A Blast of Lyricism: Contemporary Taiwanese Art in London

Dates: 30 October – 15 November 2025

Venue: Frieze No. 9 Cork Street, 9 Cork Str., London W1S 3LL, United Kingdom

Presented by: Tina Keng Gallery

Overview

A Blast of Lyricism: Contemporary Taiwanese Art in London marks a milestone collaboration between Taiwan-based Tina Keng Gallery and curator Chia‑Ling Yang (University of Edinburgh), supported by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture under the Taiwan Content Plan.

Hosted at the prestigious Frieze No. 9 Cork Street — one of London’s landmark exhibition spaces — the show presents a dynamic showcase of nine Taiwanese artists whose practices traverse both local traditions and global contemporary dialogues. 

Curatorial Team & Featured Artists

Curator: Chia-Ling Yang

Co-Curator: Gene Chen

Artists:
Ava Hsueh (b.1956) · Chiang Yomei (b.1961) · Yao Jui-Chung (b.1969) · Chen Chun-Hao (b.1971) · Yang Chung-Ming (b.1974) · Su Meng-Hung (b.1976) · Chiu Chen-Hung (b.1983) · Lee Jo-Mei (b.1985) · He Yusen (b.1995)

These artists span generations and medium, collectively navigating the interplay of heritage, materiality, modernity and emotion. 

Thematic Framework

The exhibition is organised into four thematic units:

• Post-Republican Pseudo-Landscape – Challenging traditional ink and landscape motifs through contemporary reinterpretation. 
• Secret Realm of Things – Exploring the poetic dimension of objects, materiality and subtle human-things relationships.
• Temperature of Feeling – Reflecting on cultural translation, identity and fragmentary narratives through open or disrupted compositions. 
• All Conditioned Phenomena – Meditative works that evoke time, transformation and the fluid nature of being. 

Why This Exhibition Matters

• This is the first large-scale UK exhibition dedicated to contemporary Taiwanese art, offering a transnational platform for Taiwanese practices to engage global audiences.

• By focusing on the notion of “lyricism” – a sensorial, contemplative aesthetic – the exhibition invites reflection on how material, emotion and philosophy converge across East and West.

• The context of Frieze No. 9 Cork Street situates the show in one of London’s key contemporary-art nodes – enhancing its visibility and impact. 

Visiting Information

Dates: 30 October – 15 November 2025

Venue: Frieze No. 9 Cork Street, 9 Cork Str., London W1S 3LL, UK

Opening Preview: 30 Oct 2025 (Thur) 18:15 – VIP preview & drink reception.

Opening Reception: 31 Oct 2025 (Fri) 17:00 – public drink reception. 

Admission: Free (all welcome). 

Three artist-talk sessions accompany the show:

• Forum 1｜30 Oct 2025 (Thu) 17:15-18:15
  Artists: Ava Hsueh, Su Meng-Hung
  Speaker: Richard Thomson (Professor, Edinburgh College of Art, UK)
• Forum 2｜31 Oct 2025 (Fri) 15:30-16:30
  Artists: Chiang Yomei, Yao Jui-Chung
  Speaker: Margaret Hillenbrand (Professor, Oxford University, East Asian Studies, UK)
• Forum 3｜1 Nov 2025 (Sat) 15:30-16:30
  Artists: Chen Chun-Hao, Yang Chung-Ming
  Speakers: Chia-Ling Yang (Professor, Edinburgh College of Art, UK), Gene Chen (Tina Keng Gallery)

Artists

Born in Taichung, Taiwan, Ava Hsueh earned her D.A. in Arts from New York University in the U.S. She served as Honorary Professor at Tainan National University of the Arts and previously held academic leadership positions including Dean of the College of Visual Arts at the same institution.
Her work is characterised by abstract visual languages, using “cold” and “hot” symbolic forms to reflect the hybridity of reality and exploring the evolving features of contemporary abstraction.
Hsueh’s works have been exhibited internationally in Taiwan, China, the U.S., France, Italy, Korea and Japan, and are held in the collections of major institutions including the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

Chiang Yomei (b. 1961, Taipei, Taiwan – lives & works in London)

Born in Taipei to a Chinese-Russian father and Chinese-German mother, Chiang Yomei underwent a cross-cultural education: she studied traditional Chinese landscape painting and calligraphy early on under masters like Hu Nian-Tzu, and then moved abroad to New York (Skidmore College, 1978-80) and UK (University of Kent, BA 1981-84; SOAS London 1985-86; Winchester School of Art BFA 1991-94).
Her artistic practice spans painting, photography, installation and performance, deeply informed by her interest in Buddhism, philosophy, quantum physics, psychology, music and film. She interrogates states of being that oscillate between the visible and invisible, the beginning and the end. (Source: Chinese original, adapted)
Chiang has exhibited internationally (London, Hong Kong, Taipei) and her works are held in private and public collections across Europe and Asia.

Yang Chung‑Ming (b. 1974, Taiwan)

Yang Chung-Ming is the only contemporary print-maker whose works are collected by the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
His practice focuses on printmaking — handmade papers, natural dyes, copper, watermark and embossing — and he weaves personal life experience, sensitivity and experimentation into a language that transcends technique and bridges classical print tradition with a contemporary conceptual terrain.

Yao Jui‑Chung (b. 1969, Taipei, Taiwan)

Yao Jui-Chung is a pivotal figure in Taiwan’s contemporary art scene. He studied Art Theory at the Taipei National University of the Arts (formerly the National Institute of the Arts) and represented Taiwan at the Venice Biennale in 1997.
His multi-media work spans photography, installation, painting and performance; early on he used satire and action-based works interrogating historical, political and cultural absurdities in Taiwan and beyond.
His later projects include extensive photographic documentation of abandoned sites in Taiwan (as part of his “Lost Society Documentation” project), exploring the remains of industrial, religious, architectural and military spaces.

Chen Chun‑Hao (b. 1971, Nantou, Taiwan; based in Taipei)

Chen Chun-Hao studied for his BFA at the Taipei National University of the Arts (1996) and attained his MA in Plastic Arts at the Tainan National University of the Arts (1998).
He is known for his distinctive use of industrial materials — notably nails and “mosquito-nails” (construction finishing nails) — in his three-dimensional works that explore materiality, perception and form.
His practice has been shown internationally (Taiwan, China, US, UK) and intersects curatorial and organisational work.

Su Meng‑Hung (b. 1976, Taipei)

Su Meng-Hung graduated from the National Changhua University of Education, studied at Goldsmiths College (University of London) and received his PhD from Tainan National University of the Arts.
His work appropriates traditional Chinese bird-and-flower motifs, gold-leaf, pop-ornamentation and layering to create a hybrid “Asia-Pop” visual syntax, subverting historical conventions with decorative flamboyance and cultural critique.

Chiu Chen‑Hung (b. 1983, Hualien)

Chiu Chen-Hung received his MA from the Graduate School of Plastic Arts at the National Taiwan University of Arts in 2008.
His artistic practice centres on installation and sculpture; likened to an archaeological expedition, he excavates the traces, imprints and forgotten logics of space and time, reshaping memory and material into a ‘repair-work’ of past narratives.

Lee Jo‑Mei (b. 1985, Taipei)

Lee Jo-Mei graduated with a master’s degree from the Department of Fine Arts at the National Taiwan University of the Arts.
Her work spans drawing, painting and three-dimensional sculpture; she engages with everyday experience, the texture of objects and micro-perceptions of nature, evolving since 2015 toward explorations of plant-based time and material poetics.

For Exhibique Readers – What to Look For

If you’re covering this show for a blog, media or social channel, consider the following angles:
– Highlight the cross-generational mix of Taiwanese artists (1950s–1990s births) and how their practices bridge tradition & global contemporaneity.
– Use the four thematic units as hooks to craft short stories or visuals: e.g., material experiments under “Secret Realm of Things”, or identity-narratives in “Temperature of Feeling”.
– Consider interviews or profiles of participating artists for deeper engagement. These can enrich content for your audience and link into your broader art-news coverage.
– Visually, leverage the London setting and the gallery’s international platform to emphasise “Taiwan meets London” as a branding narrative for Taiwanese contemporary art’s global push.

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For more details and press downloads, visit the official exhibition page at Tina Keng Gallery: A Blast of Lyricism – Contemporary Taiwanese Art in London. 

Posted by Exhibique – your window into the world of contemporary art exhibitions.