A+ Contemporary and Asia Art Center are pleased to announce the opening of Kao Jun-Honn’s solo exhibition “Abandoned Path: A Creator’s Geopolitical Method”, on July 29th, 2017 at Asia Art Center Taipei l. This is a long-awaited gallery solo exhibition of Kao Jun-Honn, which will present new interpretations of several recent series of works including Dual 1984, Refraction of Li-Fong Coal Mine, The Ruin Image Crystal Project: 10 Scenes, and Boai; it will also mark the debut of a new series titled Ncaq: The Border of Temperate Zones. The exhibition is on view through Sep. 24th, 2017.
Rather than a solo exhibition, a small-scale retrospective exhibition of documents is perhaps a more appropriate term. The exhibition presents a number of Kao Jun-Honn’s works from recent years as the artist’s creative consciousness over this period is revisited in accordance primarily with the book “The Spinning Top”, published in 2015. Considerations of the subjectivity of art and means of creative expressions have shifted toward the creator’s field operations as he draws out a political map with physical actions, an embodiment of the connection originated from the body to the earth.
The process of Kao Jun-Honn’s artistic practice has been roughly a course of completing a self-drawn map, from the writing and publication of art and squat action in east Asia, projects of image and disused spaces, the shooting of Boai in northern Taiwan’s satellite towns, the publication of “Across the Mountains” about Taiwan’s forests, to the on-going new project Ncaq – all the efforts and studies are made to investigate the buried history of empire invasions in the forests as large as thousands of hectares on the outskirts of Taipei.
Kao Jun-Honn says:”I walk on ‘abandoned paths’ most of the time, whether they be tangible or abstract.”
A majority of the works are explored through the living spaces that have been forgotten and through the hollows within certain histories; creating art now appears more like repairing a torn netting. Indeed, the many-layered spatial studies and relating creations in recent years have drastically shifted Kao Jun-Honn’s creative concept and even the political perception of the subjectivity of Taiwan. At the same time, it seems that the productions within these spaces have gradually revealed a political map in flesh that is rich in the significance of “creating”. As we are trapped in the multi-layered issue of colonization, could we see the writing propelled by actions of art as a method to escape from the predicament of time? Thus, in addition to the presentation of works, this exhibition aims to conduct a series of explorations and reflections within the art productions of spatiality.
About Artist
Kao Jun Honn was born in 1973 in Taiwan. Graduated in 1998 from Taipei National University of the Arts with a BA in Fine Arts, and in 2017 from Tainan National University of the Arts with a PhD in Art Creation and Theory. Whose artistic practice mainly focuses on issues about the contemporary society, space, politics, and history thought the forms of video art, physical practice, and writing. Kao Jun Honn currently lives and works in Taipei.His solo exhibitions include: Taoist Trinity Fairyland (Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, 2018) (Upcoming), Abandoned Path: A Creator’s Geopolitical Method (A+ Contemporary project, Taipei, 2017), Overtime in Tokyo (Amateur’s Revolt, Tokyo, 2015), Daddy Taught Me How to Behave (Bamboo Curtain Studio, Taipei, 2010), Pass – Platform of Friends (Auditorium of Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture, Taipei, 2008), Waiting for Germany at Liumaoan (Taipei MOMA Gallery, Taipei, 2005), The Home Project, Fond Memories Too Far (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2006). His group exhibitions include: Frontier: Re-assessment of Post-Globalisational Politics( OCAT Institute, Beijing, 2018; OCAT, Shanghai, 2017), Taipei Biennial 2016: Gestures and archives of the present, genealogies of the future (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2016), Asia Triennial Manchester – Harmonious Society (Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester, 2015), Gestures：Body Arts Stories (Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, 2015), Ghosts return – Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition (Hong-gah Museum, Taipei, 2014), The 12th Taishin Arts Award Exhibition (Museum of National Taipei University of Education, Taipei, 2014), Trading Futures (Taipei Contemporary Art Center, Taipei, 2012), Forum Biennial of Taiwanese Contemporary Art 2010 (Taipei Contemporary Art Center, Taipei, 2010), Empty Fields – A Dialogue Between Contemporary Art and Contemporary Philosophy (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, 2006), New Taiwanese – The Testimony of Digital Image (Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, 2005), In a Relationship! Taiwan and China Contemporary Performance Art (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Kaohsiung, 2005).