off on a journey of combined virtual settings and historical facts. Continuing to explore the series “Molasses, Ethanol, Fitness Workshops, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Life So Different, So Appealing?”, Lo makes a new set of home fitness equipment built from mirrors, images and beeswax to look into sweetness and addiction, the conversion in materials between labor and sport, and the contemporary fitness culture in consumer-based society.
Lo Yi-Chun’s practice is, however, more than investigating the relationship between production and consumption. She also observes is the constant exploitation of farmers and laborers which makes them victims of the free market. In her art, Lo guides her audiences to review daily routines, to care about our society, and to reinterpret the bonds between us and the world.
