“Will Things Ever Get Better?”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, 2013

Totaling at 35 sets of sculpture, this solo exhibition combines works from the artist’s two phases: Naked Beyond Skin (2008), and Will Things Ever Get Better? (2011) to form Xiang Jing’s largest show in recent years. This, being the Taipei stop of her touring exhibition, marks the first large-scale visit of Xiang Jing’s works to Taiwan in 2013.

Although the exhibited sculptures take on various themes such as body, acrobatics, and animals, they point towards a grave and universal issue: human condition. The occasion also marks the first time where works from two of Xiang Jing’s principle phases are selected for a single exhibition - this enables the viewers to take advantage of the rare integration and gain insight into the continuity and relevance across different phases on the artist’s creative track.

Xiang Jing herself selected works from the Body Series, the Acrobat Series, and the Animal Series for this exhibition at the MoCA Taipei. This collection of works is allusive in style; they form outward projections of inner psychological states which jointly transform the exhibition hall into a psychological stage. In this way, the artist highlights her powerful and unceasing commitment to and advocacy of critical thinking and independent judgment in the present age which is characterized by the submission of the individual to the will of the collective.

On-site description
The building which now hosts the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei used to be a primary school during the period of Japanese occupation. Each exhibition hall had once been an individual classroom. In Will Things Ever Get Better? works from the Acrobat Series, the Animal Series, and the Body Series are mixed and matched to fill