[Reader-list] [Announcements] 2004 Taipei Biennial

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Taipei's artistic take on reality
By Caroline Gluck International Herald Tribune
Friday, October 29, 2004

TAIPEI <http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?key=TAIPEI>  In terms of its
funding and size, the 2004 Taipei Biennial is a minnow in the sea of
blockbuster contemporary art shows that have become so fashionable in Asia
and the rest of the world.

Nevertheless, Belgium-based Barbara Vanderlinden, who with her Taiwanese
colleague, Amy Huei-hua Cheng, pulled the show together in just four months,
believes that the Biennial succeeds for reasons other than size. "In Asia,
the Taipei Biennial is one of the smallest," she said. "In fact, it's a big
museum exhibition, but it's one with the strongest identity."

The fourth Taipei Biennial - called "Do You Believe in Reality?" and running
through Jan. 23 at the Fine Arts Museum - showcases contemporary art by more
than 40 individual artists and collectives from around the world whose
primary material is everyday life and human experience rather than grandiose
or abstract ideals.

Many, like Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-Jen, reflect on the impact of
globalization and the social displacement it can cause.

In his haunting, soundless film, "The Factory," former female garment
workers were invited to return to an abandoned garment factory seven years
after its closure and perform their former tasks. The carefully staged
sequences are interwoven with footage of a time when the factory was helping
to drive Taiwan's economy, thus emphasizing both personal and collective
loss.

"On the surface, it's to do with globalization. Factories are moveable but
employees aren't," said the artist. "The deeper part of the message is to
show the human factor that stayed. There are certain things that are not
changeable." 

Some artists in the show are established names, such as Agnès Varda, Yoko
Ono, Rem Koolhaas and Steve McQueen. The artists use different media -
photography, architecture, performance art, installations - but film and
video predominate.

Biennials are designed both to showcase the contemporary art scene in a city
or country, and to introduce new ideas from international artists to the
local public. While this show is essentially thematic - rather than a survey
of the latest art trends - from the moment you enter the lobby, it is clear
that it is firmly grounded in a Taiwanese context.

The Chinese architect Chang Yung-Ho's wood and rice paper installations,
shaped like cameras and placed at different heights, screen excerpts of 16
documentaries depicting the political, economic and cultural transformation
of Taiwan, touching on issues such as immigration and urbanization.

Work by some of the youngest artists question expectations about art and
museums. "Invade the TFAM" (the museum's acronym), the work of Kuo I-Chen, a
25-year-old Taiwanese art student, projects the shadow of an airplane
crossing the ceiling of the museum, and its low rumbling sound. They are
triggered by an outdoor sensor when real planes fly across the museum, which
lies near the flightpath of the city's domestic airport. The work is
described as an attempt to break down the illusion that in the museum -
literally and figuratively - you are sealed off from the outside world.

Part of this show explores the idea of artists as citizens actively involved
in the world around them rather than just representing it. The American
artist Martha Rosler's installation, "If You Lived Here" (1989), deals with
homelessness and what she views as the injustice of capitalism and the
shortcomings of political leaders. Social activism is also a hallmark of the
Dutch artist Jeanne Van Heeswijk's work. In this show, her collaborative
project, "A Paper House," brings the squatter culture of Rotterdam into the
museum.

Other artists approached the question of "reality" in a more anthropological
way. Lu Jie, the Chinese curator of one of the projects, spent a year
working with thousands of government officials, artists and cultural workers
from northern Shaanxi province for "The Mapping of Yanchuan Paper-Cuttings,"
a survey of the traditional folk craft of paper cutting. But is it
contemporary art? Yes, said Liu: "I don't think we should protect paper
cutting as an exotic, but dying, folk art."

Some works underline the way reality can seem stranger than fiction. In the
Albanian artist Anri Sala's documentary, "Time After Time," a single fixed
shot coming in and out of focus reveals an old horse standing near a busy
highway. It barely moves as cars and their bright lights pass noisily by.
You are left pondering how it got there, and why it doesn't leave.

Copyright © 2004 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
<http://www.iht.com>

 

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