Artists

Photo Credit: NIU Chun-Chiang

WANG Chung-Kun

WANG Chung-Kun was born in Kaohsiung, TAIWAN in 1982 and now lives and works in Taipei.

His work across the area of sound, sculpture, video, kinetic art and sound installation. He has created various forms of machinery that have consistently maintained an intriguing purity and peculiar sense of beauty. As the viewers approach, these machines operate on their own untiringly. Sound-making, switching on and off, exhaling, spinning or twinkling, they can simply do more than a single action. Rather, they have their own rhythm variation, as if they have a life of their own.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Breezy Afternoon, Project Fulfill Art Space, Taiwan (2021); Listening Machine－ CHI Po-Hao ＆ WANG Chung-Kun Solo Exhibition”at Taipei Arts Vellage（2019）; “Taishin Tower 1F Exhibiion – WANG Chung-Kun: Sound of Wind”(2018); “Making Sound, Project Fulffill Art Space” (2016); “Series of another soundscape, Neu Gallery, Taipei” (2013);  “[ + - * / ] , DAC (digital art center) , Taipei” (2010). Recent group exhibitions: “inToAsia: Time-Based Art Festival 2013, Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, New York, USA” (2013); “TRANSJOURNEY – Future Media Festival, Kundo Meseum, Taipei” (2012); “Kaohsiung Award, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan”(2011). Award：Taipei Art Award, Honorable Mentions(2013);  Kaohsiung Art Award, Observer’s award(2011).

Artist
Statement.

Thoughts on the Residency Program:

ArtSpace, Australia, is located near a military harbor in the Woolloomooloo Area just east of downtown Sydney. What struck me as the most contrasting thing to Taipei upon my arrival at Sydney was its quiet pace of life. I woke up to the cries of the white parakeets outside of my windows every day. It was soothingly relaxing to depart from the fast-paced way of life in Taipei.

ArtSpace provided its resident artists with an extremely comfortable working environment, and was exceedingly welcoming to my arrival. Even though it was difficult for me to carry out more in-depth conversations with other artists due to language barriers, I was able to exchange ideas with them through daily activities. I met a few artists and local people here, but was not able to keep in touch with them after I returned to Taiwan. Perhaps it was because we were working in very different areas of art.

One of the questions that I had kept thinking about after my military service last year was on ‘art’ and its distance with the general public. Why is art always so difficult to understand? Why can’t art let go of its elitist purity, and arouse interests in the public to try to understand what it is all about? Fortunately, there was ‘sound’ as a medium. Different than music, sound is everywhere in our lives. Through a few reminders to the audience and creative ideas from the artist, different sounds could emerge and spark new interests. Sound can only truly exist at the moment of its being heard, even if the particular sound at the moment is merely noise to the ears.

About Artspace