Special Exhibition of Centennial Dwarf Enclosure — The Beauty and Dangers Behind Yang Li's “After His Reign”
In recent years, the traveling Taiwanese painter Yang Li, who has gained attention from his media channel Painter Verse, will present his large-scale solo exhibition “After The Golden Age” at the centennial landmark “Taiwan Confucius Pavilion” in Taichung. The exhibition will be held from March 14 to March 29 and will present the artist's remaining 30 works created between 2023 and 2025, including a huge new work up to six meters long.
The exhibition is the painter's response to the post-pandemic world. The pandemic began in 2019, and at the time human society expected it to be just a random event that would eventually return to order. However, in the wake of the pandemic, the global recession, the rise of the power struggle, the escalation of geopolitical conflicts, and the tearing apart of the value system, the progressive narrative that once held “One World at the heart of the imagination” has gradually shaken. What The Afterlife reveals is the disorganization and destruction that lurks behind the prosperity of history.
Yang Li said: “The most important thing as a painter is to depict this era based on your own observation.” For him, painting is not remaking grand narratives, but responding to the changes of the times from an individual perspective.
This visual structure is promoted to greater intensity in this exhibition
The splendid setting remains, but order has collapsed; under the shining image is the shadow of a wolf's escape and emptiness.
From the Afterlife Scenes: A Visual Metaphor for the Wolf's Delight
Yang Li transformed the experience of collective loss of control and inclination into visual language. The picture is like a scene after a banquet hall: the colors are still shining, the symbols are still complex, but the internal structure has quietly loosened. The Afterlife is not simply a historical review, but a question of “The Last World” itself as a political narrative and psychological structure.
The exhibition consists of four themes: “Shuko and Summer Bugs” “Weapons on the Map” “Treasures in Domeless Land” “Dinosaurs in Paradise”
The four themes all point to the same core: the world of glory that often accompanies the illusion, and the crisis that lurks in the fantasy. History tells us that every period of self-aggrandisement in the Golden Age also begets the seeds of ruin. From the imagination of economic miracles to the proclamation of the rise of national power, the words of the world have often been the basis of the legitimacy of power and the consignment of collective psychology.
Yang Li did not intend to create a political platform, but responded to the unstable atmosphere of the times by painting. For him, the painter's responsibility is not to provide answers, but to preserve space to watch.
A contemporary art exhibition held in the Centennial Workshop provides an epochal dialogue through work and space.
The site of this exhibition is the Taiwan Confucian Workshop, which was completed in 1892. As a relic of the Qing Dynasty, Ju Kao Tana symbolizes the historical system of power, order and electoral mechanisms. Today, the art content brand “No Fine Art” takes over and transforms it into an art exhibition, creating a time gap between the system and viewing. The systemic memory of the historical site contrasts with the depiction of the breakdown of order in Yang Li's paintings, making the exhibition a dialogue between space and time.
Edit notes:
Those glaring colors in Yang Li's paintings can be argued to be an “overburning of energy.” When the color reaches its maximum saturation, it is often the tipping point where things are tilted. This is at the heart of the theme “Beauty and danger coexist”: beneath those seemingly bright, ornate settings, lie the seeds of order breakdown and disorganization. This high-pressure burning of vision reveals that the great world is not only a grand fantasy, but the horror of the wolf's mercy is the ultimate reality of history.
Exhibition Information
Exhibition Name | Yang Li Solo Exhibition “After the Great World”
Exhibition Dates | Closed on Wednesdays from 14 March to 29 March 2026 (Sun) 10:30-18:00.
Exhibition Venue | Taiwan Fu Kao Pavilion (No. 38-8 Fuho Street, West District, Taichung City)
Opening Talk | 14 March 2026 (Sat) 14:00-15:30
Opening Ceremony | Mar 14, 2026 (Sat) 15:30-18:00
Organizer | CH+ART Projects
Co-organizer | Taiwan Fu Kao Studio X Incredible Art
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Yang Li, born in Taipei in 1993, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Versailles, France in 2017, and was nominated for the Taipei Fine Arts Prize in 2020. He has been one of the most discussed painters in Taiwan in recent years. His paintings blend classical masters' vocabulary with contemporary visual elements, placing chaotic and uncoordinated visual elements in the same frame through compositions that are not a single point of view, allowing the viewer to view our world together under intense and moving strokes.
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