Taipei Dangdai

Pace Gallery is honored to return to Taipei Dangdai after participating in the successful inaugural launch of the art fair in 2019. At this year's fair, Pace will highlight the gallery’s 60th anniversary with a presentation of varied works by artists from across its international program, including Yto Barrada, Lynda Benglis, Tim Eitel, Hong Hao, Prabhavathi Meppayil, Yoshitomo Nara, Kohei Nawa, Joel Shapiro, Kiki Smith, and Antoni Tàpies. The presentation will showcase the great diversity of Pace artists from different periods of art history and a range of approaches, including painting, sculpture, works on paper and photography.

Five paintings by the Spanish abstract master Antoni Tàpies are prominently featured at the booth. Tàpies incorporated unconventional media such as textiles, straw, detritus, and found objects into his work, accentuating their tactile and material nature, as shown in Warum (1997). The work’s earthy, distressed surface relate to themes of entropy and decay, challenging the viewer to find beauty in what is typically overlooked. Working in parallel with global art movements including Abstract Expressionism, Gutai, Art Informel, Tachisme, and Arte Povera, Tàpies believed that his era required a new kind of existential expression. His exploration of Surrealist imagery early in his career served as the foundation for an ongoing investigation into the nature of physical objects and their materiality. Tàpies’s work embodies his extensive personal experience and history, and of his native Spain and specifically Catalonia.

Pace’s presentation will also include a selection of Kiki Smith’s sculptures and works on paper. Smith is recognized for her multidisciplinary practice through which she explores the human condition. The body, mortality, regeneration, gender politics, as well as the interconnection between spirituality and the natural world are observed through a postmodern lens, as seen in Walking Pig (small) (2004) and Animals in the World (2007). Drawn to the cogency of repetition in narratives and symbolic representations, much of Smith’s work is inspired by the visual culture of the past, spanning scientific anatomical renderings from the eighteenth century to the abject imagery of relics, memento mori, folklore, mythology, Byzantine iconography, and medieval altarpieces.

Additional highlights at the booth will include representative pieces by Tim Eitel, three new paintings by Hong Hao, two ceramic works by Yin Xiuzhen, a portrait by Mao Yan, a 2014 painting by Zhang Xiaogang, four pieces by Yoshitomo Nara, a selection of works by multi-disciplinary artist Kohei Nawa, two colourful sculptures by Lynda Benglis, and a thinnam on gesso panel work by Prabhavathi Meppayil.