Taipei City Government

For many people in the West, initial exposure to the aesthetics of the mysterious East has come via Timmy Yip. Yip won an Oscar for Best Art Direction for his work on Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, responsible for both art and costume design. His vision brought the dazzling aesthetics of the martial-arts world to the Western eye. In addition to art direction on cinematic works, Yip also vents his creative spirit in such other media as the visual arts, installation art, and sculpture; he is a veritable Renaissance man of the contemporary arts world. Over the past few years, he has been traveling the world promoting his“New Orientalism”concept, creating better understanding of the beauty of Asian culture and aesthetics and the unlimited possibilities for creative expression which they possess.

This summer Yip is staging“Summer Revelry” at MOCA Taipei to draw the interest of sightseers visiting the city to the rich aesthetic tapestry of the East. The show has four themes: still photos, moving pictures, sculpture, and installation art. With an artist's eye for depicting details and sense of the romantic, Yip documents the fine balance achieved in contemporary Chinese society between the march to the future and the affection for tradition. A light-hearted ambiance of joy and, yes, revelry will be key, the artist using a playful mix of sound, light, and image to create a summer event that stirs, entertains, and educates.

In the still photo section, images are used to show the ephemeral border that separates illusion from reality, presenting bizarre and striking aesthetic beauty. Yip documents places he has traveled to as artist and sightseer, using different perspectives to demonstrate the aesthetic sensibilities of different times and spaces. The moving pictures section focuses on Mother Nature for creative inspiration;“rain”and“tree shade” are two natural phenomena that affect us at a deep, subliminal level, and Yip approaches these subjects with an artist's eye for observation within the framework of the traditional Asian shanshui (山水) frame of reference for landscape. The sculpture section moves from natural forms to the human form, the inspiration being the lithe and delicate form of the Asian female. Deftly welding technique that is aptly described as strange and fantastical, the Eastern aesthetic, in which emotion is suppressed and sublimated, is powerfully conveyed.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of this exhibit is the section on installation art, which Yip has christened “Lili.”Two special ladies have been given the main roles in this work—two plastic models, bereft of soul and life. In reconfiguring their bodies, a singularly peculiar aesthetic is born. These inanimate figures are bereft of the gift of life, yet are meant to mimic, and even mock, living humans. In recent years Yip has often focused on the female body, using an abundance of red, which is loaded with symbolism in the East, as a platform for expression of his ideas regarding the absurdities and irrationality of life and the thirst for love and desire.