Studio Notes 08: Taiwanese Art Books
a tale of predestiny
Hi, it’s Lisa Cheng Smith, founder of Yun Hai. I write Taiwan Stories, a free newsletter about Taiwanese food and culture. If you aren’t yet a subscriber, sign up here.
This is Studio Notes, a paid series within that newsletter. It’s an informal exploration of the things on my desk—cultural references, first-hand research, and archival material—all in relation to how we tell stories, create spaces, and design products at Yun Hai. Your paid subscription supports the free newsletter and our cooking show, Cooking With Steam. In the spirit of the holidays, today’s letter has no paywall; thanks for reading and supporting Taiwanese culture!
I’ve just booked another trip back to Taiwan (yessss), and one of the first things I’m looking forward to doing is visiting my favorite art bookstores to see what’s new in the world of independent print. I originally shared my go-to spots in Studio Notes 04: Taiwanese New Wave, which I’ve taken off paywall for the moment—click here if you want the full list.
Leafing through Taiwanese art books always gives me a larger sense of the material culture in which they’re produced, providing an understanding that wouldn’t be possible to pick up from digital experience. Not just “what’s here,” but also “who’s here” and “what are they saying” and “how did they choose to say it.”
Case in point: on my last trip to Taiwan in February of this year, I picked up this zine, Miscellaneous Thoughts #1. Saw it, loved it, bought it; the absurdist cordoned-off under-maintenance area on the cover and the fruit sticker on the back called out to me from the void. I brought it back to NYC, shared it with the team and filed it into our growing reference library (“things we love”) at the studio.
Fast forward a few months to May in New York City. I was very fortunate to meet Hai-Hsin Huang and Luc Jolivet, Taipei-based artists that work closely with Taiwanese publisher nos:books. The circumstances were serendipitous; they had come with a friend to a dinner party at my place and Hai-Hsin told me she had illustrated the label of the beer I was drinking.
We became friends and I spent the next few months getting to know her work. Hai-Hsin has a cute-grotesque style and a sharply critical, comedic sensibility regarding the absurdity of everyday life, as observed in Taiwan and abroad. If you’re in the market for oil painting or searching for an artist to exhibit, please consider her work. Would that I were a gallerist.
The other day, I was working on a publication for the shop. Seeking inspiration, I pulled out Miscellaneous Thoughts #1 and started flipping through it. Looking through it again, something felt strangely familiar.
Fitness theme?
Absurdist situation with boulder?
Butts and Bikes?
Sure enough, I turned to the last page and it’s… Hai-Hsin’s book. Edition #1 of 50.
I sent a pic to her immediately, got goosebumps, and thought of the phrase yuanfen 緣分, a Buddhist term that refers to a predestined connection between people in the future and the past. Was Hai-Hsin...once a sister in a past life? A warrior on the same battlefield? The tree that I lived in as a young bird?
So I asked my possible-past-life-sibling all my burning questions about this observational zine that telegraphed the Taiwanese daily experience so well.
The drawings were created over years, mostly real scenes she observed in Taiwan. She felt these sketches weren’t serious enough to develop into full blown artworks, but also too good not to share, so she published them into this collection. They’re random moments that made her laugh, as she puts it. I think the sum of the drawings also describes the Taiwanese everyday experience—its poetics and absurdities.
The paper she chose also channels Taiwanese material culture. It’s typical Taiwanese copy paper, which comes in several different shades of yellow (cool). It’s often used to make shu wen zhi 疏文紙, or ceremonial letter-writing paper, burned to carry messages to the deities. And on the back? A fruit sticker she bought from a produce market, confusing the vendors who definitely noted that she was not also buying the proper quantities of fruit to stick them onto.
This was a long, fateful story to say that I LOVE TAIWANESE ART BOOKS. And this holiday season, I’m really excited we have a small collection of them in the brick-and-mortar shop, in honor of the many Taiwanese artists and publishers putting their daily experience, cultural observations, and poetic voice onto paper.
Print Matters
At Yun Hai, we aim to represent contemporary Taiwanese voices alongside traditional foodways. We recognize that Taiwanese identity is constantly emerging, and the rediscovery, production, and invention of culture is ongoing. Taiwanese designers and artists have their own collective voice and sensibility, informed by the unique Taiwanese experience. Yun Hai cannot claim to support Taiwanese culture without also sharing those voices. To this end, it feels right to finally have a significant collection of Taiwanese art books in the shop.
We’re starting with a selection of publications from Makan, nos:books, dmp editions, and good timing, all based in Taiwan or representing Taiwanese artists. We also have some postcards and souvenirs from moumoumarket, a selection of prints from Felicia Liang, and a handful of zines and printed material from other Taiwanese and Taiwanese-American artists and authors.
Here are a few titles from our current collection. Maybe you’ll find something from a past or future friend:
To Be Your Saint by Hai-Hsin Huang
Aforementioned past-life-sibling-artist Hai-Hsin Huang spent a week at a silent meditation retreat and wrote a comic about it. Astute, funny, endlessly entertaining and also bilingual! Followed up with I’ll Be Your Saint #2, where she volunteers as a canteen worker at the same retreat (who do not have to be silent btw) and wrote a comic about that, too. That book is also in store.
published by Hai-Hsin Huang
Terrible Fever by One Key
This romp of a book is best understood through the words of the author, One Key:
these are doodles around the feeling of peacefulness in Taiwan where news about new noodle shops, cute heartbreaking stories of gogos and miaomees, etc., tend to make bigger headlines than over-dramatized global catastrophes. The very real constant proximity with the Chinese threat feels like it actually sets a general pragmatic and humorous mood in the Taiwanese society, a better-laugh-while-we-can-than-cry mood.
I love it for its familiarity, cacophony, hyperbole, and comedy.
published by good timing
Imagine a Flaw by Son Ni
In this book, artist Son Ni depicts the confinement of one’s own mind and a longing to be free. Simple, abstract line drawings are construed and misconstrued into an imaginative, maze-like narrative of escape and entrapment. I can’t help but think of the Deleuzian fold (“the world is a body of infinite folds that weave through time and space” la la la), topology, möbius strips, and fractals.
published by nos:books
Taipei by Ibi Ibrahim
This photobook by Yemeni-American artist Ibi Ibrahim explores the scenography of the morning streets of Taipei, as observed on early morning walks. It’s a love letter to one of my favorite cities at its quietest moments. Inspired by the sets of Taiwanese New Wave Cinema, but a quietly observational book all its own.
published by makan
I Got out of the Car; the Lighting was Bright by Val Lee
An intricately layered and finely produced book by Taiwanese artist Val Lee, weaving essay, drawing, photography, and script into a dreamlike narrative. From the artist:
The inner pages use different textures of paper and feature rounded corners to simulate a personal notebook’s private feel. It serves as both an artist’s portfolio, a poetry collection, and perhaps even a unique narrative experience created through the book as a spatial medium.
At first, what Val Lee wanted to do the most was to gather participants at an abandoned banquet hall in the middle of the night. There, they would watch a black dragon-dance puppet twist and turn in the thick fog. Meanwhile, someone would ride a skateboard, drink some fruit juice.
I think this title exemplifies what the publisher, dmp editions, does best: connecting text, image, photography into well-designed bilingual books that represent the diversity of the Taiwanese art scene.
published by dmp editions
Night in Morning by Chihoi
This quiet but beautifully printed booklet features a selection of the pencil drawings made by Hong Kong artist Chihoi between 2011-2018, capturing qualities of light and darkness simultaneously, as the early morning arrives to separate night and day.
published by nos:books
I’m so looking forward to seeing you all in the store this season! Just a reminder that we’re closed the rest of this week—Dec 2 through Dec 5—for store renovations (getting a new counter and some shelves, nothing too drastic) and look forward to seeing you again on Saturday, Dec 6th.
your past and future friend,
Lisa Cheng Smith 鄭衍莉
The ideas and opinions expressed in Studio Notes are mine, and don’t represent the larger Yun Hai organization. Thanks to Amalissa Uytingco for the proofing. I read all email replies and comments, so please reach out. Photographs, unless credited, are by me. If you enjoyed this newsletter, share it with friends and subscribe if you haven’t already. I email once a month, sometimes more, sometimes less. For more Taiwanese food, head to yunhai.shop, follow us on instagram and twitter, or view the newsletter archives.
