PAST

In 2014, the “Stray Dogs at the Museum: Tsai Ming-Liang Solo Exhibition,” a collaborative effort between the Museum of National Taipei University of Education (MoNTUE) and filmmaker Tsai Ming-Liang, subverted commercial screening mechanisms by combining a screening of the film Stray Dogs at the museum with an exhibition — integrating the cinema experience into the museum arena. This was followed in 2016 by “No No Sleep: Tsai Ming-Liang Solo Exhibition,” when the museum welcomed visitors to a one-of-a-kind nocturnal museum experience. Tsai Ming-Liang’s distinctive “handmade” approach to filmmaking departs from conventional production modes of the contemporary film industry. By gazing at time and sculpting light, he derives inspiration from life’s moments of kismet and fuels his unfettered creativity, enabling his work to cross boundaries and span multiple disciplines.

Tsai Ming-Liang’s 11th feature film, Days, represents a culmination of his artistic philosophy and practice. His years of multidisciplinary artistic methods and museum collaborations have enabled him to continue in a conscious accumulation of diverse images. Over the years, Tsai has trained his lens on Lee Kang-Sheng, chronicling his illness, and his quest for medical treatment. A chance encounter with Anong Houngheuangsy in Bangkok provided renewed inspiration for Tsai, enabling new ideas to germinate, branch out, and propagate in lush and unexpected channels. These two individuals bound by their own corporeality and quotidian lives, were brought together by fate, only to part ways. The essence of four years has been distilled into Days, a film about living.

The global pandemic set Tsai Ming-Liang apart from Kang, and Anong. Grappling with the isolation of this separation, Tsai turned to his paintbrush and canvas to rekindle memories spent with the two. Over the course of three years, he produced over 20 paintings, reminiscent of scenes from the film Days. Creativity comes from life, and life is distilled into creativity. Ideas for the interdisciplinary project of “Days” were thus conceived. While the film Days is screened at the cinema, the “Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days” exhibition unfolds at the museum. For the filmmaker, both manifestations coalesced through mutual inspiration, with neither taking precedence over the other.

Continuing in the trajectory of the exhibitions “Stray Dogs at the Museum” (2014) and “No No Sleep” (2016), director Tsai Ming-Liang joins forces once again with MoNTUE’s producer, Lin Mun-lee. Their venture, “Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days,” showcases Tsai’s artistic endeavors over the past decade. The exhibition will include works from the Days, Old Chairs, Memory of Cinema series, an array of vintage chairs, large-scale paper backdrops used in the stage play The Monk from Tang Dynasty, and a selection of rarely seen footages and short films.

“Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days” once again disrupts museum conventions and discards established rules, refining the concept of handmade production. The entire museum space transforms into the filmmaker’s spiritual and living domain. “Tsai Ming-Liang’s Days” is a dynamic exhibition that continually evolves and takes on a life of its own. On display are not only Tsai’s life and times, but also his self-revelation as an artist. Temporal connotations here are the aura and sustenance of Tsai Ming-Liang’s visual experimentation; while the crystallization of life is a testament to his artistic practice.