《TAIPEI TIMES》 Office consults experts to see if art piece plagiarized

‘JUSTICE AND HARMONY’: Satoshi Kino said he was shocked by the similarities between the two works, while Tsai Wen-hsyang denied copying the piece

/ Staff writer, with CNA

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The Administrative Enforcement Agency’s Kaohsiung branch on Saturday said that it has tasked independent experts with determining whether a work of art it had bought had been plagiarized.

The stainless steel installation, titled Fair Justice and Harmony （公平正義．圓融和諧）, was made by Taiwanese artist Tsai Wen-hsyang （蔡文祥）. The branch purchased the 7m-wide piece at a cost of NT$2 million （US$63,006 at the current exchange rate） after the piece won a public vote held by the Ministry of Culture in 2017. The installation stands outside the branch’s office building.

Tsai has been accused of plagiarizing Satoshi Kino’s ceramic work Oroshi-Typhoon, which won the Censor Award at the 2016 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale.

Kino said on Facebook that he was shocked to find out about the similarities between the two works, which was reported to Taiwanese media last week by a person familiar with his work.

He said the way the right side of Tsai’s work twists is almost identical to his own, adding that “even if the same creative idea is created with different materials, it is impossible to have such a similar twist angle.”

Referencing the title of Tsai’s work, Kino said: “Fairness and justice. I don’t even know where to start.”

Kino on Friday said that people deserved to know the truth for the sake of Taiwan’s art development.

According to the description of Tsai’s work, the two opposing swirls cleave together in the symbiosis of fairness and justice, while the circle in the center stands for harmony in the core ideals of the agency.

Tsai told local Chinese-language media that he was frustrated to learn about the accusations, saying that it was his “darkest day.”

The two projects are completely different in terms of materials, structure and proportions, Tsai said.

From an aesthetic point of view, the simple lines and symmetric concepts shared by both works “made it easier to draw such associations,” Tsai added.

The experts would report their findings in two weeks, the branch said.

If the creation is determined to have been plagiarized, it would be removed from public viewing, an enforcement agency official said.

The agency is overseen by the Ministry of Justice.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES