Photography

Roger Boyce explores the photographic still lifes of New Zealand artist Fiona Pardington in lucid, evocative prose. Drawing on the history of painting, he examines their rich pathos and visual power as an 'amor fati'—a profound veneration of things in their inviolable circumstance.

Yao Jui-Chung is one of Taiwan’s most acclaimed contemporary artists. In this major 2020 interview with White Fungus editor Ron Hanson—conducted on the occasion of his mid-career retrospective Republic of Cynic at C-LAB—he reflects on coming of age after martial law, running a karaoke room during his Air Force military service, and Taiwan’s complex history and identity.

Noise music in Taiwan emerged in the 1990s, a tumultuous period of social upheaval following the lifting of 38 years of martial law. In the frenzied atmosphere of street clashes and political demonstrations, artists explored previously taboo subjects and experimented with radical forms. It was in this context that Taiwan's noise movement was born. Jeph Lo witnessed the evolution and reflects on that messy but protean time. His article is accompanied by photographs of political demonstrations of the period by Leon Tsai and Tsai Ming-Te.

In this series of wide-angle polaroids, Yao Jui-Chung photographs Madou Temple's animatronic religious display and other similar depictions of hell from throughout Taiwan and Singapore.

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s landmark photographs of the final days of the Chinese Civil War were exhibited at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2020. A Beijing showing planned for 2021 was cancelled due to COVID-19. David Frazier writes about the exhibition's reception in Taiwan, speculates on how it might have been received in Beijing, and examines its complicated historical and political context.

Joseph del Pesco presents photographer Curran Hatleberg with a series of questions to which the artist responds with images.