VENICE.- Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), organizer of Taiwan’s representative exhibition at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, announced that representative artist Li Yi-Fan and the TFAM team have invited Raphael Fonseca, currently the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art at the Denver Art Museum (DAM) in the United States, to serve as the curator of the Taiwan exhibition 2026 in Venice.
As a curator of the new generation from Brazil who is active in the international art scene, Fonseca will engage with the artist Li Yi-Fan, a member of the same generation, in a dialogue that spans regions and cultures. The exhibition will respond to the contemporary predicament of information and image overload, ponder the intricate connections and dialectics between humanity and technology, present how Taiwanese contemporary art resonates within the global digital milieu, and explore how individuals relying on their own strength can participate in, understand, and construct the world they inhabit.
Theme announced: Screen Melancholy
Taipei Fine Arts Museum has also revealed the title for next year’s Taiwan exhibition: Screen Melancholy. This phrase centers on a motif found frequently in art history—“melancholy”—as a response to the anxiety and gloom that arise with the flattening of perception when people face a world constrained and molded by today’s digital environment. The exhibition will continue Li Yi-Fan’s long-standing exploration of image-generation technology and improvisational narrative, using his unique creative approach to challenge our habitual modes of viewing and perception. In an age of information overload and constant flux, he not only engages in technological innovation, but also raises questions about perception, subjective consciousness, and how humankind will express itself in the future. Life is short, but knowledge is boundless. When we cannot fully grasp everything through reason or archival science, perhaps “melancholy” is all that remains as a means to respond to our present experiences.
Fonseca notes: “Li Yi-Fan is always exploring the relationship between artists and media (or software tools), tracing its evolution from painting, cinema and animation all the way to today’s AI-generated images. This reveals his obsession with contemporary image production. Then, through humorous, absurd techniques, he critically responds to the evolution of image-generation tools and the formation of image politics. With his upcoming group of works, he aims to incite sensory experiences and change the way people understand the no world.”
A death match between artist and software
The exhibition at the 61st Venice Biennale 2026 will feature a one-piece video installation. In this work, Li performs a monologue in his signature “educational channel” style. He examines the operational model of “Software as a Service” used by contemporary image production tools, the influence of “specific media” on how humans perceive the world, how such model change the user's understanding of the nature of image representation, and ultimately, the current topic that cannot be ignored: AI-generated images. This allows the medium itself to become a vehicle of perpetual reflection, interpretation, and transformation.
“I think of my creative process as a ‘death match between the artist and software,’” says Li Yi-Fan. “Within the counterbalance of exhaustion, tension and collision, a narrative slowly emerges. In contemporary image production, artists inevitably rely on lots of different software tools. Some are open-source and free, while others are highly commercial. Each choice represents a different possibility for expression, but also has its own limitations and controls. I move among these systems, trying to grasp the subtle relationship of dependence and resistance between artists and contemporary tools. Through this process, using these image production techniques, I contemplate the state of humankind in relation to technological media.”
For a long time, Li Yi-Fan has employed a method similar to digital puppetry—creating narratives in oral tones reminiscent of various online tutorials. In so doing, he not only questions himself, but also challenges viewers to consider the diverse aspects of human knowledge, conveying a pessimistic mood about the present and the future. As the video scenes change, so do the theatrical backdrops. Layers of information accumulate, forming an encyclopedic viewing experience. This expresses humanity’s vast desire to control the world and our insatiable curiosity, while also highlighting the limitations of our understanding—ultimately returning to a core question: What exactly does it mean to be “human”?
Li Yi-Fan currently lives and works in Taipei, Taiwan. He often explores the relationship between people and technology in the digital age with a unique sense of black humor. He excels at using self-developed game engines and, working as a one-person crew, improvisationally acting out the narratives that lie in the background behind image production. In recent years, with the support of such projects as the National Culture and Arts Foundation’s “WSAD” and Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab’s “Toolkit of Madness,” Li has conducted studies on machinima and developed a series of game-engine-based image production toolkits to create artworks such as important_message_360.mp4, rewiring, howdoyouturnthison, and What Is Your Favorite Primitive. He has also been featured in the 2020 Taiwan Biennial “Subzoology,” the 2020 Digital Art Festival Taipei “01_LOVE,” the 2021 Asian Art Biennial “Phantasmapolis,” and the 2023 Taipei Biennial “Small World.”
Raphael Fonseca (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; based in Denver, USA) is a curator and researcher interested in how images circulate across contexts and time periods, and in how artists engage with art history, fiction, resilience, humor, and pleasure. He is Curator and Head of Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art at the Denver Art Museum and holds a PhD in Art History and Criticism from the State University of Rio de Janeiro.
Fonseca is part of the curatorial ensemble for the 3rd Counterpublic Triennial in St. Louis, United States (2026) and serves as co-artistic director of the 13th Sequences Biennial in Reykjavík, Iceland (2027). He was chief curator of the 14th Mercosul Biennial (2025) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and co-curator of the 22nd Biennial SESC_Videobrasil (2023) in São Paulo, Brazil. Between 2023 and 2025, ArtReview listed him among the 100 most influential figures in the global visual arts.
