The 2023 Taoyuan International Art Award (TIAA), organized by Taiwan’s Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts (TMoFA), selected 15 finalists last June to participate in the TIAA exhibition and compete for the award. After a thorough secondary review by an international panel, an award ceremony was held on March 21 to announce the final winners. The Grand Award was given to French installation artist Delphine Pouillé for Pull Up (2020), with honorable mentions for: Migran-t, First skin: Nostalgia (2021) by Argentinian installation artist Belén Santamarina; I CAN NOT BE WITH YOU by Chinese performance artist Jiao Yan; and The Shadow Lands Yonder (2022) by Hong Kong multimedia artist Lee Kai Chung. Taiwanese artist Wang Yen-ran was awarded the Sojourn Award. The 15 selected artworks, including the award-winning works, are on display from March 21 to April 30 at the Taoyuan Arts Center.

French artist Delphine Pouillé’s practice is centered on the body and combines sculpture and drawing. The award-winning artwork Pull Up is a hybrid piece, with two- and three-dimensional elements. The notion of exhaustion is at the heart of the work. When the voided figure of the suspended body is shown at full physical exertion, its “positive” and paltry counterpart lies wrecked on the ground, conveying a sense of a derailment or a crash. The Grand Award winner will receive a cash prize of NTD 600,000 (USD 19,600).

Three artists received honorable mentions. Belén Santamarina’s Migran-t, First skin: Nostalgia featured drawings, poems, and phrases from a diary, along with words from books and songs, embroidered on sheets with hair picked up after grooming, implanting the experience of migration and being in a different place. Jiao Yan’s video work I CAN NOT BE WITH YOU started with searches on China’s website for missing persons. The artist contemplates ways to document missing individuals and adopts anthropological imaging methods for this photographic project, expressing shattered stories and nuanced emotions, and representing the images of the missing persons. Jiao’s work explores the power structures behind the seemingly normal social phenomenon. Lee Kai Chung uses the topic of early-20th-century Manchuria to explore the complex process of identity transition under sudden political change through video and creative writing based on a documentary review. The Sojourn Award provides Taiwanese artists with NTD 250,000 (USD 8,200) to travel abroad to expand their artistic practice. This year’s winner Wang Yen-ran's work Productivity Project (2023) investigates the ceramics in the era in the era of globalized industrial mass production.

TIAA is one of the major contemporary art competitions in Taiwan. This edition received overwhelming response from 62 countries, with more than 687 artists submitting their works for the preliminary review—a 25-percent increase in the total number of submissions compared to the previous edition. TIAA has received widespread attention from international art professionals and creators since the international call for entries for its first edition in 2021. The 15 selected artworks are by practitioners from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Syria, France, the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Peru, featuring a breadth of mediums: graphic design, installation, and video and digital art. The next call for entries will be announced at the end of 2023.

The international jury has been a unique feature of TIAA. The jury of the preliminary review comprised Christine Macel, Chief Curator of the 57th Venice Biennale; Hanru Hou, Artistic Director of MAXXI, Rome; Cosmin Costinas, Curator of the 2024 Biennale of Sydney; independent curator Nobuo Takamori; and professor Chun Lan Liu of National Taiwan University of the Arts and former director of the TMoFA. While the preliminary review was conducted online, the secondary review was completed onsite. The final jury consisted of Hou; Costinas; Jin-suk Suh, Director of the Ulsan Museum of Arts, South Korea; Kuang-Yi Chen, Dean of College of Fine Arts, National Taiwan University of Arts; and independent curator Chia Chi Jason Wang.

Hou remarked: “An international perspective, local creation, and contemplation are the common outstanding features of these award-winning artists. Meanwhile, these works also reflect the ambition of TMoFA as an urban art museum.”

“TMoFA presents a vital art exchange orientation in such an award-curated layout. The jury is composed of world renowned curators and art critics, and the international network of the TMoFA and the diversity of further collaboration are enhanced at this atmosphere. Also, artists can be explored and exchange with each other in the selection process,” stated the Acting Director of TMoFA, Lijuan Wang.

To coincide with the opening of the exhibition, TMoFA organized an international forum. The panelists included Hou, Suh, and Chia Chi Jason Wang, and the panel was moderated by Chen. They discussed the relationship between art awards, art forums, and institutional extensions, from the perspective of urban art museums management and within the greater contemporary art discourse.

The main building of TMoFA is scheduled to open in 2025. The art museum, which was established in 2018, currently operates without a physical site through off-site and online programs. The TIAA is a pivotal project to establish international networking and global vision in Taiwan. TIAA operates on a biannual basis with the hope of giving artists more time to create and prepare for the exhibition. The exhibition of 2023 TIAA is on view to public from March 21 to April 30. A series of exclusive onsite tours are available. 

“2023 Taoyuan International Art Award” is on view at Taoyuan Arts Center from March 21 to April 30, 2023.

*This post is presented by TIAA.