Chen Long-bin
Encyclopedia
Chen Long-bin is a Taiwanese
Taiwanese people
Taiwanese people may refer to individuals who either claim or are imputed cultural identity focused on the island of Taiwan and/or Taiwan Area which have been governed by the Republic of China since 1945...

 contemporary sculptor.

Biography

Chen Long-bin was born in 1964 in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...

, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. He received a BFA from the Fine Arts Department at Tung-Hai University in Taiwan, and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...

 in New York. He is known for using the cultural debris of our modern society, such as old, discarded books, newspapers, phonebooks, and magazines as the medium for his sculptures. Chen is self-taught in carving wood, but started showing interest in our paper culture as a viable material for art – phonebooks, magazines, and computer paper when PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

’s began growing popular in 1993. The advent of the personal computer changed the entire nature of information documentation – a role books used to play. Thus, by turning paper into the original wood for his sculptures, Chen offers renewed value to the meaning of paper. He uses chainsaws, drills, band saws, sanders, and scissors, along with other carpenter’s tools to shape his remarkable busts and figures, which appear stone, or even marble like from a distance.
Chen who has won prizes in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Taipei, and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, has exhibited extensively at galleries and museums for many years in Japan, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Taiwan, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, and can also be found in numerous international public and private collections. He has been awarded artist fellowship grants from Taiwan’s National Endowment for the Arts, the Joan Mitchell Foundation in New York and the Freeman Foundation. In 1995, he received the Visitor’s Prize of the Sixth Triennial of Small Scale Sculpture in Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

, Germany. And in 1998, he received the Silver Prize at the Osaka Triennial in Japan.

For Chen, using recycled materials to make art stresses the challenges presented by endless human consumption and waste, as well as the tantamount ecological problems of waste accumulation and disposal, the destruction of forests, and the mindless use of nonrenewable resources. The reams of used computer paper disprove the assurance of the electronic paper-less office, which instead augments the use of paper, as printing is made much easier. Furthermore, his choice of medium also poses as a commentary on the loss of books as aesthetic objects, which have been replaced by mass-produced cheaply made paperbacks.
Books are extremely important to Chen. However, it is not the book itself, but its educational heritage, literary importance, historical knowledge, and the sacredness of the written word that he treasures most.

The type of materials he acquires in a sense determines the sculpture he creates. While in New York, he scoured the streets of Manhattan collecting discarded refuse, scouted offices for their rejected reams of paper, visited brownstone streets to gather cast off telephone books when new ones were distributed. And now, living in Taipei, Chen obtains his material from university libraries and bookstores, publishing companies, archeological museums, and telephone companies.

The special quality of Chen’s works is that people can still read the pages.
“I try to make sculptures that are appropriate for the content of the books. In my concept, the form and content is united together; the content gives me the idea of the form. Yellow Pages give me one kind of idea; books discarded from libraries inspire different styles…” Oftentimes, his art reflects the content of the pages within, such as one hanging installation featuring spirals of books with peepholes in which one can view a scene from the story within the original pages.

Solo exhibitions

Continental Express, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, New York, 2008

Chen Long-Bin: Reading Sculpture - Culture Warrior, Plum Blossoms Gallery, Hong Kong, 2006

• Buddha Hurricane, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, 2006

• Reading Sculpture-Los Angeles project, The Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...

, CA, 2005

Reading Sculpture-Kids project, Kidspace at MassMoca, North Adams
North Adams
North Adams can refer to several places in the United States:* North Adams, Massachusetts* North Adams, Michigan...

, MA, 2004

Reading Sculpture-Atlanta project, The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA, 2004

Reading Sculpture-Roma project, Galleria Ca'a d'Oro, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, Italy, 2004

Reading Sculpture-Milan project, Galleria Ca'a d'Oro, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Italy, 2004

Reading Sculpture-Vermont project, Vermont Studio Center, VT, 2004

Reading Sculpture, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, 2003

Alternative Study, Eslite Bookstore, Taiwan, 1999

Taiwan Study, Cultural Affairs Department of Taiwan Provincial Government, Taiwan, 1998

Humanity, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is a museum in Taipei, Taiwan. The museum first opened on December 24, 1983 at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command . It was the first purpose built museum in Taiwan to host modern and contemporary art exhibitions...

, Taipei, Taiwan, 1997

Reading Sculpture, Eight Floor Gallery, New York, 1995

Culture Empire, American Institute in Taiwan, Taipei, Taiwan, 1994

Tools, Space 2 Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 1992

Group exhibitions

Transformation: From ordinary to extraordinary, various Museums across U.S.A and one in Israel, Curate By Barbara J. Bloemink, 2009

Holland Paper Biennial, Museum Rijswijk, Holland, 2008

• CODA Museum, Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland, about 60 miles south east of Amsterdam, in the centre of the Netherlands. It is a regional centre and has 155,000 . The municipality of Apeldoorn, including villages like Beekbergen, Loenen and Hoenderloo, has over 155,000...

, Holland, 2008

Outside In: A New Focus on Taiwanese Art, Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 and TECO, Taipei Cultural Center, 2008

Text Messaging, Islip Museum of Art, New York, 2008

Second Lives: remixing the ordinary, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, 2008

Pulp Function, Fuller Craft museum, Brockton, MA, U.S.A, 2007

Thermocline of Art-New Asian Waves, Germany, 2007

Dalai Lama Portrait Project, Dalai Lama Foundation, Travel Show – Morio Art Museum in Tokyo, Cartier Foundation in Paris and Museum in London, Taipei, Berlin, New York, LA, 2006

Extreme Materials, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...

, New York, 2006

Miami Art Fair, Frederieke Taylor Gallery, Florida, 2005

Do a Book: Asian Artists Summer Project 2004, Plum Blossoms Gallery, New York, NY, 2004

The Invisible Tread – Buddhist Spirit in Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, New York, NY, 2003

The Gravity of the Immaterial, Total Museum
Total Museum
The Total Museum is a museum in Seoul, South Korea.Total Museum of ArtAddress: 465-16 Pyeongchang-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-848Tel: 02-379-3994Fax: 02-379-0252...

, Seoul, 2002

Absolut-2001 Los Angeles International, Biennial Art Invitational, Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, 2001

New Minds – Artistic Creations in Motion, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is a museum in Taipei, Taiwan. The museum first opened on December 24, 1983 at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command . It was the first purpose built museum in Taiwan to host modern and contemporary art exhibitions...

, the International Artists’ Village, Planning Office, CCA, Executive Yuan, 2001

The Gravity of the Immaterial, MoCA Taipei
MoCA Taipei
MoCA Taipei is a museum of contemporary art, located in Taipei, Taiwan.It was built during the period of Japanese rule in 1921 as Jan Cheng Elementary School, which now occupies a new structure on the back of the historical building.After WWII, it hosted the Taipei city government and became an...

, Taipei, 2001

Osaka Triennial 2001, the Contemporary Art Space Osaka (CASO), Osaka, 2001

Landscape on the Shelf, American Cultural Center, Taipei, 2000

Mondo Tiara, Sculpture to Wear Gallery, Santa Monica, U.S.A., 2000

San Francisco Art Fair, Robert Berman Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2000

Volume & Form Singapore 1999, Singapore City, National Library, Singapore, 1999

Play, Paper factory-International Paper Art Festival, Cheng Chuen Cotton Paper Foundation & Cultural Affairs Department Taiwan Provincial Government, Taiwan, 1999

Vision of Pluralism – Contemporary Art in Taiwan, 1988-1999, China Art Museum, Beijing. Mountain Art Museum, Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung
Kaohsiung is a city located in southwestern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on the west. Kaohsiung, officially named Kaohsiung City, is divided into thirty-eight districts. The city is one of five special municipalities of the Republic of China...

, 1999

New Voice: Contemporary art Dialogue Among Taipei, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, National Taiwan Arts Education Institute, Taipei, Hong Kong Art Fair, Fubon Art Foundation, Taipei, 1998

Reflection and Reconsideration 2.28 Commemorative Exhibition, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is a museum in Taipei, Taiwan. The museum first opened on December 24, 1983 at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command . It was the first purpose built museum in Taiwan to host modern and contemporary art exhibitions...

, Taipei, 1998

The Art Season of Taipei Rapid Train Station, National Art Institute, Taipei, 1998

Osaka Trienniale 1998-Sculpture, Osaka Contemporary Art Center
Osaka Contemporary Art Center
The is an art gallery in Osaka, Japan, administered by Osaka Prefecture.The center started in 1974 as Ōsaka Fumin Gyararī . In 1980 its Japanese name was changed to that used today, on the occasion of its move within Kita-ku from Dōjima to Nakanoshima. In 2000 it moved to Chūō-ku.The Center has a...

, Osaka Gateway to Wisdom, Fubon Art Foundation, Taiwan University, Taipei, 1998

Feast of Mind, Buffet of Art, Fubon Art Foundation, Taipei, 1997

Our Deities, ISE Art Foundation, New York Personal Best, Chassie Post Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia, 1996

A Dialogue of Contemporary Sculpture in Asia, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is a museum in Taipei, Taiwan. The museum first opened on December 24, 1983 at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command . It was the first purpose built museum in Taiwan to host modern and contemporary art exhibitions...

, Taipei, 1995
Object Orbit, Chinese-American Arts Council, New York, 1995

obCkession, TZ'art & Co., New York, 1995

Triennial der Kleinplastik 1995, Europe-Ostaien, Stuttgart, Germany, 1995

America vs China, Window Dressing, TZ'art & Co., New York, 1995

New York Area MFA Exhibition, Hunter College
Hunter College
Hunter College, established in 1870, is a public university and one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Hunter grants undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate degrees in more than one hundred fields of study, and is recognized...

, Co-Sponsored by CAA, New York, 1994

The Entering Show of Taipei Fine Arts Museum Biannual, Taipei, Taiwan, 1994

Ross Chambers, Long-Bin Chen and John Lavin, SVA Gallery, New York, 1994

Taiwan Map, Window Dressing, Dimension Art Center, Taipei, 1994

Curious Structures, Visual Art Gallery, New York, 1993

Play, Work, Think, Visual Art Gallery, New York, 1993

Time Duration, Dimension Art Center, Taipei, Taiwan, 1992

Selling Specialty, Go Go Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 1992

Can Art Be Heritable? Space 2 Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 1992

The 5th International Print Biennial of Taiwan, Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is a museum in Taipei, Taiwan. The museum first opened on December 24, 1983 at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command . It was the first purpose built museum in Taiwan to host modern and contemporary art exhibitions...

, Taipei, 1991

Vernacular, Space 2 Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 1991

Shih Hsing New Artist, Shih Hsing Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan, 1987

Awards

• Freeman Foundation Fellowship, 2003

• Grant of the Nation Endowment for Arts, Taiwan, 2001

• 1998 Grant of the Nation Endowment for Arts, Taiwan, 1998

• The Silver Prize of Osaka Triennial 1998 (sculpture), Osaka, Japan, 1998

• 1997 Grant of the Nation Endowment for Arts, Taiwan, 1997

• 1996 Grant Award of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, New York, 1996

• Visitors Price of the 6 Triennial of Small Scale Sculpture, Stuttgart, Germany, 1995

• Tung-Hai University Fine Arts Prize, Taiwan, 1988

• 12th Shih Hsing New Artist Prize, Taipei, Taiwan, 1987

• National Print Prize, Taiwan, 1985

Professional Activities

• Sacatar Residency artist, Brazil, 2006

• MassMOCA Residency artist, 2005

• Vermont Studio Center Residency artist, U.S.A., 2004

• Snug Harbor Cultural Center Residency artist, U.S.A., 2003

• 18th Street Art Complex Residency artist, U.S.A., 2000

• Lecturer of Shin-Jan University, Taipei, 1997

• Curator for Incertitude, a group show of Chinese and Taiwanese artist, Eight Floor Gallery, New York, 1996

• Curator for Under Naked, Group show of Chinese and Taiwanese artists, 465 Gallery, New York, 1994

• Program director for Space 2 Gallery, Taipei, 1991

Collections and Projects

• West Collection, Philadelphia, U.S.A., 2004

• Taiwan National Museum, Taiwan, 1999

• Osaka Culture Bureau, Japan, 1998

• Allan Chasanoff, Private Collection, New York, 1995

• Suho Paper Museum, TaipeiLibenn Aroma Inc., South Ban, Indiana, U.S.A., 1994

• Hsiung Shih Fine Art Magazine, Taipei, 1986
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