OVERVIEW

Charwei Tsai

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Year of Birth

Country of Birth

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2020

1980

France

mor charpentier

Charwei Tsai was born in 1980 in Taiwan and currently lives and works in Taipei,Taiwan.

Highly personal yet universal concerns spur Tsai’s multi-media practice. Geographical, social, and spiritual motifs inform a body of work, which encourages viewer participation outside the confines of complacent contemplation. Preoccupied with the human/nature relationship, Tsai meditates on the complexities among cultural beliefs, spirituality, and transience.

  • Installation View, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Singapore, 2012
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Charwei Tsai participated in international exhibitions and biennials including solo projects and exhibitions at Jogja Biennale (2019), Biennale of Sydney (2016), Sharjah Biennial (2013), Yokohama Triennial (2011), 6th Asia Pacific Triennial (2009) and the inaugural Singapore Biennale (2006). Her work has been presented in Power of Intention : Reinventing the (prayer) Wheel, Rubin Museum, New York (2019), Charwei Tsai : Bulaubulau, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), Manchester, UK (2018), Hear Her Singing, Commissioned by Hayward Gallery, ...

2020 Charwei TSAI Numbers Video 01
Charwei Tsai, Numbers, 2020 - Video Still

Realized during the pandemic, the video acts as a reflection on how human lives and values are sometimes diminished as numbers under authoritarian and capitalist regimes. Each number is enumerated by the voice of YANG Tsui, the granddaughter of YANK Kui, Taiwanese writer, imprisoned on Green Island from 1949 to 1961 as political prisoner. Numbers echoes with other series of the artist, insisting in particular on the ephemeral nature of spiritual and material. The use of frozen water perfectly symbolises the impermanence of life, especially when it is threatened.
The video was commissioned by Gre ...

2020 Whirling 02 XI II a copie
We Came Whirling Out of Nothingness XI -II, 2020

We Came Whirling Out Of Nothingness is a series of drawings where various forms of spiral are inscribed with Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra, that the artist has memorized since growing up in Taiwan, is a pillar of Buddhist wisdom, evoking the transience of things and beings. In this new series of drawings, Charwei Tsai experiments a new materiality to be more sustainable for the environment. She decided to switch from prefabricated watercolors to mixing her own pigments coming from either plant-based dyeing and mineral materials. The tension between texts and drawings highlights the will of the artist ...