｜Artist Tsong Pu (1947-) in front of his work.  ｜Tsong Pu, Small Promise, 2010, Acrylic on canvas, 112x145.5cm

Tsong Pu’s career as an artist has spanned nearly 40 years since he returned from Spain in 1981, bringing him an iconic status in the Taiwanese contemporary art scene. More specific, he is not only a minimalist artist in the spotlight, but also a bellwether for material and ideational innovation in the pluralistic genealogy of Taiwanese contemporary art. His achievements and reputation rest as much upon his long-term forward-looking horizons for creation, as upon his brilliant, sui generis philosophy of art evolved from his prolific career over the past four decades.

Born in Shanghai, China in 1947, Tsong Pu migrated to Taiwan with his parents in 1949. He left for Spain after graduating from the Fu-Hsin Arts and Crafts School in 1972, and earned his degree in fine arts from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1978. Thenceforth, he decided to reside in Spain and make a living by creating works of art. His passion for artistic creation and ideational exploration has never waned, even though he had no choice but to sacrifice his ideal for the sake of his livelihood right after returning to Taiwan in 1981. Subsequently, he staged “Enticing Encounter,” his first solo exhibition in Taiwan, at the Taipei-based Spring Fine Arts Gallery in 1983, and has continued to mount new solo exhibitions since then. In 1988, he founded the IT PARK in collaboration with Liu Qingtang and Chen Huichiao, providing artists with an exhibition-reflection complex that gives fresh momentum to the Taiwanese contemporary art movement. Gradually, an increasing number of budding artists who share a promising vision for contemporary art have made a beeline for this art space on account of its reputation, which renders it nothing short of a modern incarnation of the Liangshan Marsh in the realm of Taiwanese contemporary art.

The public attention, understanding, and recognition have ensued over the course of time. Since the mid-1990s when contemporary art thoughts began to rise in significance for the Taiwanese society, Tsong Pu has taught as an adjunct lecturer at several universities (e.g. National Taiwan University of Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts, Tainan National University of the Arts, and Shih Chien University), exerting imperceptible influences on the new-generation artists’ creative philosophies. He has presented nearly 30 solo exhibitions and partaken in countless joint exhibitions. Each of these exhibitions, along with his works therein, is nothing if not stunning and thought-provoking, as if every detail of his creative practice suggests a highly polysemous code of ideation.³

Chang Ching-Wen, ed., Tsong Pu: The World Comes from Existence (Taipei: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2010), p.85.

Chang Ching-Wen, ed., Tsong Pu: The World Comes from Existence (Taipei: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 2010), p.79.

Excerpts from Liao Jen-I, "From Material Resurrection to Conceptual Regeneration: The Trajectory of Tsong Pu’s Artistic Thought and Practice", Tsong Pu (Taipei: Main Trend Gallery, 2020), p15-16

Tsong Pu’s 2D works indicated the techniques he usually adopted, including cutting, tearing, folding, sticking, pasting, stitching, and embroidering; and his 3D and spatial works gave prominence to scattering, piling, hanging, bracing, welding, and so on. Among these techniques, the “imprints” of his wooden seals and the “cutting, tearing, and folding” of paper deserve our extra attention.

The Imprints of Wooden Seals

As mentioned above, Tsong Pu’s creative approach of drawing 1 cm² squares on the base material can be traced back to the period before he returned to Taiwan. Later, he evolved this approach into drawing checked patterns on the canvas, dipping his wooden seals in acrylic paint, and leaving imprints on the canvas check by check. This novel approach manifested itself in his solo exhibition “Enticing Encounter” hosted by the Spring Fine Arts Gallery in 1985. Leaving colorful imprints with wooden seals has thenceforth become the characteristic signature and aesthetic symbol of his art. This approach has been applied to his 2D and 3D works. From Enticing Encounter (1985) to Avyaya (1993), the color arrangement of the imprints and the whole composition seemed to impose their respective rational structures. The former underscored the vertical and horizontal symmetry of the color arrangement, while the latter highlighted geometric design. It was not until Shinning Meet (2008) and The Distributed Information (2008) that he incorporated diagonal color arrangement into the composition, in which his astute observation and profound reflection on the zeitgeist and symbolic meanings found expression.

The Cutting, Tearing, and Folding of Paper

In 1993, Tsong Pu staged his solo exhibition “Love Never Dies” at the IT PARK. The exhibits comprised the processed photographs of the industrial sites and facilities he took when shuttling between Taipei City and Xindian. First of all, he cut these photographs in a structured and organized way. Then he tore and folded them, which eliminated part of the realities captured by photography. Trying to obscure the realities through these photographs riddled with cuts, this approach instead rendered them more conspicuous. To put it another way, the vision was blocked and the objects were removed, which made the spectators intensely curious to know more about these realities. Take Rap Factory (1993) as an example. The multiple material changes within the scope of vision further evoked mixed synaesthetic emotions. He also applied a similar paper-cutting approach to his 1 cm² checked patterns. As early as in The Untitled (1980), Tsong Pu left a 16x16cm area covered with 1 cm² squares in the lower left corner of the paper. He cut two adjacent sides of each check, and then folded these squares diagonally, thereby turning this area into a jagged yet orderly structure. This layer of thickness not only redefined the meaning of plane, but also added an extra dimension to the work, namely the mesmerizing interplay among light, shadow, and color.

｜Decoration - Wood / Paper (partial)   ｜Tsong Pu, Decoration - Wood / Paper, 1993, Works on paper, 79x110cm

｜Frost (partial)  ｜Tsong Pu, Frost, 2014, Mixed media on canvas, 72.5x91cm

Excerpts from Liao Jen-I, "From Material Resurrection to Conceptual Regeneration: The Trajectory of Tsong Pu’s Artistic Thought and Practice", Tsong Pu (Taipei: Main Trend Gallery, 2020), p17-18

You Are the Beautiful Flower

你就是那美麗的花朵

1990──2008

Tsong Pu embarked on the art series You Are the Beautiful Flower in 1990, and resumed his work on it in 2007. Comprised of small-scale works and exhibited in sets, every piece of this series not only bears the artist’s signature technique of seal-imprint, but also features the use of photography and mixed-media. Looking from a distance, you’ll say they are little short of paintings; but you’ll find 3D sculptures and photographs on them when you take a close look. The artist’s creative philosophy and artistic style thus manifest themselves in such an ingenious installation of ready-mades.

｜You Are the Beautiful Flower -- SI BA LA (partial)  ｜Tsong Pu, You Are the Beautiful Flower -- SI BA LA, 2007, Acrylic on Paper, 39x29.5cmx4pcs

The Nature of Nature

自然中的自然

2007──2012

The Nature of Nature is an art series maintaining a unique atmosphere. It appears in tranquility if you look from a distance, yet you’ll find each check vibrating with dramatic tension when you take a close look. Drawing an allegorical reading from this series, a mountain seen is a mountain being for urban travelers, and only nature observers see the dynamic ecology unfolding before their eyes. The title of this series contains two “natures.” The former refers to the way of our universe, while the latter the cosmos. This series galvanizes us into introspection, prompting us to give due attention to the extraordinary in our quotidian existence, and to the ceaseless flow in deep silence.

｜Variety (partial)  ｜Tsong Pu, Variety, 2010, 97x130cm, Acrylic on canvas

Greeting

問候

2007──2012

Greeting is an art series that reflects how Tsong Pu conducts himself in his daily life. For him, arts have always come from living; to wit, the way in which one lives his/her life.

Both the artist’s feedback to external stimulation and the moments of epiphanies he experienced find expression in this series, examples including the challenges arising in the Information Age, the elapsing of time, Zenist meditation, and even animations, comics, as well as the motion of the little green man, an animated traffic signal in Taiwan. Echoing his concern about his past and future, the artist greets the external world with his mesmerizing paintings. They are his experiences and memories incarnate, bearing witness to his true self.

A Connected World

聯著世界

Tsong Pu’s cordial inquiry into and genuine concern for the world find expression in his art series A Connected World, which is relatively secular in terms of its content since it contains the artist’s clear allusion to the mundane world.

Shinning Meet

閃耀的交會

2008──2012

Shinning Meet is an art series of special significance as a watershed and a milestone to Tsong Pu’s career as an artist.

Graphic works are the staple of his oeuvre prior to Shinning Meet, while the latter guides the viewer’s sight from 2D planes into a 3D space. Not only that the composition intersected by slanting lines demonstrates spiritual dynamism, but also that the shapes it contains create a perspective drawing-like extension — virtual spaces derived from the lines comprised of real checks. Such transfiguration can be counted as the artist’s philosophical reflection mediated through painting.

Tracks of Events

事件的足跡

Tracks of Event is the subseries of Shinning Meet. Each line segment can be deemed as a track or an event, and their aggregate output bears more than a passing resemblance to a map or even a piece of history. In the art series Tracks of Events, the straight lines and geometric patterns that Tsong Pu used to juggle with are replaced by parabolas and streamlines. The illustrations not only radiate an aura of écriture automatique, but also burst with lightning speed and dramatic tension. The composition seemingly created in a haphazard manner in fact underwent a long gestation and production period — the creation of this series per se is an event, which in turn metamorphosed into its content.

Frequency of Thought

思想的頻率

Frequency of Thought is the subseries of Shinning Meet. Tsong Pu applied different structures and colors to the pieces in his art series Frequency of Thought. Having regular, orderly compositions featured by soft shades as well as coarse and fine lines, these pieces are strongly reminiscent of frequency displays. To be specific, this series gave rise to the viewer’s synaesthesia in which stimulation of visual sense automatically leads to auditory one, representing the artist’s spiritual pursuits of an ideal, harmonious frequency for his life.

Ma Yuan at a Corner

斜角遇馬遠

2010──2012

This art series is titled after its eponymous piece [Ma Yuan at a Corner], an artistic incarnation of Tsong Pu’s observation and insight about Southern Song landscape paintings.

Given the ethos of that time, the viewer may presume this work has a style as reductionist as understated; only to find that the artist manifested his seal-imprint technique in the intricate mosaics that fill the composition to the brim. Looking from a distance, you’ll see a texture with unique vein lines and joints, but you’ll find a fascinating kaleidoscope of checks when you take a close look. This work shows great creativity, even though it was created simply with shades of black, gray and white.

Contemporary imprints and the corner encountered through a millennium in the artist’s experiment, wherefrom they resonate with endless possibilities for interpretation.

Black Coordinates

黑的座標

Tsong Pu continued with his contemplation of oriental classic painting in Black Coordinates, a work featured by black and white as its dominant tone. The aesthetic system of Chinese literati painting describes the subtle variation of the ink (i.e. black) by holding that the ink has five colors rather than monochrome. The artist created this work with the media and form familiar to him, trying to evolve a contemporary posture of expression from the art history.

Minuet

小步舞曲

The kaleidoscopic composition of Minuet stands as testimony to Tsong Pu’s proficiency in presenting musicality and rhythmic vitality in his oeuvre. Brightly colored blocks vibrate on the canvas, creating a depth perception from the subjective angle. This work conveys an impression of symphonic music at an upbeat tempo that resonates amidst the viewers’ wandering line of sight.

Repeated Suspicion

反覆的懷疑

2013──2014

The art series Repeated Suspicion follows a consistent technique that Tsong Pu employed in the 1990s, continuously exploring the possibilities for space in graphic works.

The artist cut the paper from multiple angles (e.g. 45, 90, and 0 degree). The folded corners are little less than reliefs that transmute the composition into three-dimensional, setting it in a dynamic state of ambiguity in terms of dimension, and enabling it to fill the interstices between sense and sensitivity with wandering poetic quality. This work presents a juxtaposition of materiality and abstract thinking in the world of painting.

Settlement of Time

光陰的聚落

2014年

Joseph Mallord William Turner, an English landscape painter, was known for his consummate skill in capturing the interplay between light and shadow. He tended to depict his immediate visual impression with expressive colorization. Inspired by Turner’s engrossing oeuvre, Tsong Pu, who usually excluded identifiable symbols from his compositions, deliberately chose to create physical but faintly discernable imagery in his art series Settlement of Time. The diffusing, enigmatic scenes resemble the clues that evoke our memories of stories, close acquaintances, life-experiences, or the elapsing time of no return — “Each piece of this series shows the trace of a condensed moment, and their aggregation is turned into a settlement of time,” Tsong Pu stated.

Early Works and Miscellanea

早期作品與其他

If creation is a journey to be savored each step of the way, the route would be not so much perfectly straight as tortuous. It is such a path full of twists and turns that Tsong Pu takes, and he has created some refreshing works apart from his imprint-based masterpieces en route. Nonetheless, the former still include certain personal touches of the artist. For example, some of his installations have apparent simplicity, while their constitutive elements exude emotional warmth. The eclectic mix of simple shape and human warmth puts questions to human nature on behalf of the artist. Against this background, the series Early Works and Miscellanea includes Tsong Pu’s early graphic works, mixed-media works, and installations, expecting to bring an extra dimension to the artist’s life and career.