KdMoFA showcases Taiwan video art development
2015/10/15
An exhibition featuring the development of Taiwan’s video art from 1983 to 1999 is underway at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, with 17 visual artists displaying 57 of their works from that period.
“Rewind—Video Art in Taiwan aims to chart the courses of the art form’s orientation and evolution in terms of history, aesthetics, technology and theory,” said curator Sing Song-yong. The genealogy of related artworks is the best testimony to the brilliance of this flourishing paradigm.
“October 1983 is considered to be the starting point of Taiwan’s video art as it’s when Kuo I-fen presented three video installations—namely ‘In the Corner,’ ‘The Last Party’ and ‘The Quiet Sound’—at the University of Tsukuba in Japan,” he added.
Veering away from such conventional artistic media as painting and sculpture, Kuo collected waste materials and combined them with visual recordings to create “The Last Party.”
The work was composed of 100 pieces of industrial waste in 100 cups placed on a long table, with a TV set at each end showing a man and a woman, respectively, as if they were enjoying a banquet.
At the current show running through Dec. 6, Kuo reproduced the work with 35 natural items such as dry dirt and pineapple to suggest that Mother Nature is as bountiful as a never-ending feast. “The media I choose reflect my surroundings in my daily life,” she said.
“While video is one element in my creations, anything can be put into my works as long as it addresses my concerns on cultural, environmental and social issues.”
Fellow artist Lu Ming-te also used video images in his installation works. His 1988 piece “Clan I” was composed of a miniature house built with tree branches wrapped in white bandages and decorated with a five-inch TV set. “I wanted to show the relationship between human beings, the natural environment and technology,” he said.
According to the curator, single-channel videos came to life in the 1980s with Kao Chung-li’s “Grooming,” Hung Su-chen’s “East/West,” Wang Jun-jieh’s “The Variable Form” and Yuan Goang-ming’s “About Millet’s Angelus.”
The field of video art diversified in the 1990s, Sing said, with artists developing their own styles and extending their scope to such themes as political critiques, personal reflections and the relationship between the real and virtual worlds.
The works on display at KdMoFA have been placed in four main categories: video installations, video sculptures, single-channel videos and performance art videos. Related manuscripts, photos, pamphlets, posters, monographs and video cameras give added depth to the artworks.
In addition, the International Conference on Video Art in Asia, scheduled for Oct. 23, will help to systematically explore the genre’s development since the 1960s. Experts from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and mainland China will share their observations and experiences on this expressive art form.
Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=237756&ctNode=2194&mp=9)
