Taiwan has a surface area of 36,000km2, on which 23 million people live. Difficult, perhaps, to imagine then that this modestly sized country incorporates two very different worlds. One is a world of leisure and enjoyment, the other a world of poverty and want.
Living in the first, one can enjoy a huge fireworks display to mark the centenary of the Republic of China (ROC) not so long after wandering around the Taipei International Flora Expo, and then from the fireworks display to the Dreamers (夢想家) extravaganza, and the inspirational, visual feast that was. And the cost? No need to worry about that. The NT$13.6 billion (US$449.67 million) spent on the expo, the NT$100 million up in smoke in one 20-minute fireworks show, the NT$215 million spent on four hours’ worth of performances spread over two nights for Dreamers, all came out of the public’s pocket. It was courtesy of the taxpayer. Were private individuals even asked to cough up?
Of course, influential people got VIP tickets sent off to them, promotional tickets, no problem. And of course, for the rest of us, with a bit of cash in our pockets and leisure time on our hands, we can get in for NT$300, maybe NT$500.
Then there is life in the world of want of the average farmers — banana, guava, garlic and pear farmers — who when not toiling under the hot summer sun, are plagued with constant concerns about falling prices and other risks.
Do they have the spare cash and time to pile into a car and drive to Taipei and catch the expo, or over to Greater Taichung to watch Dreamers? Can they take time out from their worries like those poor folk in the cities forced to take unpaid leave, or the jobless sitting at home, catching some respite from their woes by watching one of these shows?
Rather than allocating public resources and public funds to the hardworking majority or the more vulnerable groups in society, this money is being spent instead on entertaining people with money and leisure time on their hands, giving them more and more marvelous ways to dispose of both. Really, what is the world coming to?
Actually, if the wider public exists in two worlds in Taiwan, the phenomenon is perhaps even more pronounced in the art world. The general consensus, perhaps a stereotype, but often true, is of the poverty-ridden artist, living hand-to-mouth. Perhaps their lot comes from some original sin, but their lot it is, and they just have to grin and bear what is coming to them.
Anyway, the very fact of their poverty spurs them on and inspires their work. Their circumstance is both the sustenance and the source of their art. And, being artists, they would never stoop so low as to whine about this. No, the reality is actually quite different, surprisingly enough, and the art world is just as polarized as the rest of society.
There are also the Yo-yo Mas (馬友友) of this world, which is how you can get a production like Dreamers commanding NT$39 million for the “creativity design project” and NT$60.79 million for “production and performance planning;” NT$550 million for director Stan Lai’s (賴聲川) input in the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Deaflympics in Taipei in September 2009 and another NT$150 million for Ismene Ting (丁乃箏), an actress and director who happens to be Lai’s sister-in-law, to work on the flora expo.
The government is throwing money at these things. Whoever said there is no money in art? And whatever happened to the idea of poor tortured souls starving for their art?
From the above figures, it seems all too obvious that there is no shortage of funds in the art world; it literally seems to have money to burn.
The problem with the art world today is not a lack of cash, it is a lack of an even playing field; it is not a problem of talent or fair competition, it is a problem of monopolizing resources, of nepotism and inbreeding; it is not a problem of art for art’s sake, it is a problem of art for politics’ sake.
Any mention of the money pits of the Deaflympics, the flora expo or Dreamers leads one to Lai and his circle. Any talk of the string of fireworks displays and Taiwanese operas leads you straight to Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang (蔡國強) and the Ming Hwa Yuan (Tien) Taiwanese Opera Company (明華園天字戲劇團).
These Yo-yo Mas are all associated with “being creative,” and “being creative” is associated with NT dollars measured in the tens of millions, the hundreds of millions. That is how the money is spent.
For the vast majority of artists who live below the stratospheric heights of Ma and his ilk, well, sorry, if you go and ask for public funds and get told where to go; you have only yourselves to blame. You can ask, and shall not receive. Is this the art world you know?
Taiwan, how did it come to this? Who allowed things to get this bad?
Chang Kuo-tsai retired from National Hsinchu University of Education as an associate professor.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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