Installation view, Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun); Taipei Biennial 2025: Whispers on the Horizon, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo: Lu Guo-Way.
A thief runs at full speed holding a blazing sun, still warm and glowing. A faraway forest transforms into pure darkness. Summer has come to an end. The chorus casts a burning judgment which is not a sentence, but a growing weight in the chest. A mechanical crab and a speaking shoe whisper their final laments. The incessant riddles consume the energy of the figure standing tall in the center of the scene. He stands beside a pear that refuses to be eaten. The character gestures: left hand to the chest, right hand open and facing up toward the sky. The thief believes that what he cradles is a stolen sun, but it is only an orange – still warm and glowing.
For this edition of the Taipei Biennial, Álvaro Urbano presents a light sculpture, consisting of a dropped ceiling that hovers above the exhibition space. Urbano presents a narrative selection of artworks that belong to the collection of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum within this reversed stage. The light casted over these artworks incites a dialogue: a nude figure, a pear, an abstract meadow plunged into darkness, a kid stealing an orange. Different scenes and apparitions take place, and invite the viewer to immerse themselves within the unfolding chain of events. Urbano questions the possible stories that these artworks have embedded within themselves and surrounding their exhibition history. TABLEAU VIVANT functions simultaneously as an autonomous sculpture and as a stage for other objects to become actors.
Installation view, Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun); Taipei Biennial 2025: Whispers on the Horizon, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo: Lu Guo-Way.
Installation view, Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun); Taipei Biennial 2025: Whispers on the Horizon, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo: Lu Guo-Way.
Installation view, Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun); Taipei Biennial 2025: Whispers on the Horizon, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo: Lu Guo-Way.
Installation view, Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun); Taipei Biennial 2025: Whispers on the Horizon, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo: Lu Guo-Way.
Installation view, Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun); Taipei Biennial 2025: Whispers on the Horizon, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo: Lu Guo-Way.
Installation view, Álvaro Urbano: TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun); Taipei Biennial 2025: Whispers on the Horizon, Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Photo: Lu Guo-Way.
Selected artworks from the TFAM Collection:
CHANG Yee, Crab, 1985, Bronze, 52 cm.
HARN Donald, Torso (XIV), 1993, Camphorwood, 62 cm.
HUI Ming Chieh, William’s Pear, 1989, Bronze and paint, 25 × 25 × 50 cm.
Paul Landowski, Kid Stealing Orange, 1903, Bronze, 16 × 22 × 33 cm.
MEI Dean-E, The Tongue of a Shoe, 1983, Wax, plastic and paint, 19 × 6.8 × 9 cm.
WANG Lian-Chi, The Blue Period, Date unknown, FRP, 52 × 64 × 183 cm.
WU Cheng-Yuan, Human Body, 1992, FRP, 70 × 50 × 50 cm.
YANG Po-Lin, Face Series-Among People, 1984, Bronze, 46 cm. Face Series-Variation, 1984, Bronze, 36 cm. Face Series-Face Inside a Tunnel, 1984, Bronze, 42.5 cm. Face Series-Bring Back Memory From the Face Beside a Sea, 1984, Bronze, 42 cm. Face Series-Disparage, Bronze, 1984, 36 cm.
YEN Ye-Cheng, Landscape (11), 2003, Oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm (× 3).