30-Second Overview:
In the late 1980s, colors not permitted by law began to appear on Taiwan's streets. From its earliest status as illegal vandalism to its present legal coexistence in Ximending's Taipei Cinema Park and eight riverside parks, graffiti reflects a loosening of power on the island. This is not merely an accumulation of spray paint, but a long struggle over "who has the right to interpret the street." Within it, "Horumon Baby," with imagery that is ugly yet cute, successfully transformed street art into an urban legend with a distinctly Taiwanese flavor.
On Taipei's Minsheng East Road in 1989, beside an abandoned arsenal, a giant spray-painted work more than 60 meters long appeared. It was the first trace left by Lü Hsueh-yuan, regarded as the progenitor of graffiti in Taiwan 1. Taiwan at the time had lifted martial law only two years earlier, and society was filled with agitation and experimentation with the system. In that era, graffiti was purely outside the law. More than thirty years later, the same spray-paint cans appear on invitation lists for legal exhibitions and performances. The graffiti artist "Horumon Baby," once fined by the Department of Environmental Protection as someone who "damaged public property," has transformed into a creator representing the city.
Irritable Bowels and Urban Legends: Horumon Baby's Aesthetics of "Ugliness"
On transformer boxes, construction fences, and alley corners in Taipei, one often sees the "Horumon Baby": a figure with simple lines, QQ bangs, and a mysterious smile. This symbol, known as one of Taipei's four great street legends, originated from creator Horumon Baby's (CYH Jason) humorous transformation of his own "irritable bowel syndrome" 2. He once studied an art-related discipline in the United States, but after returning to Taiwan chose the most "low" of stages: the street 2.
📝 Curator's Note: Horumon Baby's success lies in his refusal of refinement. With a limp, unvarnished, and distinctly Taiwanese sensibility, he breaks down the high walls of art.
Horumon Baby once said frankly in an interview: "There is no hierarchy in art to begin with. As long as there is good, new creativity, originality, and imagination, it is a good artwork." 3 He deliberately pursues a balance of "ugly but cute" (Kimokawaii), transforming local food imagery such as large-intestine vermicelli and small sausage wrapped in large sausage into a visual trademark branded as "#TaiwanLocalProduct" 3. This anti-elite stance set off a wave on Instagram of people "capturing" the baby on the streets.
A Taiwanese street artist spray-painting on a wall, photographed in June 2015. The late-night cat-and-mouse game with the Department of Environmental Protection is the most vital source of this culture's life force. Photo: streetallnight. CC BY-SA 2.0 Taiwan via Wikimedia Commons.
From the Social Margins to the White Cube: The Paths of Reach and Candy Bird
If Horumon Baby is the humorist of the street, then Reach and Candy Bird represent two other poles of Taiwanese graffiti. Reach, who began engaging with graffiti in 1995, is a pioneer in combining Taiwanese graffiti with commerce. He integrated his minimalist "cat hand" lines with brands such as Nike and G-Shock, proving that graffiti could move from the street into galleries and commercial centers 4.
By contrast, Candy Bird's works are filled with weighty social concern. Since 2010, he has used graffiti to convey viewpoints ignored by the mainstream, painting his works in the gaps at the margins of the city in an attempt to practice social resistance amid reinforced concrete 5.
The exterior walls of the former Yongjin ROC Army Cultural Supply Station in Wanhua District, Taipei, covered in graffiti, photographed in April 2021. The cracks of abandoned buildings are the most typical site for Taiwanese street graffiti. Photo: Lokseng01. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
📝 Curator's Note: In Taiwan, graffiti is not merely decoration. It is a record of different generations grappling hand-to-hand with social reality.
Fines and Legal Zones: Coexistence and Struggle with the System
Graffiti in Taiwan has always occupied a legal gray zone. Unauthorized graffiti violates Article 27 of the Waste Disposal Act and may be fined NT$1,200 to NT$6,000 under Article 50 of the same law 6. Horumon Baby was once fined more than NT$10,000 by the Department of Environmental Protection because his works appeared in areas not open for graffiti.
To balance the cityscape with the right to create, the Taipei City Government currently opens eight riverside parks, including Yingfeng, Meiti, and Guanshan, as legal graffiti zones 6. In addition, Taipei Cinema Park in Ximending has Taiwan's largest legal graffiti wall, whose surfaces are recreated each year by different artists 7.
A Contradictory Ending: Whose City?
When graffiti is corralled into legal zones, does it still possess its original rebellious soul? This is the greatest challenge facing Taiwanese street art. Graffiti in Taiwan today stands at a contradictory crossroads: on the one hand, artists have gained favor from international brands and invitations from the government; on the other, the "illegal" spray painting that continues to play cat and mouse with the Department of Environmental Protection late at night remains the most vital source of this culture's life force.
📝 Curator's Note: The best graffiti always appears where it most should not. It is a brief reclamation of spatial sovereignty.
From the wall on Minsheng East Road in 1989 to the present, Taiwanese graffiti has changed from a kind of "noise" into part of the city itself. It is no longer merely an outlet for anger, but a mirror reflecting the process by which this island continually sways and tests its limits among law, aesthetics, and freedom.
Image Sources
This article uses 3 CC-licensed images, all cached under public/article-images/art/ to avoid hotlinking source servers:
- Graffiti wall at Ximending's Taipei Cinema Park — Photo: Lokseng01, 2021, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Graffiti on abandoned military building in Wanhua — Photo: Lokseng01, 2021, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Taiwanese street artist creating live — Photo: streetallnight, 2015, CC BY-SA 2.0 Taiwan
References
- WowLavie, The Counterattack of Taiwanese Graffiti Artists Reach and Blake: Styles Moving from the Street toward Diverse Creation↩
- Hatsumimi, Drawing Out the Rich Taiwanese Flavor in the Folds: Hatsumimi's Artist Friend, Horumon Baby↩2
- Heaven Raven, Interview with Graffiti Artist Horumon Baby: The Inside of the Large Intestine Is Feces, and So Is Art.↩2
- BeautyMode, Is It Wrong for Street Culture to Move toward Commerce? Taiwanese Graffiti Pioneer Reach↩
- Taiwan Contemporary Art Archive, Candy Bird↩
- Taipei City Government Department of Environmental Protection, Unauthorized Graffiti Can Be Fined up to NT$6,000! A List of Taipei's 14 Legal Graffiti Walls↩2
- Taipei City Government Department of Information and Tourism, Historic Sites and Postmodern Art Intertwine: Endless Art Takes You through Taipei Cinema Park↩