Kuo Wei-kuo's (郭維國) oil paintings characteristically set his nude self in a dreamscape, which, according to Chen, is a metaphor of the Taiwanese society. Under a cloudy sky in Where Is My Home? (何處是我家), Kuo is leading a packhorse, a broken mirror reflecting a young Kuo by its side, while looking back with thoughtful eyes as if setting out for a journey from which he will never return.
Quoting French philosopher Roland Barthes, Kuo declined to comment on his works, saying that the personal symbols which infuse these intriguing images are for each viewer to freely decipher. However, the best way to appreciate these atmospheric works is to just stand back and sink one's imagination into the these dreamscapes, as Kuo presents a humorous and spontaneous reflection instead of a fierce commentary on society.
Four years ago, Wu Tian-chang's staged photos and multi-media works won him international recognition. These works explored contemporary eroticism by setting overtly eroticized figures in the conservative 1950s, thus destroying the myths of the age of innocence. This time, Wu takes on genetic engineering in this exhibition with a folk-religion twist.
Living With One Heart Forever (永協同心) maintains his gaudy style with frames made of big golden roses and gold-rimmed black velvet. The work consists of two plates, on the right is an imitation oracle poem telling the story of a pair of twins' reincarnation, and on the left is a staged photo of the twin brothers riding on a two-person bicycle, one handless and the other legless. The poem attributes their deformities to their tragic love rivalry in their last life, saying that they have been fated to lack certain limbs so that they have to cooperate closely with each other in this life.
The work presents a scenario where all disastrous mistakes made in genetic engineering can be seen from a positive viewpoint and explained away by bad karma. Although it may seem too early for Wu to worry about the ramifications of the technology, the questions the work raises about the incompleteness in each person and how folk beliefs try to rationalize that and turn it into interpersonal advantage is particular relevant to Taiwan, where a sense of solidarity in the social and political arenas seems to be lacking.
The strongest emotional impact in the exhibition probably comes from Lu Tian-yan's (盧天炎) blood calligraphy. Using his own blood as ink, Lu wrote down on cotton cloth the Chinese characters for "the world is for all," (天下為公) "the revolution has yet to succeed," (革命尚未成功) and "the Republic of China," (中華民國) the slogans frequently evoked during Taiwan's martial law era.
For the older generation, who dream of "recovering" the Chinese mainland, these words are encouraging as they represent the pride and perseverance of traditional Chinese intellectuals. However, the blood calligraphy can strike viewers as ironically delirious, particularly with the burnholes and apparently accidental blood stains on them, as if the calligrapher is madly fighting for a lost cause to his last breath.
Viewers strolling among the exhibits may have a hard time finding a common thread uniting these works. Maybe a decade ago, these then hot-blooded 30-somethings all chose to ridicule political figures or deal head-on with cross-strait issues, but now their priorities have changed. What shows in this exhibition is their now mellow approach to social issues with matured artistic expression.
RSS