Taichung Museum of Fine Arts | The Scorpion and the Frog: YAGEO Foundation Collection Exhibition

The Scorpion and the Frog: YAGEO Foundation Collection Exhibition

The exhibition 'The Scorpion and the Frog' presents a selection of masterpieces from the YAGEO Foundation, re-examining these works through a dual framework of reason and instinct—a dichotomy that runs through the entire collection like a fault line. Some of the exhibited works lean towards the formal, intellectual, or abstract, focusing on spirituality, rationality, and philosophical inquiry. Others focus on the psychological, treating the body as a vessel for desire and eroticism. Still others hover between these two poles. Extending from this, the exhibition further touches upon various dualities, such as the sacred and the profane, the conscious and the unconscious, the realistic and the abstract, as well as the world of the mind and the realm of the senses.

The exhibits are juxtaposed across different eras, genres, and media. The dialogues that unfold between them are sometimes intuitive, sometimes unexpected, sometimes cryptic or circuitous, and sometimes immediately apparent. These dialogues aim to reveal the deeper meanings of the works and reinterpret them from fresh perspectives. The arrangement of works in each gallery space shifts between the multiple dualities symbolized by the scorpion and the frog, ensuring that the exhibition narrative does not become formulaic or rigid.

The exhibition title is taken directly from a Russian fable about a scorpion that asks a frog to carry it across a river. At first, the frog refuses for fear of being stung, but the scorpion persuades the frog: if it were to sting the frog, it would drown as well, which would be irrational. Halfway across the river, the frog feels a sharp pain, realizing it has been stung after all. As they both sink into the water, the frog asks, 'What is the logic in this?' The scorpion replies, 'There is no logic, but I cannot help myself. This is my nature.'

The frog symbolizes the mind, reason, and morality, while the scorpion represents desire, fate, and, above all, human nature. The scorpion acts out of self-interest and self-preservation, using logical arguments to persuade the frog to carry it across the river, yet it stings the frog due to an uncontrollable instinct. Like the multiple contrasts formed by the works in this exhibition, the fable itself is a dialogue.

Juxtaposing Eras and Media: Unlocking New Ways of Seeing Through Fable Metaphors

This exhibition is curated by New York-based Philip Larratt-Smith. He currently serves as curator at The Easton Foundation, where he oversees the artistic legacy of Louise Bourgeois. In recent years, he has curated international exhibitions for renowned artists, including a major retrospective of Louise Bourgeois at the Long Museum in Shanghai. Using the fable of 'The Scorpion and the Frog' as a curatorial premise, this exhibition organizes the Foundation's collection along this thread, extending to address different facets such as the sacred and the secular, the conscious and the unconscious, the realistic and the abstract, and the world of the mind versus the realm of the senses.

The exhibition title, 'The Scorpion and the Frog,' originates from a Russian fable about a scorpion that asks a frog to carry it across a river, only to sting the frog mid-journey because it cannot defy its own nature, resulting in both of them drowning. The frog symbolizes reason and morality, while the scorpion represents desire, fate, and human nature. The curator uses this as a core metaphor throughout the exhibition, breaking away from traditional displays categorized by era, genre, or medium. By juxtaposing works spanning five centuries—from the Renaissance to the present—and re-examining the relationships between them, the exhibition guides the audience to a new understanding of the multifaceted nature of humanity. 

Bacon and Tintoretto Engage in a Cross-Temporal Dialogue; Hockney's Double Portrait Makes Its Debut

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the juxtaposition of 'Study for a Pope VI' by Francis Bacon, one of the most influential figure painters of the 20th century, with 'Portrait of Cardinal Marcantonio da Mula' by Tintoretto, one of the most representative artists of the late Renaissance Venetian school, in the same gallery. Bacon reinterprets traditional religious portraiture with distorted, deformed figures, presenting the inner unease, anxiety, and spiritual tension of the subjects, which also made his 'Pope' series an important classic in 20th-century art history. By placing these two paintings, separated by four centuries, in the same room, the curator highlights the realistic and objective authority of the Pope in Tintoretto's work, creating a sharp contrast with the psychological tension presented in Bacon's work.

About the Curator

Philip Larratt-Smith

Writer and curator Philip Larratt-Smith is based in New York and has served as curator at The Easton Foundation since 2019, where he manages the artistic legacy of Louise Bourgeois. He has a long-standing interest in post-war and contemporary art and has curated solo exhibitions for major artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Cy Twombly, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Yayoi Kusama, and Andy Warhol. He is also a prolific writer, having authored works on artists including Philip Guston, Jenny Holzer, Roni Horn, Jannis Kounellis, and Alice Neel.

• Organizers: Taichung City Government, YAGEO Foundation

• Executive Organizer: Taichung Museum of Art

• Exhibition Dates: 2026/11/20 - 2027/4/04

• Venue: Exhibition Rooms D, E