exhibitions
After over 20 years, Wen-Ying Tsai’s work returns to China as part of an exhibition titled The Dynamic Eye: Op and Kinetic Art from the Tate Collection at Shanghai’s Museum of Art Pudong (MAP). The exhibition touches upon important groups of artists who chose to work together, such as GRAV, Zero, Signals, New Tendencies, CAVS as well as exhibitions that were foundational to the development of Op and Kinetic Art, like The Responsive Eye (1965, New York) and The Machine Show (1968, New York). This will be a traveling exhibition in Asia co-organized by MAP and Tate that opened on September 30th, 2022.
In 2022, we are participating in a number of exhibitions in Europe and Asia. Among these is the inaugural exhibition Kinetisumus of the new Kunsthalle Praha museum in the Czech Republic. This ambitious inaugural exhibition, whose full title is Kinetismus: 100 Years of Electricity in Art, brings together major kinetic works of nearly a hundred artists of the 20th century. In 2023, a Tsai retrospective is planned in Gdansk, Poland.
The Zentrum fuer Kunst und Medien (ZKM, Center for Art and Media) in Karlsruhe Germany hosted “Negative Space – Trajectories of sculpture,” the follow-up exhibition to Centre George Pompidou’s renown 1986 show “Qu’est-ce que la sculpture moderne?” or “What is modern sculpture?” This ambitious exhibit showcased Tsai’s “Single Diffraction” among many of the works of his contemporaries. Additionally, Wen-Ying Tsai’s work was accompanied by his son London Tsai’s piece “Hopf Fibration – a rotor-generated space.” This unique co-location of father and son’s works is a demonstration of how, in one clear manner, the senior Tsai’s work continues to evolve into the 21st Century. The exhibit Negative Space was from April 6 – August 11, 2019.
The Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT was an important anchor in Wen-Ying Tsai’s artistic career. Although he had already developed his mature cybernetic work before being invited by Gyorgy Kepes and Otto Piene to be amongst the Center’s first Fellows in 1969, Tsai always saw CAVS as a spiritual epicenter for the kind of work he was doing. It was there that Tsai made life-long connections with artists that were working in the same direction using art, technology, and science in their practices. Tsai’s cybernetic sculpture “Large Tuning Fork” was shown at the MIT Museum as part of the CAVS 50th Anniversary exhibition, February 15, 2018 – January 30, 2019.
This poster (black with silver imprint) was designed by Jacqueline Casey for Tsai’s exhibit “Cybernetic Sculpture Environment: New work done at the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies” at the Hayden Gallery, MIT, February 6 – March 3, 1971. The work in the poster is also a “tuning fork” and is closely related to the one shown at the MIT Museum for the CAVS 50th Anniversary.
Wen-Ying Tsai’s cybernetic sculpture was exhibited at the New Tate Modern, June 2016 – February 2017. The Umbrella work was featured in the Tanks gallery of the Switch House–a unique space to experience the subtleties of Tsai’s interactive installations.
“Umbrella”
1971
stainless steel, concrete, motor, strobe light, and audio feedback control
265 x 180 x 180 cm
Our SoHo space in Manhattan is now configured for intimate exhibitions. We will first exhibit the work of Tsai and his contemporaries, and then exhibit works of younger artists who are continuing in the spirit of applying science and technology in their practices. The space will also host open dialogues and interdisciplinary performances in conjunction with exhibitions.