Featuring Yuan Goang-ming (
"Translated Acts: Performance and Body Art from East Asia" at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin from March 8 to May 6 brings together 28 well-known and emerging artists from Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and China. Famous artists such as Xu Bing and Gu Wenda from China, Mariko Mori and Dumb Type from Japan, Michael Joo from Korea and Tehching Hsieh from Taiwan were chosen by Yu Yeon-kim, who was also one of the curators for the Kwangju Biennial 2000.
Kim's premise for the exhibition is to show how the artist uses the body to situate him or herself between diverse cultures and between tradition and modernity. Many of the Asian artists in the show have studied or lived in Europe or the US, and much of their work includes how they critically deal with identity, social conditioning, contradictions within the global economy and living in high-tech urban centers. In addition, the exhibition will show how these Asian artists' manifest their experiences of the difference between their Taoist, Confucian or Buddhist backgrounds and Western culture.
PHOTOS: MANRAY HSU
Plans to bring this major show to Taiwan are being discussed, but until then, audiences can get a partial glimpse at Hanart and see Yuan's videos and Lin's photographs and recorded performances. Both artists were classmates at art school in Germany several years ago.
Yuan works mainly with multi-media, creating interactive video installations, and one of his strengths is providing viewers with a unique focal point to see the world around them. Several of his video projections that were recently on view for "Sparkling City" in Panchiao, Taipei County, can be seen here. Yuan realizes that many of his popular pieces are receiving heavy exposure in Taiwan, so he wanted to present a more limited selection of his work for Hanart. Floating is a video of a gently rocking rowboat on a murky sea. Shot so that the viewer feels that he's sitting in the boat, the video also lulls one with its rolling motion, that is, until water splashes into the boat. As the boat continues to rock, it capsizes and gives an eerie sense of drowning.
In Bird Cage the camera is placed at the bottom of the cage looking up at a seated bird, so that we feel we are also in the cage, imprisoned and looking up at the sky. As the man holding the cage walks through the streets, we can also experience the bird's eye view of passing buildings and glimpses of free-moving clouds.
PHOTOS: MANRAY HSU
Lin primarily does performance art, which by its nature is ethereal. For the opening in Berlin, Lin performed an earlier work titled Action Painting (on video at the gallery). The title refers to gestural painters like Jackson Pollock who were known for their heavy brush strokes as well as their heavy drinking. Lin placed several paint-rimmed wine glasses upside-down on a white paper tablecloth and swirled the glasses around mixing the colors together to create an abstract painting.
In Lin's work, the photographs become a part of the performance rather than the documentation of the event. In one work, Lin sits straddled behind a pedestal resting his head atop it. After gluing many photos of his portrait to obscure his face, the performance gives a comical illusion of reality when the photos also take the place of his face.
For Lin's first exhibition in Taiwan in 1999, he performed in a dark room where only a hanging sheet of florescent paper was visible. The video shows Lin ripping the paper and gluing it to his feet, then to his shins, until he completely covers his body. Of course, during his enthralling performance, the only thing that is visible is the florescent paper, and as his performance progresses, his breathing gets heavier as he begins to make himself visible by the application of the day-glo paper. Lin's performances relate to the invisibility and voicelessness he experienced when he lived in Germany where he was unable to communicate easily.
PHOTOS: MANRAY HSU
Art Notes
What: Translated Acts
Where: Hanart Gallery (漢雅軒), B1, 306, Sec. 4, Jen-ai Road, Taipei (北市仁愛路四段B1)
PHOTOS: MANRAY HSU
When: Until March 25
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