Breakfast at Tiffany’s: One Art Taipei 2026

Text by Huang Heya

For this edition of One Art Taipei, San Gallery draws inspiration from the classic film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, bringing together the works of Siqi Peng, Yunchia Chang, Pingen Kuo, Bingao Li, and Weiting Dai. A group exhibition often seeks a needle of commonality within a haystack of diverse voices. Amidst this search, a glimpse of Pingen Kuo’s Strawberry Milk and Weiting Dai’s The Armor of Pride provided the clue: “Breakfast” and “Tiffany’s.” It occurred to me then that the act of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is itself an allegory for artistic creation—a temporary sanctuary carved out between the weight of the everyday and the tremor of unease.

Moon River, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style some day. Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker, wherever you’re going I’m going your way. — “Moon River”

Before the sun crests the horizon, a slender figure emerges from a yellow taxi. She wears a slim black gown, a string of cream pearls at her throat, her hair swept into a high, elegant chignon. She wanders toward the Tiffany’s building, a baguette in one hand and coffee in the other, her gaze fixed intently upon the jewels behind the glass.

Holly is merely gazing.

“The blues are because you’re getting fat and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. When I get it, the only thing that does any good is to jump in a taxicab and go to Tiffany’s,” Holly says. I believe artistic creation functions much the same way. When the mind is a rising tide, creation is the rocky shore—a place to dock and find stillness. To gaze at the display window is to see jewelry as a glittering skin; the creator sees not price tags or carats, but rather what Holly felt: “Nothing very bad could happen to you there.”

The following is an exploration of the “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” envisioned by our five artists.

We begin with Pingen Kuo. His “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is composed of two distinct symbols. In his work, the “Breakfast” aspect—the mundane—often reveals itself first. He treats the “daily” not with conscious observation, but with a habitual, lingering attentiveness. His work Ophelia 1, inspired by a botanical illustration of the famous painting The Death of Ophelia, uses “circling” to dissolve the original atmosphere of tragic mist. His “Tiffany’s” lies in this very act of returning to the essential. This lingering gaze is also present in 8 boxes. I am reminded of the film, where Holly, amidst a sea of cardboard boxes, prepares to flee to a country she has never visited. She refuses to “own” even her nameless cat until she finds a place where “me and things go together.” Pingen Kuo has clearly found that place. In Glass and Lemon, lines and color blocks are separated, suggesting that everyday symbols and their meanings need not overlap; it is precisely in this separation that his position—”me and things go together”—becomes most clear.

Following this thread, Weiting Tai’s work focuses on “Tiffany’s”—the imagery of jewelry—yet it transcends the material. Just as lines and colors separate in the previous artist’s work, here, the outlines of gems and their disparate hues feel like Holly herself—or perhaps, the “Anonymous.” In the film, Holly says, “I’m like Cat here, a no-name sloppy, we belong to nobody.” At first, seeing this woman gaze at the window, one might mistake her for a materialist. But the end of the film reveals the truth: the eyes behind the sunglasses reflect a profound attachment to beauty. In Weiting Tai’s Finger Bond, the gemstones appear unpolished and unaccompanied by metal. The tension of the palm holding the gems tight reveals a human hunger for possession. In The Armor of Pride, pomegranate red, resin orange, smoky blue, and moss green gems are set upon silver chains, woven with pearls into a net of armor that clings to the skin. Jewelry makes one “proud”—a symbol of conspicuous capital. Yet, beneath this iridescent armor, the soft, vulnerable flesh is the “Tiffany’s” Tai seeks to uncover: a state of being densely and deceptively protected by beauty, yet remaining fundamentally unsettled.

As the narrative enters its middle act, another symbol for the nameless woman appears: her other name, “Lulamae.” If the previous artists sought a place to dock within “Breakfast,” here “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” refers to a refusal to be “docked” at all. A man claiming to be Lulamae’s husband tries to bring her back to their original home. She tells him: “You mustn’t give your heart to a wild thing… the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they’re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky.”

This “wildness” echoes in Yunchia Chang’s Herbaceous Vessel series. Protea, banksia, and tulips are confined within circular frames; they cannot grow outward, so they grow stronger, reaching for the trees and the sky. Confinement and ascension—what a paradox. Is this love? Lulamae would say no. The Artificial Bonsai series, inspired by plastic playground equipment, creates “immortal bonsai”—another self-contradicting object. Within a fixed, preserved form, it vividly reveals a state of life that can never truly be possessed. “Tiffany’s” here represents a place of “refusal.”

The narrative shifts as we bid farewell to Lulamae. To celebrate Paul’s first $50 earnings, Holly and he embark on a journey of “first-time” experiences. Her first morning walk, his first time stealing a mask, their first time stepping into Tiffany’s together. They nearly touch the deepest parts of one another, briefly docking at each other’s shores, casting aside masks to reveal “love.”

This state forms the two sides of Bingao Li’s work. Set on the ground presents a texture caught between solidification and dissipation—like bubbles rising from a thickening sauce, or the final moments before the Little Mermaid turns to sea foam. First Limited Edition takes the form of A and B sides of a record; though two independent entities, they are one within a shared memory. Both people are the “tide,” and both can be the “shore.” Here, “Tiffany’s” is no longer about finding a place or refusing one; it is an encounter that exists only in the “now.” Like Side B 06–Marks, where a series of dots form a line, and lines thicken into a net, this is the “Breakfast” side: fleeting, everyday, yet enough to make one believe that, for this moment, “nothing very bad could happen.”

When the bubbles vanish, Holly believes love has also turned to a phantom. She still wishes to flee, for she is a “wild thing” belonging to no one. In the pouring rain, Paul speaks the three-word incantation—”I love you”—and the bubbles disappear, but they take no love with them. She abandons her nameless cat, binding herself to the circular frame, for that is the direction a wild thing must grow. Paul says in anger: “You’re afraid and you don’t want to be in a cage… you’re already in a cage… It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”

Finally, the “lines” of Holly connect with the “colors” of this woman. Symbols are no longer just symbols, but part of her essence. In Siqi Peng’s Contour—Sentient Beings and Dust series, leaves curl in different directions, presenting a posture of “the dust has settled.” The destination of the “leaf” is ultimately the “earth.” Falling leaves return to their roots. Holly turns back to find her nameless cat; she begins to be able to “own” things. Like the work Vessel of Stillness no.1, she acknowledges that life is as it is: leaves will have holes, they will shrivel, yet they can still carry “love.”

The sky is dim; the rain falls. Holly and Paul embrace; she embraces the nameless cat. “Breakfast” and “Tiffany’s”—originally separated by the “mundane” and the “aspiration”—quietly overlap through repeated gazes. Standing before the window, we think we are looking at extraordinary colors, yet we always see our own silhouettes in the reflection. Perhaps love is the same: in any gaze, what the mirror projects is ultimately ourselves.

We invite you to hold your strawberry milk and gaze at the jewels beneath the display window. Under a replicated sky, there are plastic flowers reaching upward and leaves falling to the earth. In Room 1208, we wait for you to enjoy Breakfast at Tiffany’s. 🥖☕️