Island of Another Scene

Island of Another Scene is a solo exhibition of two dozen photographs taken in and around the Taipei art scene over the preceding five years. The images are spontaneous portraiture of artists, artworks, or art-like scenarios; all shot with a digital rangefinder and a single fixed lens. Every moment is in close-up and on the ground level.

The principle of the installation is low-cost and low-contact. Rather than framing the works and drilling holes in concrete walls, I used steel washers, masking tape, and magnets to hold the prints up. My intent is to show the image as an object, and make the hanging look hands-on.

Subjects featured in this collection include Ai Weiwei, Betty Apple, FAMEME, Item Idem, Julia Hung, Jun Yang, Lai Chih-Sheng, Lee Kit, Luo Jr-Shin, Michael Lin, Su Hui-Yu, Su Misu, and Taipei Popcorn.

The show is presented by The Studio, an independent exhibition space, private kitchen, and lounge. It’s the perfect venue for art and life to mix.

Island of Another Scene: Photographs by Christopher Adams

Dates: 2025.05.03–2025.08.03
Opening: 2025.05.03 (SAT) 3–5pm
Venue: The Studio (2F, No. 142, Sec. 3, Bade Rd, Songshan District, Taipei)

I have taken pictures of the arts and artists in Taiwan for the past twelve years. This includes photographs of their many performances, their varied installations, and their interesting faces, but also their parties, their studios, and sometimes even their domiciles. Occasionally, a friend or visitor will intrude into the frame. I will even photograph a scene that isn’t a formal artwork, but could be, when seen in the right light.

However, I do not consider my work to be documentation, reportage, or least of all event or museum photography. Instead, I see it as a kind of portraiture that does not discriminate between the person and the work, or the subject and the object. Art critics can theorize about “relational aesthetics” (where art is about the entire social context), but if relational art does indeed exist, I will try to photograph it everywhere I go.

The title of this exhibition is adapted from a phrase by Jean Baudrillard, which he wrote in a book of his own photographs:

The degree of intensity of the image matches the degree of its denial of the real, its invention of another scene. To make an image of an object is to strip the object of all its dimensions one by one: weight, relief, smell, depth, time, continuity, and, of course, meaning.

—Jean Baudrillard. Photographies 1985–1998. Hatje Cantz, 2000.