Paris – Charwei Tsai

Palais des beaux Arts

Autohistorias
Co-curated by Skye Arundhati Thomas, Tadeo Kohan, Louise Nicolas de Lamballerie

24 April ~ 30 June 2024
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

Exhibited works: The Songs We Carry, 2017~2018, Video, 18min
In collaboration with Tsering Tashi Gyalthang

“If I don’t have access to the truth, I’ll invent it, I’ll tell myself, preferring my fictions to the lies and truths that others fabricate for me, about me”. (Gloria Anzaldúa, Ethnic Autohistorias-teorías: Writing the History of the Subject).

In 1989, Gloria Anzaldúa wrote a formally inventive text that oscillates between poetry, personal narrative, historical commentary and politics. The essay is a toolbox. Anzaldúa encourages an active subjectivity and invites us to seize our intimate stories and fiction to shape our collective narratives.

Driven by this spirit, autohistorias brings together a group of artists who – from the 15th to the 21st century – have used the self as a way of telling history, shaping political allegory and using narrative as a means of emancipation.

autohistorias presents a group of auto-fabulists, chimeras, beautiful liars, chingadas and bad girls who traverse complexity with literary flair, aesthetic clarity and performative memory. Fiction, autobiography and speculation become the tools for composing a collective narrative and memory; an individuality that is guided not by absolutes but by ambiguities.

The exhibition brings together works by student artists and from the heritage collections of the Beaux-Arts de Paris, as well as those of guest artists. Self-portraits, hybrid collages, invented languages, parallel worlds – made up of personal histories and intimate archives – are presented. autohistorias composes a common space-time born of intersubjectivity, enunciation and listening. Thursday evenings will feature an artistic program, details to follow on beauxartsparis.fr.

Les Beaux-Arts de Paris is a partner of Paris Gallery Weekend, an event organised by the Comité professionnel des Galeries d’art, inviting the public from 24 to 26 May to 3 days of free, open- access exhibitions, meetings and events in 101 Parisian galleries. The autohistorias exhibition is part of the VIP programme of Paris Gallery Weekend.

Credits:

Mélanie Bouteloup and Armelle Pradalier (co-directors of the “Artists & Exhibition Professions” program)

Scientific advisor for the Beaux-Arts de Paris collections: Giulia Longo, Curator of Prints and Photographs

Students in the field

Mathilde Badie, Idris Bennai, Elise Bergonzi, Anna Breton, Clara Brevet, Aïssa Diallo, Clémence Gbonon, Anna Giner, Audrey Japaud Garcia, Feryel Kaabeche, Léontine Köhn, Anouk Léger, Mahault Maréchal, Emma O’Quigley, Noah Perrot-Bikie Bi Mbida.

Among the artists

Aya Abu Hawash, Malek Abdelmajeed, Sonia Andrade, Ali Arkady, Mohamed Azouzi, Amanda Baggs, Anna Boghiguian, Mohamed Chafei, Antoine Conde, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (after), Ladji Diaby, Antoine Dochniak, Jean Louis André, Mehdi Gorbuz, Francisco de Goya, Anis Nabil Harbaoui, Hessie, Lubaina Himid, Liên Hoàng-Xuân, Nina Jayasuriya, Bahar Kocabey, Simone Lagrand, Lalita Lajmi, Hugo Laporte, Nge Lay, Lisa Lecuivre, Huda Lutfi, Sehaj Malik, Nicole, Clarisse Pillard, Lou Reina, Jagdeep Raina, Rembrandt, Roseman Robinot, Vega Royer Gaspard, Saradibiza, Sequoia Scavullo, Mahmoud Sehili, Afrah Shafiq, Margarita Sherstiuk and Igor Kanivets, Elisabetta Sirani, Charwei Tsai, Libo Wei, Alexandre Yang, Mia Yu, Unica Zürn and anonymous.

Asia Now

Asia Now à la Monnaie de Paris du 17 au 20 octobre 2024

Ceremony
Co-curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, Alexander Burenkov, and Radicants
Asia Now at La Monnaie, Paris, France
16 ~ 20 October 2024
Courtesy of Asia Now, Photo by Lionel Belluteau

Exhibited works: “Ancient Desires – One Taste” and “Ndewa & Hamanangu”

The new participatory installation by Charwei Tsai created specifically for the 10th edition of Asia Now will greet the visitors right in the entrance area: the perishable offerings, hand-inscribed with mantras inside the vessels proposed by the performers to the visitors, will serve as a gesture of gift-giving that benefits the collective well-being of all sentient beings. This project is the new iteration of Tsai’s “Ancient Desires – One Taste” created earlier this year In collaboration with the local community of Licchavi House in Kathmandu, founded by the world renown Bhutanese Buddhist teacher and filmmaker Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche.

The installation is accompanied by Ndewa & Hamanangu, a series of ikat textiles made in collaboration with a young weaver Nency Dwi Ratna from the island of Sumba in Indonesia through the support of curator Alia Swastika. For this ten-month project, the weaver closely followed traditional methods passed down through her mother. As a tribute to the tradition, hand-spun yarn from locally sourced cotton and plant based-dye from hand-picked native plants such as indigo, turmeric, and morinda took the form of a local totem ‘lobster’ that symbolizes re-generation. Every step of the preparation follows the natural rhythms of the land. What seems to be mundane labor manifests into sacred geometries representing the interdependence of micro and macro cosmologies. This is part of a series of project where Tsai works with craftswomen in rural regions to preserve their knowledge and skills of working with plant-based and locally sourced materials that are otherwise quickly dying out.

The main exhibition of the 10th edition of Asia Now is an international curatorial project that features 18 artists, who shine a light on the concept of ceremony, weaving rituals with art, philosophy, science, and poetry. A ceremony is usually composed of a prescribed sequence of actions, words, and artifacts, frequently enacted at rhythmic intervals, whether daily, weekly, or annually, or during significant milestones. While the term ” ritual ” traditionally evokes images of solemn religious rites, the ceremony opens the door to the cultural practices embedded in daily existence. From culinary rituals to the communal exuberance of festivals, these moments pulse with significance, bridging the sacred and the mundane.

Within the exhibition’s intermediate spaces at La Monnaie, the artistic practices on display engage in earnest inquiries into the rituals of conviviality and social connectivity. The work transcends mere representation, exploring ceremonies through shared experiences, mutual care, and the exuberant expressions of life. At the heart of this exhibition lies a profound motif: cheerfulness as a survival strategy intertwined with the healing power of social connectivity. It invites contemplation on how artistic expressions can facilitate the processing of loss and trauma, particularly in these times marked by conflict and political upheaval. Ultimately, Asia Now stands as a vital testament to the enduring necessity of ceremonies in fostering empathy, resilience, and a shared vision of a more interconnected existence.

Special thanks to Alexandra Fain and her wonderful team at Asia Now.

Under the Same Sky, Mor Charpentier

Under the same sky, Solo Exhibition – 2024

Under the Same Sky
Solo exhibition at Mor Charpentier, Paris, France
27 June ~ 3 August 2024
Photo by Francois Doury, Courtesy of Mor Charpentier

Under the Same Sky —Charwei Tsai’s third solo exhibition at mor charpentier— offers a comprehensive overview of her artistic practice, which closely intertwines art and spirituality through the elements that make her work so unique: a transdisciplinary approach combining drawing, sculpture, video, and photography.

A nomadic and cosmopolite artist, enriching her artistic practice through multiple trips, Charwei Tsai has explored her spirituality through years of travel, that have immersed her in ancient wisdom traditions from around the world. Her practice is profoundly informed by eastern philosophy and by its texts in particular, such as the Heart Sutra, which draws attention to the emptiness and ephemeral nature of all natural phenomena. It is often transcribed with delicacy over different objects, like shellfish — following their pattern of growth, thus demonstrating the transitory nature of the sutra — or over her recent series of paintings on canvas, made with mineral pigments. For the living, it is recited as a method to connect our inner light with the cosmic light and to see the nature of reality, which is independent.

Her video and installation practice, on the other hand, often focus on social and ecological issues, such as forced migration, incarceration, and environmental degradation. Despite addressing these critical themes, Tsai views herself not as an activist but as an intermediary between art and the world. Through her works she lends her voice to marginalized communities and manifests her commitment to social justice.

Numbers, for instance, a video featuring the voice of Yang Tsui —granddaughter of Taiwanese writer Yang Kui, a political prisoner on the Green Island from 1949 to 1961—, reflects on the reduction of human lives and values to mere numbers in authoritarian and capitalist regimes. But as most of her works, the use of frozen water to represent the impermanence of life, particularly when threatened, emphasizes the ephemeral nature of spiritual and material beings.

Charwei Tsai’s practice embraces sustainability and the preservation of traditional forms of craftsmanship. She collaborates with local communities, sharing resources and promoting a circular economy. Through a critique of the neoliberal structures of contemporary art and society that deplete natural resources and the human spirit, Tsai advocates for ecological consciousness and resource sharing. While aiming to replace the current state of dissatisfaction with practices of offering and solidarity, she pleads for a more mindful and interconnected way of inhabiting the Earth.

In essence, Charwei Tsai’s work is a profound exploration of the cosmic and spiritual dimensions of existence. Through her work as an artist, she invites viewers to contemplate the impermanence and interdependence of life, challenging normative structures and advocating for a more compassionate and sustainable world. Her oeuvre is a testament to the power of art to transcend boundaries and connect us to the deeper rhythms of the universe.

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