In Conversation: Magnus Renfrew and Robin Peckham

At the second edition of Taipei Dangdai in early 2020, we spoke with the fair’s co-directors to find out more about Peckham’s appointment and the duo’s vision and values for this year’s event and beyond

Design Anthology: Magnus, you’re the former director of Art Basel Hong Kong and you established Taipei Dangdai last year, in 2019. How has your experience shifted co-directing with a curator like Robin?

Magnus Renfrew: It’s brilliant having Robin on board. We're getting into a very good rhythm working together. The vision for the fair right from the outset was that it would be ‘Taipei Dangdai Art and Ideas’, and since Robin's got a great balance of curatorial and editorial experience, is knowledgeable about the art world and commercially pragmatic, I felt it would really boost the fair to have him co-direct alongside me. Also, he’s based on the ground here and speaks fluent Mandarin.

Last year, Taiwanese artist John Yuyi’s installation was placed centrally at the entrance to the exhibition hall. In this edition, the more immersive installations have been moved to the periphery of the fair. Can you tell us a bit about that shift?

Robin Peckham: There's a very specific function to their placement. We want to draw people in certain directions. A few installations are quite experiential, and these works dovetail quite nicely with how people experience art nowadays — through immersion, new media, and technology. Jihyun Boo's laser room, for example, is very technological, and this type of work resonates well with younger exhibition-going crowds. In addition, the Ideas Forum is split into four different themes: technology, ecology, tradition and pop, and we wanted to subtly link these themes to the fair, so the installations are aligned with that. We’re not trying to turn Dangdai into an exhibition, but we want visitors to come away feeling there's cohesion to the fair.

David Zwirner represents Oscar Murillo, an artist who is politically vigorous and even anti-establishment. At Murillo’s public lecture on the second day, he questioned his identity as an artist in this industry, and reflected on the critical nature of his work, while at a commercial art fair. What was the thinking behind integrating someone like him into this fair?

RP: Oscar is one of my all-time favourite artists and we have a very long and sustained relationship. The magazine I worked at a couple of years ago was first to publish the statement he wrote about ripping up his passport on the way to Australia. We also did a lot of work together in China and there's much more of a censorship issue there. During one performance he started saying something contentious and the organiser began asking people to leave the area. Another time he played a song about revolution into the microphone, and the museum team started unplugging the PA system. So, for him to be one of the first speakers on the program here in Taipei is a really beautiful thing. I had no idea what he would say or do. I think that's the beauty of setting up a framework for exchange and allowing criticality to be a part of that. It’s one of our values.

MR: It's also a reflection of self-confidence and openness. We’re not taking ourselves too seriously, nor are we unaware of the conflicting nature of everything we’re involved with. There's lots of different currents and crossing points in terms of what we do and our interactions between commercial and non-commercial work, and how people experience art. There's lots of different conversations that need to be had, and we have to be open to that.

As told to / Leora Joy Jones