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ICA offers a proving ground for young artists

By Chang Ju-ping
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Jun 03, 2001, Page 19

Information Hurricane by Chen Long-bin PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Taipei opened last week with a large showcase of contemporary art titled The Gravity of the Immaterial (輕且重的震撼).

With 26 art projects on display occupying the two-storey ICA building, this is probably Taipei's most extravagant showcase of contemporary artists next to the Taipei Biennials. If there is a difference, then it is in the greater emphasis placed on local contemporary artists in the ICA show, which in its first exhibition only features six foreign artists.

Despite this show's smaller NT$5 million budget, the ICA show is more refined than the highly energized, fun-driven Taipei Biennial, which finished in January. The art works selected focus more on issues of local concern. With the Biennial becoming a more international event, it is likely that ICA exhibition will take over the role of providing exposure to up and coming local artists.

The title of the show is a reference to the age of the ICA building, which dates back 80 years. Because of its age it is limited in the weight it can carry, so the curators selected works that were light, so materials like feathers, paper, and plastics are widely used in the show.

Looking Glass by Alan Rath PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES

The works are linked by the theme of communication. Works explore specific topics of communication, especially of emotions that cannot be rationally resolved. In general, the first floor exhibits are more colorful, visually appealing and meant to stimulate your senses. The second floor contains a greater percentage of technology and Internet related works of a more philosophical turn.

Awake in Your Skin by Wu Mali PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES

As you enter the lobby of the first floor, you see the three-person media art group Etat Lab's 2001 new project Yellow Submarine. The topic of this work is the recent disastrous floods in Taipei, which are turned to humorous purpose. There is a yellow cab simulating a submarine, its windows looking onto a tour of Taipei under water. Placed at the entrance of the show, it encourages visitors to leave behind the chaos of the city and have fun in a world of contemporary art.

Ideas Everywhere by Marvin Minto Fang PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES

The corridor along the first floor takes visitors from Joyance Community and to Eva Return to Wonderland 2001, both creations of a make-believe world. Joyance Community is a satirical project by a group of young artists calling themselves P8. Picking up on the theme of communication, the group has created a series of signs regulating all kinds of absurd behavior. P8 members are being satirical about the models and standards of behavior demanded by a commercial and industrial world, questioning whether they really bring happiness and wellness to the community.

At the end of the hallway, artist Jun Lai (賴純純) responds with a different world of make-believe. She has covered the floor of a room with with soft, fluffy carpet and created a shrine-like atmosphere. A transparent acrylic figure of a woman hangs in the room, seeming to fly through the air.

Lai has always been very feminine in her art. On this occasion she has made a corner of the art center into a place of spiritual healing where visitors can become more receptive to communication.

The second-floor exhibits feature more technology-oriented exhibits, particularly interactive screens. Dutch media artist Bert Schutter's Les Baigneuses is inspired by Renoir. This interactive installation has a camera that captures visitors entering the room in which there is a screen showing three naked women bathing. As visitors enter, the three women run away and hide.

Unfortunately with 3,000 people visiting the show on the first day, this exhibit was overwhelmed.

Ku Shih-yung's (顧世勇) Red Calling in Deep Blue is another interactive multimedia installation. It features a colorful scene with a woman making a phone call on her cell phone. As she talks, bubbles popping up reveal the cell phone number. You can call the number and the woman then morphs into a red jellyfish floating on the water. Ku hints at the transience of the media flooding the modern commercial world, in which everything seems to lose value and meaning so rapidly.

Local artists rarely use mechanical devices for art, making Alan Rath's Pair quite eye-catching. As an engineer turned digital artist, Rath calls his works electro-mechanical sculptures.

Locally active artists like Yao Jui-chung (姚瑞中) and Chen Long-bin (陳龍斌) have again brought huge projects to the show. Yao as usual plays with photographic images. Instead of his regular interests in historical and social topics, this time he talks about desire.

"Desire is a monster like the dragon," Yao says and what that results in shows in his photos as ambition or fear.

Chen, maintains his focus on knowledge and information. His new sculpture is much more stylized and spectacular than his previous works as he pushes his book sculpture idea further than ever before.

Art Notes:
What: The Gravity of the Immaterial (輕且重的震撼)
Where: Institute of Contemporary Arts (台北當代藝術館), 39, Chang-an W. Rd., Taipei (台北長安西路39號).
When: Until August 26th. Closed Monday
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