The Taiwan Art Biennial, organized by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, provides an overview of the status and development of Taiwan’s contemporary art and summarizes developmental directions in the arts ecology in the span of two years. Since its inception in 2008, the Taiwan Art Biennial has continually broken down pre-existing barriers, and the exhibition parameters have gone through various experiments and innovations. Whether in the makeup of the curatorial team, or the diversity of the artistic formats, to the experimental self-exploration of the institution, the execution of various curatorial teams has gradually developed into a biennial of unique character. Curators Manray HSU and I-wen CHANG are experts respectively in the visual and performing arts fields, mutually sparking novel perspectives and inquiries. Through diverse and rich exhibition formats, the current state of Taiwanese contemporary art is presented. The 2022 Taiwan Art Biennial (8th) takes to account the ‘sentience’ of the digital age: technical questions of what is ‘sentience’? For what? And how ‘sentience’, on one hand dialogue with the avant-garde thought of the contemporary, and on the other, further re-evaluates various questions around Taiwanese history and subjectivity formation through the worldviews and chrono-concepts expanded upon by artists, weaving an artistic universe of overlapping democracies but rich in local character.
