Paris-Paris

Left: Cedric Teisseire, 2008; Right: J Julien le beatnick et l oiseau, 2007. Paris is still Paris, or perhaps just Paris. This warm, poetic Paris is my beloved lover, following me like a shadow wherever I roam. Paris has become the soul of my life, captivating me day and night. After wandering in my homeland, I return to the embrace of this Parisian lover—a feeling only I can comprehend. Though the temperature is low, there is a warmth within. The emotion of love makes it hard to imagine even seas drying up and stones rotting.

Flying from Taiwan’s homeland, where temperatures hovered around ten degrees due to a cold front, after a full day’s journey back to Paris where it was zero degrees without a cold front, the chill carries a warmth of blood. The warmth in my heart is rising because returning home feels profoundly different. The feeling of returning home is unimaginable. Home is everything in life, yet not everything in life is home. Life exists in such wonderful magic, omnipresent. Home is the most important refuge for life and the space that creates life’s context.

The atmosphere, temperature, emotions, scenery, and nest of home all belong to my own world. A home with its own unique realm is extraordinary. Where else in the world can people feel more at ease? “Home” is a realm of personal liberation and freedom, a space for imagination to gallop, and a domain for private life—my creative space as well. My roaming between Paris and the call of my homeland is also unimaginable. The homeland is a space that soothes the wanderer’s soul and witnesses the true story of life. Homeland-Taiwan and Paris-home have become my cross-cultural life experience. This dual life makes me both the other and myself; the original homeland becomes the foreign land, and the foreign land becomes my home.

What fascinates me about my beloved Paris is not what lies beneath skirts—of course, color does not charm, but people can still be captivated by themselves. What fascinates me in Paris is the brilliance of art and humanities. Guided by artistic inspiration, I embraced Paris. Out of curiosity about everything, my horizons broadened significantly. Roaming through this multifaceted society, I learned to perceive and witness the operation of historical time and era trends. Pursuing multi-dimensional cognition and new knowledge relentlessly, I actively engaged in artistic exploration. Paris enriched my life and shaped my soul.

Returning to Paris less than a week ago, I once again explored important exhibitions with curiosity and excitement, harboring joy. Accompanying my wife to the Jacquemart-André Museum to visit the special exhibition “Van Dyck,” we saw works by Van Dyck (1599–1641), one of the most outstanding Northern European portrait painters of the 17th century. The exhibition featured a series of technically masterful portraits, particularly those of King Charles I and his wife, clearly demonstrating the humanistic spirit of the 17th century. We also visited the solo exhibition of the elderly yet vigorous Spanish painter Antonio Tapies at a gallery. Two days ago, unable to wait, I went to the Palais de Tokyo in Paris to view the current contemporary art thematic exhibition “From One Revolution to Another.” Curious and excited, it felt like a date with a first love—visiting this novel exhibition that elaborates on another cultural revolution stemming from the Industrial Revolution, presented through a series of images, documents, and objects in an anthropological, sociological, and cross-cultural artistic context. Clearly, such cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exhibitions have become important topics and directions in contemporary art, offering another path for creation and a new perspective on artistic innovation. Embracing my Parisian lover has given me room to grow, intellectually and joyfully. Paris is still Paris, but not only Paris, because I also embrace the brilliant sunshine of Taiwan—the call of the homeland to the wanderer. A wanderer who returns is worth more than gold. Am I a wanderer?