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The Taoyuan International Art Award, formerly known as the Taoyuan Contemporary Art Award, has been pursuing a new breakthrough in terms of its scale as a competition-based exhibition built upon the continuation of contemporary art experiment and innovative spirit. With the new system featuring a biennial art competition based on a non-category international open call, the Award invites scholars, art critics and artists to form an international jury committee to conscientiously select both Taiwanese and foreign artists for the award exhibition in Taoyuan. The objectives are to encourage diverse development of artistic creation, to cultivate contemporary art research, and to transform Taoyuan into a base for nurturing contemporary art talents, so that the space of outward exchanges and global dialogues can be expanded to further the link between Taiwan and the international art scene.

After its transformation, the first edition of the Taoyuan International Art Award organized its first international open call in 2020 and received more than six hundred artists’ submissions from forty-six countries. Seventeen finalists have been selected after a month-long selection process. The finalists come from nine countries, including Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Bangladesh, the United States, Portugal, Latvia, and Greece, with diversified forms of art practice ranging from two-dimensional painting, three-dimensional installation, photography to video. With a nearly six-month preparation, the finalists have completed the installation of their artworks, either in person or via teleconferencing, at the Taoyuan Arts Center in early March 2021. They have also attended an interview with a live Q&A session chaired by the jury committee for the second-stage selection. Finally, recipients of the Grand Prize, three Honorable Mentions, and the Sojourn Award are selected.

Generally speaking, the finalists in this edition have all shown distinctive approaches to their use of mediums and handling of space to develop their exploration of art-related subjects or engage with the current society, using art as a form of intervention to tackle issues related to environmental changes, politico-economic structures, and post-colonial identity. The presentation of these artworks has engendered more multilayered meanings in Taoyuan’s cultural context. In viewing each work, the audience are drawn into a process of dialectic thinking as well as an art experience richly informed with creativity, experimentality and global vision.

Time: March 13 to April 18 9am to 5pm (Close on Mondays and National Holidays including April 4 to 5)

Venue: Taoyuan Arts Center 1F (No. 1188, Zhongzheng Rd., Taoyuan Dist., Taoyuan City 330, Taiwan (R.O.C.) )