The Yearning That Shapes the Taipei Biennial

A man in silhouette reclines on the beach, glancing out at the ocean, which glistens with white hexagonal pearls – the kind of blurry vision you might see as you wipe seawater from your eyes and readjust to the healing sunlight. There is undoubtedly a nostalgic sense of longing in Cheng Sang-Syi’s monochrome photograph Impression from the Seashore (1960): a pining for a simpler past, perhaps, or a moment of summer respite. 

It is one of 15 historical images from the collection of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum that punctuate the latest iteration of the Taipei Biennial, the title of which is referenced in the text accompanying Cheng’s picture, as if inspired by it: ‘Whispers on the Horizon’. It is the conceit of curators and Hamburger Bahnhof co-directors Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, whose starting points included three objects, all infused with yearning – a word that surfaces again and again during my visit. These lodestars comprise a puppet from Hou Hsiao-hsien’s film The Puppetmaster (1993), a diary from Chen Yingzhen’s short story ‘My Kid Brother Kangxiong’ (1960) and a bicycle from Wu Ming-yi’s novel The Stolen Bicycle (2017).

From their selections, it feels as if Bardaouil and Fellrath’s intention is to convey a private, percolating yearning rather than an all-consuming physical or emotional desperation. The exhibition is at its best when playful or when it carefully deploys the museum’s holdings. A fellow writer observed to me that the show is somewhat apolitical, yet charming for it. I wouldn’t go that far, but it certainly doesn’t seek to agitate the viewer too much. That’s not Bardaouil and Fellrath’s style; instead, they are more reflective, seemingly driven by an interest in memory and desire.

Beneath Álvaro Urbano’s panelled ceiling in TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun) (2024/25), which flickers with amber light and seems inhabited by butterflies and bustling leaves, a selection of bronzes from the collection convenes in an exhibition-within-an-exhibition: a contorted figure by Wu Cheng-Yuan, Human Body (1992), coils in on itself beside a deconstructed crustacean by Chang Yee, a helpless yet empathetic witness (Crab, 1987). This charged corner, in which time is condensed, is a real highlight; the industrial modernism evident in several of these objects has found its stage.

Fuyuhiko Takata’s film The Princess and the Magic Birds (2021/25) sees two hand-operated puppet birds chirping into the ear of a real-life sleeping young man, telling the winding tale of the titular royal and her blue-collar lover. It is a tender yet bold evocation of nascent desire. The intimate theme is echoed in a nearby installation by Ni Hao containing several works, including The Bloom That Holds Her Shadow (2025), all made from socks bought from anonymous online fetishists and re-enlivened as personified sculptures.

I find myself drawn to these very human moments, including the cerebral three-channel film installation Recipients (2025), in which an older woman tends to plants on her Tokyo balcony and shows her daughter, the artist Shizuka Yokomizo, analogue slides of her former flowers. This sense of quiet reflection is picked up in a nearby oil painting of Taipei City, Taiwan Hometown Scene (1925–30) by Chen Chih-Chi, which depicts tall trees and thatched houses, prompting me to consider its contrast with the metropolis beyond the museum today.

Increasingly, biennials serve as soft-power muscles for the governments that help fund them – a fact rather than a judgement. For curators, this often means creating shows that are both rooted in a place, historically and contemporarily, and oriented towards international engagement. By leaning into a universal feeling of yearning that we all recognize, Bardaouil and Fellrath have created a meaningful space, despite the tensions arising from these pressures, and a show that seems to genuinely connect with its audience.

The 2025 Taipei Biennial, ‘Whispers on the Horizon’, is on view at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum until 23 March 2026

^{Main image: Álvaro Urbano, TABLEAU VIVANT (A Stolen Sun), 2024/25, installation view. Courtesy of the artist; Taipei Fine Arts Museum; ChertLüdde, Berlin; Travesia Cuatro, Madrid, Mexico City, Guadalajara; and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris, Los Angeles}