Wen-Ying Tsai (; October 13, 1928 – January 2, 2013) was a Chinese-American pioneer cybernetic sculptor and kinetic artist best known for creating sculptures using electric motors, stainless steel rods, stroboscopic light, and audio feedback control. As one of the first Chinese-born artists to achieve international recognition in the 1960s, Tsai was an inspiration to generations of Chinese artists around the world.

Biography

Wen-Ying Tsai was born in 1928 in Xiamen, Fujian,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, and emigrated to the United States in 1950, where he attended the University of Michigan, receiving a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering (BSME) in 1953. Moving to New York City after graduation, Tsai embarked on a successful career as an architectural engineer working for clients such as Walter Gropius,

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...

, Synergetics, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. While working as an engineer by day, Tsai pursued artistic studies at the Art Students League at night, while also taking courses in political science and economics at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

. Tsai also attended modern dance classes with Erick Hawkins. In 1963, Tsai won a John Hay Whitney Fellowship for Painting, after which he decided to leave engineering and devote full-time to the arts. After a three-month trip in Europe, he returned to New York and began to make three-dimensional constructions using optical effects, fluorescent paints, and

ultra-violet light Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation i ...

. These wary works were later selected for ''

The Responsive Eye Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions. Op artworks are abstract, with many better-known pieces created in black and white. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images ...

'', an exhibition curated by William Seitz at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Tsai multi-kineticwall2 1965

Unsatisfied with his static sculptures, Tsai began to introduce movement using motors. He created ''Multi-kinetic Wall'' in 1965, which was exhibited in ''Art Turned On'' at the

Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is an art museum and exhibition space located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. The museum was founded as the Boston Museum of Modern Art in 1936. Since then it has gone through multiple na ...

. Art historian Sam Hunter described the work: But it was ultimately during a fellowship at the Edward MacDowell Colony in 1965 that Tsai had his "Eureka!" moment. While contemplating the sunlight shimmering in the trees, he had a sudden insight to use his engineering background to create art work that replicates natural phenomena. Finding a starting point in the work of constructivist artist Naum Gabo, Tsai took a quantum leap deciding that "the shimmering was not enough" and that what was needed was a way that the viewer could interact with the work. It was that inspiration that eventually lead him to the idea to use a stroboscope coupled with a feedback control system. Sam Hunter writes: Tsai system1MoMA

During this time, along with international friends including

Takis Takis may refer to: * Takis (snack), a spicy, roll-shaped snack * Takis Christoforidis, a Greek actor * Takis Fotopoulos, a Greek political philosopher * Takis Ikonomopoulos, a Greek football player * Takis Kanellopoulos a Greek film director * T ...

, Tsai was a founding member of the Art Workers' Coalition that sought to implement museum reform and underscore "issues relating to the political and social responsibility of the art community." In 1969, Tsai was invited by György Kepes to the

Center for Advanced Visual Studies The MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) has its origins in the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an arts and research center founded in 1967 by artist and teacher György Kepes ...

at MIT. There, amongst the "first Fellows", a lively group of like-minded artists (including Jack Burnham,

Otto Piene Otto Piene (pronounced PEE-nah, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; a ...

, Harold Tovish,

Stan VanDerBeek Stan VanDerBeek (January 6, 1927 – September 19, 1984) was an American experimental filmmaker known for his collage works. Life VanDerBeek studied art and architecture at Manhattan's Cooper Union before transferring to Black Mountain Colleg ...

), Tsai met Harold "Doc" Edgerton, the engineer who developed the modern electronic stroboscope. In the early 1970s, Tsai moved with his family to Paris and showed with the

Denise René Denise René (born Denise Bleibtreu; June 1913 – 9 July 2012) was a French art gallerist specializing in kinetic art and op art. Life and work Denise René took as her guiding principle the idea that art must invent new paths in order to exist ...

Gallery and had extensive exhibitions in Europe. During these years, he befriended fellow Chinese artists residing in Paris including Peng Wan-Ts and

Chu Teh-Chun Chu Teh-Chun or Zhu Dequn (24 October 1920 – 26 March 2014) was a Chinese-French abstract painter acclaimed for his pioneering style integrating traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western abstract art. Chu Teh-Chun enrolled in th ...

and became very passionate about cultural exchange between China and the West. In 1979, Tsai and his friend the composer

Wen-chung Chou Chou Wen-chung (; July 28, 1923 – October 25, 2019) was a Chinese American composer of contemporary classical music. He emigrated in 1946 to the United States and received his music training at the New England Conservatory and Columbia Univers ...

were part of the first delegation of artists from the US to the People's Republic of China. This eventually lead Tsai and his wife Pei-De to establish The Committee for Chinese Artists Intercultural Movement (CCAIM), a pioneering non-profit organization that brought mainland Chinese artists to exhibit in the United States in the 1980s. After Paris, Tsai settled permanently in New York City. In 2006, Tsai and Pei-De established the Tsai Art and Science Foundation to support and bring awareness to endeavors that are at the intersection of the arts and sciences.

Works

Tsai's cybernetic sculpture works have always been a challenge for writers to describe. Art critic Robert Hughes evokes them vividly:

A grove of slender stainless-steel rods rises from a plate. This base vibrates at 30 cycles per second; the rods flex rapidly, in harmonic curves. The rods appear to move; there is a shimmering, a flashing, an eerie ballet of metal, whose apparent movements range from stillness to jittering, and back to a slow, indescribably sensuous undulation

The philosopher Vilem Flusser wrote of Tsai's work:

There can be no doubt that Tsai is a great artist. Not because what he does is pleasant, or because he proposes a play, or because he represents the spirit of our times, but because he reveals to us, through artifice or works of art, the concrete experience of a future full of promise or abysmal danger. Vilem Flusser, ''Aspects and Prospects of Tsai's Work'', Art International, March 1974

Jonathan Benthall was one of the first to appreciate Tsai's sculpture. In 1968, he wrote:

The work of art may be regarded as a machine programmed by the artist to produce a deferred output. That is why an artist like Tsai is likely to be so valuable; not because he is an innovator (all his techniques taken separately have been used before) but because he has the kind of authority that establishes a stylistic tradition.Jonathan Benthall, ''Artists and Technicians,'' Times Literary Supplement, October 31, 1968, 1229

Tsai's interactive sculpture marked a major step in the development of kinetic art:

Tsai is a Chinese-born sculptor now living in New York. The slender, stainless steel "cybernetic" rods of his sculpture vibrate in different patterns in response to electronic impulses, to the clapping of human hands, or to the flashes of a strobe light. In the artist's words, they are designed to simulate "the intensity of a living creature." .

Frank Popper elaborates:

As far as the sensory experience of the spectator goes, the most outstanding American kinetic artist is unquestionably the Chinese-born Wen-Ying Tsai. His pieces, which are perfect on the technological level,ous celebration' which is re-created in their presence. As he concludes: 'Rhythm is friendship and in Tsai's work there is friendship of light, sound and our own heart-beats.

$Tsai doublediffraction1973$ Richard Kostelanetz writes about Tsai's cybernetic water works:

Of his other kinetic sculptures, Upward-Falling Fountain (1979) is the most impressive, creating an illusion that must be seen to be believed. .

In conclusion, Frank Popper writes in his "Electra" exhibition catalog about Tsai's essential contribution:

The role played by Tsai, the American artist of Chinese origin, in this context cannot be overestimated, in his most varied cybernetic sculptures in the Electra exhibition are perfect examples of an artistic comment, perhaps an artistic solution to one of the principal problems raised in this show: the situation of the artist between technology, at a critical point of its passage from the mechanical to the electronic era, and man's natural or artificial environment...

East and West

Vilem Flusser's analysis of Tsai's work delves into his place in both the Eastern and Western traditions.

Possibly Tsai himself does not stand within Western tradition. The analysis of his phenomena seems to reveal this. In that case the arguments just advanced cannot touch him. Possibly he stands within an Oriental tradition, for which (so at least it looks like to a Western observer) man is not a being radically separated form all others. For such a tradition man may feel deeply united with animals, plants, and other types of beings. He can therefore, conceive of them much more as "others" than we can. And the phenomena Tsai produces are then, in their naive, plant-like Gestalten, "true others" If I can dialogue with a plant (and Oriental tradition seems to suggest this), then a fortiori, I can dialogue with the phenomena Tsai is producing. Such an hypothesis of Tsai's position would explain his approach to the problem posed by the series "thing-other." He could then still see others (even in a stone), where we no longer can see them. In this case Tsai may say that his is an important Oriental contribution to the Western (and bankrupt) attempt to free man from the determining effects of objects of culture. He may say that he is using Western models and Western methods from an Oriental approach, in order to try and solve the universally human problem of freedom from determination. And he will be completely correct in thus answering the above advanced objections.

Tsai and Taoism

Art historian Donald Kuspit finds in Tsai's art a Taoist outlook:

Personal life

Tsai met his wife, Pei-De Chang, in New York City in 1967. They were married in London in 1968 during the

Cybernetic Serendipity Cybernetic Serendipity was an exhibition of cybernetic art curated by Jasia Reichardt, shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England, from 2 August to 20 October 1968, and then toured across the United States. Two stops in the United ...

exhibition in which Tsai participated. The couple had twin sons two years later when Tsai was a Fellow at the

at MIT; their friend

is fond of recalling that the Tsais' twins were the first of the "Center babies." The Tsai family spent part of the 1970s in Paris before settling down permanently in

SoHo, New York SoHo, sometimes written Soho (South of Houston Street), is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and has also been known for its variet ...

where they lived in a loft space that they renovated themselves. Richard Kostelanetz has written about the Tsais in SoHo in his book ''SoHo: The Rise and Fall of an Artists' Colony''.

Death

Tsai died in Manhattan, New York, on January 2, 2013. He was survived by his wife Pei-De; sons and spouses Lun-Yi London (Michelle) and Ming-Yi Gyorgy (Marloes); grandchildren Sakhaya, Kelsyn, Lina, Flora and Nereus. Artist

and composer

were among those who spoke at Tsai's funeral service.

Collections

* Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts * Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York *

Butler Institute of American Art The Butler Institute of American Art, located on Wick Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, was the first museum dedicated exclusively to American art. Established by local industrialist and philanthropist Joseph G. Butler, Jr., the museum h ...

, Youngstown, Ohio *

Centre National des Arts Plastiques The Centre national des arts plastiques (National Centre for Visual Arts, Cnap) is a French institution established in 1982 under the Ministry of Culture and Communication that promotes creation of visual arts. It provides assistance to artists and ...

, Paris, France * Centre Pompidou, Paris, France *

Chrysler Museum of Art The Chrysler Museum of Art is an art museum on the border between downtown and the Ghent district of Norfolk, Virginia. The museum was founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. In 1971, automotive heir, Walter P. Chrysler Jr. ...

, Provincetown, Massachusetts *David Bermant Foundation, California * Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania *

Great Explorations Great Explorations Children's Museum (formerly Great Explorations - The Hands-On Museum) is a children's museum, program center, and pre-school in St Petersburg, Florida. It was founded in 1986 by The Junior League of St. Petersburg and Hands-On, ...

, St. Petersburg, Florida * MIT List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *

Israel Museum The Israel Museum ( he, מוזיאון ישראל, ''Muze'on Yisrael'') is an art and archaeological museum in Jerusalem. It was established in 1965 as Israel's largest and foremost cultural institution, and one of the world’s leading encyclopa ...

, Jerusalem *

Kaiser Wilhelm Museum ''Kaiser'' is the German word for "emperor" (female Kaiserin). In general, the German title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (''König''). In English, the (untranslated) word ''Kaiser'' is mainly ap ...

, Krefeld, Germany *Kanagawa Science Park, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan * Kunsthalle Nuremberg, Germany *Lannon Foundation, California *Malcolm Forbes Foundation, New York *

Memorial Art Gallery The Memorial Art Gallery is the civic art museum of Rochester, New York. Founded in 1913, it is part of the University of Rochester and occupies the southern half of the University's former Prince Street campus. It is the focal point of fine arts ...

, Rochester, New York * Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris * Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas, Venezuela *Museum für Holographie, Pulheim/Köln, Germany * Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton University, New Jersey * Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela * Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan * National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan * Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma * Ontario Science Center, Toronto * Orlando Science Center, Orlando, Florida *Shirahama Energy Land, Matsushita Electric Co. (Panasonic), Shirahama, Japan * Tate Gallery, London *University of Alberta Museums, Canada * Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City

Selected exhibitions

Solo

1961 Ruth Sherman Gallery, New York 1964 & 1965 Amel Gallery, New York 1968 Howard Wise Gallery, New York 1970 Alpha Gallery
Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany 1971 Hayden Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ontario Science Center, Toronto
Galérie Françoise Mayer, Brussels
University of Pittsburgh
Michael Berger Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA 1972 Galérie Denise René, Paris
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Galérie Denise René, New York 1973 Galérie Denise René/Hans Mayer, Düsseldorf.
Musee d'Art Contemporain, Montreal. 1975 Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Caracas, Venezuela. 1978 Wildenstein Art Center, Houston.
Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas.
1979 Hong Kong Museum of Art. 1980 Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo. 1983 Galerie Denise Rene, Paris. 1989 National Museum of History, Taipei. 1990 Taiwan Museum of Art, Taichung, Taiwan. 1997 National Museum of China, Beijing, China.

Group

1965
"The Responsive Eye," Museum of Modern Art, New York
"The New Eyes," Chrysler Art Museum, Provincetown, Massachusetts
City Art Museum of St. Louis
"Art in Science," Albany Institute of History and Art
"Art Turned On," Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
"Art in Science," organized by Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
National Academy of Science, Washington, DC
1968
"Cybernetic Serendipity," Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.
"The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age", Museum of Modern Art, New York 1969
"Cybernetic Serendipity," Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
"Howard Lipman Collection," Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
"Master Pieces of Modern Art," Galerie Denise Rene/Hans Mayer, Krefeld, Germany.
"Explorations," Hayden Gallery, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
3e Salon International des Galeries Pilotes,

Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts The Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts (french: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, MCBA) is an art museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Collection The museum was created by private initiative in 1841, with funds provided by the artist Marc-Louis Arlaud, who ...

, Lausanne
Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris.
Pittsburgh International, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh.
"Struktur Schwingung Dynarnik," Kunsthalle, Nuremberg.
"L'Art et les Technologies," Ville de Vitry-sur-Seine, France.
"Multiple Interaction Team," Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago
"Salon International des Composants Electroniques," Paris.
"Custom and Culture," US Custom House, New York.
"Art of the Space Era," Huntsville Museum of Art, Alabama.
"The Expanding Visual World," The Museum of Fun, Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo. 1983
"Electra," Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris.
1984
"Carte Blanche Denise Rene." Paris.
1986
"Les Machines Sentimentales," Avignon.
"La Biennale Di Venezia," Venice.
"Energetic Art," La Malmaison, Cannes.
1987
"Artware, Kunst und Elektronik," Hanover International Fair.
"Artware," Düsseldorf Landsmuseum.
"Art in the Computer Age," Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York.
"Art in the Computer Age," Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio.
1988
"Computers and Art," IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York.
"Lights OROT," Yeshiva University Museum, New York.
"Interaction," The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Connecticut.
"Vraiment Faux," La Fondation Cartier, Jouey-en-Jossas, France.
"Art Construit, Lumiere, Mouvement," EPAD, Galerie La Defense, Paris.
"Art in the Computer Age," Center for the Fine Arts, Miami.
1989
"Phenomena Art," Pan-Asian Expo '89, Saibu Gas Museum, Fukuoka, Japan.
KSP, Kawasaka - Kanagawa Prefecture.
"Visiona," Vienna Messe-WienerFestwochen.
"Visiona," Zurich. 1990
"Image du Futur," Montreal, Canada. 1991
"ARTEC '91, The International Biennale in Nagoya.''Japan. 1995
"Kwangju International Biennale" in Korea.
"Osaka Triennale 1995" - Sculpture. 2001
"Denise René, l'intrépide," Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 2008
"Olympic Games, 2008," Beijing 2010
"Expo 2010 Shanghai," Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai

References

External links

www.tsaifoundation.org
Tsai Foundation {{DEFAULTSORT:Tsai, Wen-Ying 1928 births 2013 deaths Avant-garde art Interactive art American abstract artists 20th-century American sculptors 21st-century American sculptors American male sculptors American contemporary artists American artists of Chinese descent MacDowell Colony fellows Massachusetts Institute of Technology fellows Art Students League of New York alumni Artists from New York City University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni Burials at Kensico Cemetery Sculptors from New York (state) Chinese emigrants to the United States Artists from Fujian People from Xiamen People from SoHo, Manhattan