Taiwan paper art stars at French design festival

2016/06/02

Taiwan is the honorable guest country invited to French design festival D’Days in Paris May 30 to June 5 at Museum of Decorative Arts, as well as 24b Gallery and Joseph Turenne Gallery.

Famous for combining practical and aesthetic industrial design, Museum of Decorative Arts—located in the western wing of the Louvre—showcases Taiwan’s continuous innovation of current paper manufacturing and paper products in maintaining traditional values. This is in conjunction with fashion and economic practice, also taking into account the green concept of environmental protection.

The “Taiwan—Unfolding” exhibition site was designed by renowned French designer Sebastien Cordoleani and produced by Taiwan’s Paper Space Company. Among the participants are Hsin Hsin Paper Sculpture Store, owned by Chang Hsu-pei; Hung Hsin-fu’s paper arts; and IDEOXO by Ideoso Design Consultancy Inc.

The declining art of paper-pasting was discovered by exhibition curator Patricio Sarmiento, several years ago when he was travelling in Taiwan. He was surprised that the exquisite paper pasting design art works were going up in smoke as Taiwan people offered them to the flames as sacrifices for ancestor worship or at funerals. Sarmiento then decided to visit HHPSS to learn more about these art works, and introduce them to the Western world.

“This is an art unknown to many people, or it is not recognized as a form of art … but I really hope to share it with other Europeans,” he said.

Chang Hsu-pei is one of the few surviving artists proficient at cutting and pasting paper on bamboo frameworks to make paper effigies, paper utensils and houses for the dead to enjoy. This is the first time Chang brought to the exhibition four art works of paper pasted dragon head, dragon tail, luxury mansion and bamboo frame of dragon head.

According to Chang, the paper sculpture industry has changed a lot in recent years because the labor intensive and time consuming craft has given way to machines and modern technology.

“Though the living still burn effigies to the deceased, demand is declining,” he said. “The skills to make paper pasting are gradually disappearing, and there are only a dozen paper sculpture stores surviving in Taiwan, with very few turning out refined art works.”

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=245275&ctNode=2194&mp=9)