Chi-Wen Gallery has made a name for themselves internationally by promoting local artists that highlight Taiwan’s open and progressive society, especially with regards to LGBTQ issues.

For Asia Now 2022, Chi-Wen Gallery has selected two artists who stand at the forefront of contemporary art in Taiwan, Yu Cheng-Ta and River Lin.

Yu Cheng-Ta’s alter ego FAMEME, a fictional social media influencer who chases the American dream, joins hands with rapper Chunyan in a catchy music video about Taiwan’s taxi drivers, while River Lin creates a solemn video installation memorialising LGBTQ figures and activists who have passed away across Asia.

Asia Now 2022 Official Website

Huxian Memorial Hall

Artist: River Lin
Year: 2019/ 2022
Medium: Video, photography, installation, dimension variable
Location: La Monnaie de Paris, Special Project 22
Presented by Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei
Courtesy the artist and Chi-Wen Gallery

Chi-Wen Gallery is pleased to present Huxian Memorial Hall by River Lin and invites viewers to rethink the value of human rights.

Huxian, the god of the fox in ancient Chinese legends, is viewed as male/female/human/animal and known for performing the fluidity of gender, sexuality and eroticism. Huxian’s pronoun is [they/them/thier]. Nowadays, people seeking love worship them.

Through performance, video, photography and installation of Huxian Memorial Hall, River Lin creates an altar and a fiction about Huxian’s incarnation of LGBTQIA+ figures and activists who have passed away by will or against will from across Asia in the 20th Century and today.

This work acknowledges the LGBTQ community in Asia. While in 2019, Taiwan became the first Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, many of them still suffer. We must remember “them” who have paved the way for the freedom and ‘love wins’ that we hold today.

In Asia Now Paris, we celebrate Huxian, a love letter from Taiwan and a statement reminding us how the arts live in our precarious society.

Rub a Dub Charlie’s Angel in the Tub (music video), FAMEME feat. Chunyan

Artist: Yu Cheng-Ta
Year: 2021
Location: La Monnaie de Paris, Special Project 14B
Presented by Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei
Courtesy of Thorny Media and KAO!INC

FAMEME, in his first appearance as a singer in front of an audience, joins hands with the eccentric rapper Chunyan to create the highly bouncy track “Rub a Dub Charlie’s Angel in the Tub”, a song that pays tribute to the taxis and the drivers who shuttle us through the streets of Taipei.

About the Artists

River Lin (b. 1984, Taipei) currently lives and works in Paris, France.

River Lin is a performance artist working across the contexts of choreography, visual art and queer culture. His work has been presented by institutions including KANAL Centre Pompidou, Brussels; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Lafayette Anticipations , Paris; Centre National de la Danse, Paris;
M+ Museum, Hong Kong; Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai; Live Art Development Agency, London; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung and Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei.

In 2017, he initiated Asia Discovers Asia Meeting for Contemporary Performance (ADAM) with Taipei Performing Arts Center, for which he curates annual gatherings designed to generate cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exchanges between artists in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. River Lin is the shortlisted artist of Live Art Prize in 2022.

Yu Cheng-Ta (b. 1983) currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan.  

Working primarily with non-professional actors in staged performances, Yu has developed a body of work that deals with the interstitial spaces and humorous misunderstandings that arise when different languages and cultures collide. His work has been presented by institutions including Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei; Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai; Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Gyeonggi; Centre National de la Danse, Paris; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Gwangju City Museum of Art, Gwangju; National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung and OK Center for Contemporary Art, Linz.

Born in 1983 and coming of age amid the rise of internet culture, digital technology, and social media, Yu created his alter ego FAMEME for Performa in 2019: a fictional influencer from Asia with an American dream to promote the ‘king of fruit,’ the durian, in New York City. As part of this project, Yu opened the Museum of Durian, released a theme song, and broadcast a commercial to promote his brand in Times Square, where he also shot a live music video.