A Floating Life: Rhapsody and Rebirth at TAO ART Taipei Jacky Tsai’s first Taiwan solo exhibition unfolds in two chapters, from musical imagination to renewal.
21st Oct 2022
Jacky Tsai’s first solo exhibition in Taiwan, A Floating Life, unfolded at TAO ART Taipei in two complementary chapters: Rhapsody and Rebirth. Running from October 2022 to January 2023, the exhibition brought together painting, traditional craftsmanship, sculpture and digital art, offering two ways into an artistic practice shaped by the movement between Chinese visual traditions and Western popular culture.
Following Life Fantasy in Shanghai, Tsai rethought the presentation for TAO ART’s distinctive spaces. Darkened galleries, warm timber ceilings and brightly lit rooms created a rhythm of discovery: a panoramic narrative might draw the viewer across a wall, while an intricately worked surface invited a much closer look.
Jacky Tsai @ TAO Art Space — exhibition film
Chapter I: Rhapsody
21 October – 26 November 2022
At the heart of Rhapsody was Parody of Jay’s Music (2019), commissioned by Jay Chou. Spanning eight metres, the painting transforms references to sixty songs from two decades of his musical career into a densely populated pictorial world. Its many encounters, characters and visual jokes invite the eye to wander, connecting the experience of listening to music with the act of reading an image.
Parody of Jay’s Music, 2019, presented in Rhapsody.
Augmented reality and luminous effects introduced further ways to experience the work. Alongside it, carved lacquer and other narrative works carried this imaginative energy into different materials. Their carefully worked surfaces made the relationship between contemporary imagery and inherited craft tangible.
Sculptural and painted narratives in the first chapter.Carved lacquer works presented at TAO ART.
Chapter II: Rebirth
8 December 2022 – 14 January 2023
Rebirth turned to the skull, one of Tsai’s most enduring motifs. Flowers and other living forms fill a shape associated with mortality, allowing life and death to occupy the same image. Across a decade of exploration, the motif becomes a place for renewal, cultural exchange and transformation.
Chinese Floral Skull: colour, pattern and the texture of embroidery meet in Rebirth.
The second chapter traced this language across prints, finely crafted objects and digital work. Porcelain, embroidery and sculptural figures offered different kinds of presence: reflective, tactile, intricate or monumental. Rather than repeating a single emblem, these shifts of material revealed how an image can acquire new meanings each time it is made again.
Different materials bring contrasting qualities of light, depth and surface to the exhibition.
Sculptural figures bring Eastern and Western visual traditions into dialogue.A detail of the densely layered imagery in Unity in Diversity.
Seen together, the two chapters made A Floating Life both a reflection on Tsai’s established visual world and an opening towards its next forms. The exhibition moved from the exuberance of a musical story to a quieter consideration of continuity: how images, skills and cultural memories can remain alive through change.
