J.A. Labadie & M.B. Labadie Art ExhibitionKuandu Museum of Art at the Taipei National University of the Arts

Living in Taiwan 2005 - ‘06

John Antoine Labadie2005 – 2006 Fulbright Senior Scholar National Cheng Chi University & Taipei National University of the Arts

Margie Beth Labadie2006 Fubon Communications ScholarNational Cheng Chi University

From the catalogue essay:“Four decades ago, terms such as computer-based art, the world wide web, large format digital prints, 3D imaging, virtual reality, iPod, computer animation, interactive art, and the graphical user interface had not entered our collective vocabulary. The decades of the 1960s and 1970s were alive with individual as well as corporate experimentation and innovation focused on the possibilities and benefits computers might offer. The experiments of this period are the basis of much of the computer art and animation we experience today. In 2006 our digital technologies can expand the bond between the artist and the production of new forms of work beyond those possibilities offered by pre-digital technologies still widely used in art-making: welding, printmaking presses, pneumatic and hydraulic tools, industrial prototyping processes, and airbrushes -- among others. In all cases, as any art historian or art critic would agree, the industrial technician or expressive artist works with and through the machines producing anything the mind might imagine: a metal child's toy to a piece of sculpture by David Smith; a traffic sign or a portrait by Andy Warhol; a highway bridge or a work by Richard Serra; metal awnings for a school or an installation by Christo & Jean-Claude; a retouched photo of a wedding or a painting by Audrey Flack.Digital artwork (in its myriad forms) is the first truly new and unprecedented expressive, interpretive media since the introduction of photography in the 1820's. In my view, artistic efforts in any medium should be unhindered by any critical disapproval that derides artworks accomplished by means with little or no historical precedent. It is growth and experimentation in the arts we should all seek and support. What of the future of the computer in the arts? May we choose our tools carefully and see what we can make of them and with them.” John Antoine Labadie May 2006

Note: The images in this volume are not annotated and are presented here only so that the reader can see the kinds of works presented in Kuandu at this event.

“Newly Discovered Species”A 2006 exhibition of the artworks of John Antoine & Margie Beth Labadie

Located at the Taipei National University of the Arts and overlooking the Kuandu Plain and constructed alongside the mountain slope, the KdMoFA is the first fine arts museum located within a university campus in Taiwan. A contemporary art piece with unique architectural design, the four story museum – with two basement levels comprising nine exhibition galleries – offers a quality exterior and interior exhibition space of 720 2376 square meters.

KdMoFaKuandu Museum of Fine Arts

J.A. & M.B. Labadie Exhibition “Newly Discovered Species”

Kuandu Museum of Art at the Taipei National Museum of the ArtsTaipei, Taiwan R.O.C