Mementos: 2022 Yang Mao-Lin Solo Exhibition

Mementos: 2022 Yang Mao-Lin Solo Exhibition

Exhibition Dates │ 05.28.2022–07.16.2022

Reception │ 05.28.2022 (Sat.) 4:30 p.m.

Venue│ Tina Keng Gallery (1F, No. 15, Ln. 548, Ruiguang Rd., Neihu Dist., Taipei, Taiwan 11492)

The life of the fool is marked by ingratitudeand apprehension; the drift of his thoughtis exclusively toward the future. Forgetting the goodthat has been, he becomes an old man this very day.— Epicurus Ten years into his quest for the essence of truth, Yang Mao-Lin continues to dissect and reconstruct the symbols of his personal desires, as well as elements of his cultural environment. He analyzes his inner being through a series of mixed-media experiments, “Wanderers of the Abyssal Darkness,” “The Lasting Spring,” and “Glittering Soul.” Mementos:2022 Yang Mao-Lin Solo Exhibition inherits the creative impetus of his original “Quest for Mandala” series — an inquiry into the true meaning of life. By painting and carving the likenesses of native flora and fauna, as well as popular fictional characters into wooden sculptures, the artist pays a nostalgic tribute to memorabilia that have played an important role throughout his life.

The greatest blessing the individual may receive is the empowerment to arbitrate an era’s historical narrative such that neither the individual nor the era itself becomes lost in the mists of time. Through creative renewal, the individual may preserve the cultures of bygone eras and protect the present era from obsolescence amid rapid cultural evolution. Yang’s creative practice has inquired deeply into the Taiwanese consciousness, and with his finger on the pulse of local culture, he has created a diverse body of work in pursuit of activism, retrospection, and introspection over the last several decades. From his early “Graphic Hero” series, which pays tribute to fallen rebels; to his “MADE IN TAIWAN” series, in which art, politics, history, and culture intersect to establish a pluralistic Taiwanese identity; to his ongoing “Quest for Mandala” series, in which he seeks to construct a narrative of selfhood through the exploration of various native Taiwanese plant and animal species, Yang’s works serve as relics of the various chapters that he has experienced throughout his life. The artist configures ideas and images from his life into his work, expounding the continuous reproduction and transmission of culture, while tracing local cultural lineage, and in so doing, discovering his personal identity.

In his playful and mischievous manner, Yang has been exploring the colonial hybridization of Taiwanese culture by creating wood and bronze sculptures that express reverence for fictional characters in contemporary culture since 2002. The artist connects the imagery of popular fictional characters that live in the collective childhood memory of the public with the traditions and hierarchy of Taiwanese Buddhism, thereby synthesizing common cultural emblems and the most consecrated spiritual figures in human civilization. Yang deifies canonical figures from cartoons and comics from his childhood — such as Peter Pan, Astro Boy, Tetsujin 28-go, Boss Robot, and characters from Star Wars — by inserting them into a Buddhist ranking system. In this way, the artist has developed a new interpretation of personal faith that combines cultures of belief in different eras, and his juxtaposition of solemnity and wit integrates the seemingly divergent customs.

Featuring over 40 new pieces spanning three series of works — “The Lasting Spring,” “Wanderers of the Abyssal Darkness,” and a collection of mixed-media sculptures of pop culture figures as anime gods — Mementos examines Yang’s creative intuition. The artist’s repeated depiction of the raven is not an attempt to create a political metaphor or an act of authoritarian resistance, but a celebration of its luxuriant darkness and resplendent composure. The motif of the clouded leopard and lily not only invokes the history of native ideologies, but further serves as a commemoration of an extinct species and an expression of longing for nature and truth. While retaining the irregular textures and natural characteristics of the wood — ranging from pine, camphor, fir, juniper, walnut, to Taiwan incense cedar — he creates wooden sculptures of figures from popular culture in the manner of Jataka Tales, which depict previous incarnations of the Buddha as various Bodhisattvas.

Yang Mao-Lin, a wanderer of the abyssal darkness, surfaces from the mysterious depths of the sea for a momentary escape into the mystical forested mountains, seeking perfection within organic imperfection. For Yang, whose works from the 1980s reflect upon cultural symbols and amplify the localization and democratization movements, his creative impulse continues to spark. The artist challenges himself through the conflation of inheritance and innovation, seeking continuity across generations with a flair for the absurd and the romantic.

About the Artist 

Yang Mao-Lin

Born in 1953, Yang Mao-Lin now lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan. He is one of the established artists on the Taiwanese art scene and straddles mediums from painting, installation, to sculpture. A sense of humor masquerades his critical social observation, where a crossover of cultures shaped by colonization morphs into a singular cultural phenomenon. Since his first-ever solo exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 1987, the artist has exhibited extensively, including Wanderers of the Abyssal Darkness II — Somber Seas (Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 2019); Hybrid and Metamorphosis: Yang Mao-Lin’s Mythology (Changhua County Art Museum, Changhua, Taiwan, 2018); Made in Taiwan: A Retrospective of Yang Mao-Lin (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, 2016); Temple of Sublime Beauty — Made in Taiwan (Venice Biennale, Collateral Event, Italy, 2009), as well as numerous group exhibitions in Japan, Korea, Hungary, France, and the U.S.