Best of 2008: Amy Huei-hua Cheng

2009.01.16

1. The continued internalization of imperial consciousness
From The Dark Knight and Cape No. 7, the year’s top-grossing movies globally and in Taiwan respectively, we can see how the consciousness of empire makes its way into people’s psychological landscapes, ultimately manifesting itself at the box office. The former can be read as an allegory of the U.S. as policeman of the world, with Batman (the U.S.) refusing to submit to law and enduring humiliation as he pursues the Joker (terrorists) through the dark of night in search of “justice.” Meanwhile, the surprise Taiwanese blockbuster Cape No. 7 moves along two main narrative arcs: A Japanese teacher leaves his Taiwanese lover behind in the small coastal town of Hengchun at the end of the occupation in the late 1940s, sending her seven undelivered love letters; then, sixty years later a Japanese pop singer comes to give a concert in the same town, ultimately resolving all of the contradictions among the cast and leading the locals to "find themselves." If we are to believe the mandate of the Third Guangzhou Triennial—that China must throw off an ossified post-colonial context and its attendant cultural inflexibilities, and find its own discursive power—we can also see in the success of these films how in Taiwan, the experience of colonialism and post-colonialism is so deeply lived and perceived as to have become more than a context, but rather an internalized consciousness, a domesticated cultural identity. This only makes the establishment of an “anti-colonial” and “anti-imperial” consciousness a more pressing cultural responsibility.

2. The financial tsunami and the rise and fall of the art market
The “financial tsunami” (as it is called in Taiwan) has had an immeasurable effect on the entire world; in the Taiwanese art world, late 2008 has been a period of decline, after the brief market honeymoon of 2007 and early 2008. The effect of this lightning-fast rise and fall on artists here is multi-layered. Seen positively, the tsunami rids the system of those who put market manipulation ahead of art itself, and engenders a reshuffling of the sector that may place a renewed emphasis on criticism and concept. But on the other hand, perhaps it will induce an irreversible slowing or stagnation of the art economy. In any case, the question of how the sector can continue to develop in a healthier and more orderly way deserves more serious and sober attention. Most deserving of thought and reflection is the question of how artists will respond to these new challenges.

3. The 2008 Taipei Biennial
This year’s Taipei Biennial was doubtless among the most experimental, political, and socially critical of the Asian biennials. Curated by Vasif Kortun and Manray Hsu, the exhibition moved a vigorous step beyond established forms and concepts of display, making for extensive debates among the local community. The biennial stressed “action” over form, challenging and breaking through received, increasingly commercialized “aesthetic forms.” The exhibition revolved around the notion of concept, interrogating local and international social movements, and exposing possible forms of resistance to the dominant neoliberal orthodoxy. It included social activists, scholars, artists, and other elements of society. The 2008 Taipei Biennial audaciously answered urgent questions of contemporary survival, harnessing a new field of vision and perspective to investigate current political, artistic, and social relations.

4. Chen Chieh-jen, Military Court and Prison
Continuing the explorations of peripheral neighborhoods under threat from capitalist globalism and the plight of the local laborer he began in Factory (2003), Chen Chieh-jen’s recent works have been even more explicit in their observations of Taiwanese politics and society, offering deep analysis of local historical developments. Military Court and Prison begins from a recent moment when a jailhouse used during Taiwan’s Martial Law era (1949-1987) to confine political prisoners was slated for redevelopment into a human rights museum. The work centers on the historical perspective of a fictional former political prisoner, looking at how Cold War thinking and national systems of control are internalized and remain in the collective consciousness. The film unfolds in poetic slowness, like an epic. Every visual detail in every frame seems to speak to hidden questions of class and power, strongly criticizing the visible and invisible systems of control and exclusion still operating in society today. Most importantly, Chen never succumbs to easy symbolism, nor does he sacrifice the complexity of this local historical narrative in a bid to attract a wider viewership. Still, the strong, rich visuality of this work allows it to communicate deeply with its viewers.

5. Jun Yang, A Contemporary Art Centre, Taipei (A Proposal)
Jun Yang’s A Contemporary Art Centre, Taipei (A Proposal) is a deeply conceptual action, commissioned for the 2008 Taipei Biennial. In this project, the ethnically Chinese Austrian artist sparked a chain of rarely seen discussions among the Taiwanese art scene, hoping to use them as a way of learning what, exactly, Taiwan needs from a “contemporary art center.” This project actively inserted itself into the Taiwanese art environment, trying to inspire dialogue and cooperation. Facing the complexities and tensions of the local scene, this seemingly Sisyphean plot nonetheless was able to inspire debate and reflection among the art workers of Taiwan. Against the larger backdrop of consumer culture, party politics, and bureaucracy, the task of discussing the practice and form of a “contemporary art center” seemed all the more pressing. Although this “proposal” project has ended, it exposed many long-ignored problems. How the Taiwanese art world responds to these issues in the future will depend on a higher level acceptance, responsibility, and attitude.

6. Superflex, When the Levees Broke, We Bought Our House
Superflex is a three-person Danish collective, whose concept and production differs from traditional forms, offering new directions and methods for a contemporary critical consciousness. They tend to develop, experiment with, and emphasize their work’s relationship with its viewers. They are particularly interested in alternative modes of production under capitalism, and in the development of “open-source” culture, using social intervention and activism as a way to distribute their ideas. In this project for Prospect. 1 New Orleans, they responded powerfully to the global economic devastation of Hurricane Katrina, using reality as the basis for a meaningful, albeit tiny, economic intervention of their own. They researched the downward impact of Katrina on mortgage rates in Denmark, and had their friend buy a home at that moment, saving $20,000. They then photographed this friend’s home, selling the photograph on the site of the hurricane disaster for $20,000, which they then will donate to help affected families buy materials to rebuild their own homes.

7. Julien Prévieux, Lettres de non-motivation
French artist Julien Prévieux has continued this series over several years, showing it at that the 2007 Istanbul Biennial and the Les Ateliers d Rennes (2008). He responds to job announcements placed by corporations in various newspapers with his own “letters of refusal” as a way of “proving that he has no motive for seeking employment. The responses he receives from the companies are alternately mocking and apologetic, some even attempting to allay his doubts. Using this method, Prévieux deftly exposes the system of values hidden in industrial society and the the consumer economy. His reasons for not seeking employment include: salary too low, office too far away, corporate reputation bad, etc. In the dissatisfaction and conflicts he creates, Prévieux reveals the structures of life under contemporary society, and the ideal form of the worker as envisioned by these advertisers. Lettres de non-motivation also deals with the social realities of unemployment and “underqualification,” satirizes the unequal relationship between employer and job-seeker, and leads the viewer to reflect anew on the unseen class restrictions that run throughout society.

8. Tsui Kuang-yu, Invisible City: Taiparis York
This video piece by Taiwanese artist Tsui Kuang-yu was on view at the 2008 Taipei Biennial, another example of his distinctively slight and humorous style. Here he confidently uses geographic symbols plucked from different cultures, creating a disjointed urban landscape that includes incongruous elements, each of which speaks to the exotic symbolism of its original location. People initially take this new landscape at face value, realizing only later that it is a “field of misunderstanding.” The video shows people looking at what appears to be the “night sky of Manhattan,” but as the shot zooms out, viewers realize these people are looking at a poster hung on the wall of the restaurant where they work. Tsui has made consistently good work in this vein for years now, using simple, funny “performance” to penetrate life. His works are almost theatrical, exposing the absurdity of life without putting pressure on the viewer, with an element of the self-mocking. Tsui Kuang-yu’s work has grown increasingly mature over the last several years, its content expanding with his own experience living and traveling in Europe, yet still mindful of the distinct cultural differences between Taiwan and elsewhere. He one of the brightest stars of the new generation.

9. Yang Fudong, Cyan Kylin
Yang Fudong’s video installation at the 2008 Guangzhou Triennial was one of the best works there, at once revealing an artist at a critical juncture in his practice and moving the viewer with the simple, realist style it used to depict the daily existence of laborers. He shot the piece in a northern Chinese village that produces stone sculptures, a town he passed through while he was producing Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest: Part Four. Contrary to the experimental tone and urban, nihilist fixation of most of his other work, here Yang Fudong gets beyond ambiguous, artsy imaginings, instead using a documentary perspective to gaze into lives at the bottom of the economic ladder. This documentary hinted at the possibility of a broader shift toward the social in Yang Fudong’s work, leaving us all to wait and see.

10. Kalle Lasn, Design Anarchy (Adbuster Media, 2006)
In a multinational capitalist era where anything can be consumed, should artists and designers keep their distance, fall into line, or resist? Kalle Lasn, editor of the Canadian magazine Adbusters, used this book to elaborate his extreme aesthetic position. The books mixes text and image, deconstructing the perils of contemporary consumerism and summoning cultural workers and artists to show social concern and unite against the psychological contamination of much contemporary imagery, participating in a giant movement he calls Culture Jam. Many artists, photographers, and designers responded to the call, and the book includes work by Jeff Wall, Andres Serrano, Ryan McGinley, Gregory Crewdson, and Barbara Kruger. Lasn is the cultural activist who popularized “Buy Nothing Day” and “TV Turnoff Week.”

Amy Huei-hua Cheng is a critic and curator based in Taipei and Vancouver.