Lot 178
Affection in the Forsaken City
LIEN Chien-hsing (Taiwanese, 1962)
2008
Oil on canvas
112 x 194 cm
Estimate
TWD 1,300,000-2,300,000
HKD 317,000-561,000
USD 43,300-76,700
Sold Price
TWD 1,200,000
HKD 306,905
USD 39,565
Signature
Titled on the reverse Affection in Forsaken City in Chinese, dated 2008 and signed Lien Chien-hsing in Chinese
EXHIBITED:
Madden Reality: Post-Taipei Art Group, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, January 21- April 5, 2009
ILLUSTRATED:
Madden Reality: Post-Taipei Art Group, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2009, color illustrated, p. 108
+ OVERVIEW
When construing Lien Chien-hsing's works, we find the vivid, deluxe scenes, similar to 3D computer games, do not touch the core value of our hearts. What associates people to feeling first and most easily is his visual ironic to the "offense to nature" by human being and his critics towards material civilization. The real purpose of the series in the style "magic realistic painting" created by Lien Chien-hsing since the 1990s is to surpass the fences of technique, combine abrupt or abstruse images in routine sceneries with definite description, or add implied symbols and role play in highly realistic scenes, creating a psychological fortune different from real world but extremely rational. This way, more metaphoric humanistic meanings are extended to his works.
"The basic pictorial element of 'Affection in the Forsaken City' is 'ruins', which suggests an architectural space that was built for specific functions during a certain phase of human activity and that has gradually lost its functions over time. Forgotten or eulogized, turned into a fairytale or monument, and after being weathered for a period of time, it gives a sense of bleakness or sublimeness that has the effect of inspiring awe, evoking nostalgia, warning about the swift passage of time or mourning the disappearance of an industry." (Madden Reality: Post-Taipei Art Group, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2009, p.106)
Modern & Contemporary Asian Art
Ravenel Autumn Auction 2010 Taipei
Sunday, December 5, 2010, 2:30pm