Born in Makung, Penghu, Jin-Hua Shi received a MFA from the Studio Art Department at the University of California, Irvine, USA.

The series, “ Trilogy of Contemporary Art Alchemy,” launched at the end of 2008, when the global financial crisis happened. As the commercial art market suffered from the economic downturn, galleries stared to host low-price group exhibitions as a coping measure. When I was asked to participate in an exhibition in which artworks must be priced under 30,000 NTD (940 USD), I took the opportunity to develop a piece of conceptual work, The Cost of CONCEPT. I cut out one quarter of a piece priced at 120,000 NTD, leaving three quarters of the piece intact, and priced the two newly divided pieces at 30,000 NTD and 90,000 NTD, respectively.   Similarly, I split the corresponding text in the same manner – one quarter and three quarters.  I then proposed that the collector should pay additional 60,000 NTD to purchase the complete text document (The Cost of CONCEPT).  Subsequently, both works were sold but the complete text document was not.  This is the origin of “Episode One: The Cost of CONCEPT” in the trilogy.

Not long after, I was again asked to be part of an under-30,000 NTD-group show.  This time I cut a one dollar coin in half, glued a half coin to canvas, named it “50 Cents,” and priced it at 50 cents.  Once again the work was sold. But the gallery was late on paying me my share of the price, 25 cents because Taiwan government does not issue currency worth 25 cents.  Consequently, I proposed that the gallery purchase a piece of bread and use an electronic scale to cut out twenty-five cents worth of breadcrumbs to solve this dispute.  This is “Episode Two: ART Earnings.”

In Taiwan, one can purchase publicity on the cover of an art magazine.  I, therefore, decided to convince the publisher of the art magazine to let me buy space on the cover in exchange for my works from the Alchemy series.  I wrote a proposal that outlined the exchange, which included the magazine cover, an advertisement, and three reviews.  The reviewers would be curators, collectors, and critics whom I had worked with or was working with.  The publisher eventually agreed to the deal. Thus, this became “Episode Three: Being the Cover Feature.”

 “Trilogy of Contemporary Art Alchemy” brings attention to the influence of materialization and of commoditization on the price and value of artwork, the distribution of profit in the art market, and the state of art media and critic system.  I hope that with humor and wit, “Trilogy of Contemporary Art Alchemy” can lead to reflection on and concern relating to the system of art.