NATIONAL CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND IMAGES

Publication day2023.08ISBN978-986-532-852-8Chief EditorTSAI Chao-YiContributorsCHIANG Li-Hua, LU Hsiao-Yu, TSENG Shao-ChienThe imaging of photography would not be possible without light; only light creates images and shadows (the Chinese word for both words is “影”). Light is the origin of shadows and images, which, in turn, bear witness to the light. However, without photographers able to capture this light through the camera obscura or cameras (today, there are a plethora of imaging devices; people can even take pictures with their phones!), imaging would not be possible, and the solidification of the rays of light is no accident, nor is it a mere chance. Indeed, 'light' may refer to the entire spectrum of daylight and artificial lighting perceivable to our sense of vision, and which allows people to detect the light of an object’s very existence. In Chinese, the word for 'light' can also refer to glory or honor, scenery, or time; it can also be used to describe brightness, smoothness, or even nakedness. The Chinese word for 'shadow' may also refer to images and how people are represented, or the darkness cast by blocked light; it may also describe imitation and copying, or the condition of being covered or hidden. Photographers deliberately present the traces of light and the textures of shadows in their images; whether or not the images match the interpretations of the viewers is the question this exhibition asks.Simile and Metaphor: Chasing Light, Shadows, and Alternative Meaningsshowcases works that early Taiwanese photographers have been creating using traditional photographic equipment and analog cameras since the 1950s, as well as double refraction images, time-lapse videos, and meticulously-created works using modern aluminum wet plate collodion techniques, rayograph, polarizers, digital cameras, and editing software. Through the composition of light and shadow, these works feature incidents and people with symbols hidden within. The works capture the light of different people and their humanity, cities and spaces, objects, as well as the extended meanings and many metaphors of lines and artificial lighting. The works also depict the shadows of people, culture, the mind, geometry, and a sense of eeriness, as well as subconscious-like, metaphoric shadows. Even in similar lighting arrangements, the atmospheres, photographic approaches, and composition differ between the artists, and every viewer will interpret the symbols and extended meanings within the photographs according to their own life experiences, intellectual foundations, and social and cultural upbringings. The subtle differences in the viewers’ focus and interpretation enrich the narrative and rhetoric of the photographic images.

Publication day2023.03ISBN978-986-532-808-5Chief EditorTSAI Chao-YiContributorsCHANG Kuang-Ho, HSU Woan-Jen, HUANG Wen-YungSusan Sontag said, “For it is in the nature of a photograph that it can never entirely transcend its subject, as a painting can. Nor can a photograph ever transcend the visual itself, which is in some sense the ultimate aim of modernist painting.” Breaking away from its reliance on identifiable visual signs, the readable perspective that abstract photography carries is the eye of abstraction we are looking for in the mirror.The curatorial agenda of The Eye of Abstraction is to clarify that the lens of photography is not only applied for documenting or reporting reality, or recording life, it also could express the visual forms of the photographer's murmurs or shouts. It leads us to a new perspective. The Eye of Abstraction ambiguously carries a reminder of self-awareness of the extraordinary perspective of the author as an audience.• Government Publications Bookstore

Publication day2022.12ISBN978-986-532-717-0Chief EditorTSAI Chao-YiContributorsWANG Pin-Hua, HONG Jun-YuanImages Creation: Contemporary Virtual Narratives explores the “creative” implication of Taiwanese image art as the central topic, and examines how artists have utilized photography, video, augmented reality, and image installation to reflect on the nature of image and expand the local context of image art since the invention of photography, turning artistic creation into a method of realizing “contemporary virtual narratives.”• Government Publications Bookstore

Publication day2022.05ISBN978-986-532-569-5Chief EditorIris Shu-Ping HUANG, TSAI Chao-YiCurator and contributorJay Chun-Chieh LAIAs an exhibition in dialogue with Uncoverings: the Search for Identity in Lithuanian Photography curated by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, this exhibition does not intend to present in chronological order. On the contrary, it focuses on the shared core theme of “identity”, a similar dilemma faced by both countries. Photography works with various approaches and perceptions like “Archiving as a Method”, “Anarchive”, “Re-archiving”, and “Historiography of Archiving” are brought together to explore different aspects of identity. • Government Publications Bookstore

Publication day2022.04ISBN978-986-532-571-8Chief EditorIris HUANG Shu-Ping, TSAI Chao-YiExecutive EditorsCHENG Shu-Yuan, Lin Wen-TingThis exhibition follows the story of the development and exploration of identity in Lithuanian photography through time. Historical context – major events and politics of the state that affected not only artistic creation and its dissemination, but also the dynamic world of individuals – is extremely important here. The exhibition does not avoid contradictions and inconsistencies, but aims only to widen the polylogue between the works and allow unexpected but eloquent connections to arise. The exhibition consists of three parts that follow both chronological and thematic guidelines: ‘Identity as Reality’, ‘Identity as an Object’ and ‘Identity as Idea’. The exhibition, although chronologically structured, aims not so much to systematically recreate the history of the country’s photography, but to convey the diversity of voices and the medium which was (and still is) used by artists who contributed to the formation of the perception of identity (national, communal, individual) and also offered future trajectories for identity.• Government Publications Bookstore

Author蔡昭儀主編，王柏瑋、朱盈樺、姜麗華撰稿Publication day2022.05ISBN978-986-532-581-7

Author蔡昭儀主編，蔡文祥、鄭麗玲、王鈺婷撰稿Publication day2022.03ISBN978-986-532-548-0The exhibition A Gentle Breeze: Aura and Inspiration in Photography and Literature finds its starting point among a range of works by earlier generations of Taiwanese photographers archived at the National Center of Photography and Images, digging into the colonial history of Taiwan and its experience with modernization from the Japanese Colonial Period to Post-war Taiwan. The exhibition is curated in hopes of inspiring people’s reflection on culture and encouraging future conversation in society through the interplay between our gazes and the perspectives shown in the selected images. One of the major aims is to tap into how colonial aesthetics have influenced the perspectives of earlier Taiwanese photographers. Furthermore, with photographic documentation and observation that spotlight social status, folklife, and culture, Waves of Feminine Grace explores the femininity of contemporary Taiwanese women and depicts historical trends of aesthetic ideology that emerged in Taiwan’s society.From the Japanese Colonial Period to the 50s of the Post-war Republic Era, also known as Taiwan’s Modern Era, the island experienced a major confluence of modernization and the impact of western culture. Through practices of looking and the re-emergence licensed through photography, this historical context contributes to the curatorial motivation to highlight the recessive ideology and the desire for freedom embedded in the images created during the modernization of the land. The exhibition features an epoch captured by the previous generations of photographers to present the fashion and aesthetics of society and the inner traits of a modern lifestyle. Highlighting the images of women, this exhibition showcases the images of the times and perspectives of ordinary people as a way of positioning the works in the context of history and inspiring further dialogues. Ultimately, the works are portrayals of Taiwan’s visual culture, connection to history, and the continuation of the life of images, allowing us to listen to the echo of history lingering in different periods of time.

Author蔡昭儀主編，李旭彬、蔡佩桂、陳佳琦、陳冠彰撰文，郭懿萱、劉依盈執行編輯Publication day2021.12ISBN978-986-532-474-2

Author蔡昭儀主編，黃建亮、龔卓軍、蔣竹山撰文，熊芃執行編輯Publication day2021.09ISBN978-986-532-371-4

Author蔡昭儀主編，大衛．卡帕尼撰文，吳孟真執行編輯Publication day2021-01-25ISBN978-986-532-205-2An enigmatic photograph made by Man Ray serves as a point of departure for the exhibition A Handful of Dust: from the Cosmic to the Domestic, organized by British curator and renowned image researcher, David Campany. The exhibition explores the complexities of the relationship between photography and art in the past century, and contemplates the various allegories represented by dust throughout the development of human civilization on scales as varied as the minutiae of domesticity and the grandeur of the universal, as well as examines ways in which these metaphors are explored and presented in the expression of photography and visual art.

Author蔡昭儀主編，林宏璋、蕭永盛、周郁齡、周文龍(Joseph R. Allen)、馬國安、郭昭蘭撰稿Publication day2021-03-24ISBN978-986-532-210-6John Thomson, who traveled to and photographed Taiwan, published his travel memoir The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China and China or Ten years Travels, Adventures and Residence Abroad in 1875. He wrote: “I have endeavored to impart to the reader some share in the pleasure which I myself experience in my wanderings; but, at the same time, it has been my care so as to hold the mirror up to the gaze…” This “mirror” here is a metaphor for photography and the “reader” refers to his western readers. In other words, Thomson’s mirror echoes visual coloniality. The control of the image and its photographic techniques in the 19th century during the Japanese Occupation period precisely reflects the presentation of "domestication of the others" and "self-idealization" of the image produced in Taiwan. If Thomson’s narrative reveals the traces of colonial desire, the images reflected in his lens are the desire of the photographer. But these images allow for the colonized to gaze back, to more deeply draw connections between the relation of colonialism and control over photographic techniques and culture. This allows for the establishment of multilayered dialogue between the "to gaze", "being gazed” and "to gaze the being gazed".

Author蔡昭儀Publication day2016-07-02ISBN978-986-04-9085-5