When the Flash Art reviewers finally got around to dealing with the show conceptually, they looked on its theme, "Plateau of Humankind," as basically a non-theme, having only a very general sense of Humanism. The publication further saw the change signaling "the end of the curator as auteur."
In Taipei, this latter point hit home last Sunday at a panel discussion including Kao, four of Taiwan's five representative artists to Venice and other members of the local arts community. The topic of discussion was the power struggle between artists and curators, and whether curators have the right to use artists' works as simple quotations in the scheme of an exhibition's larger discursive statement.
The Taiwan exhibition itself, called "Homecoming" here at TFAM and "Living Cell -- Soul Factory of Mankind" while in Venice, is also lightly themed. Aside from a few general notions of exploring the human condition that Kao insists are present, there is little that ties together the works of the five represented artists: Wang Wen-chih (
Kao said that her intention was not to tie these artists together with any superimposed ideology, but rather exhibit them as themselves. She described her goals as simply presenting work that would introduce "Taiwan's unique cultural situation" and also have a broader appeal through touching on issues common to all mankind.
A good example of what she's talking about comes in The Chain, a series of photographs by Chang Chien-chi, consisting mostly of near-life sized portraits of paired Chinese men, hair shaved to the scalp and chained together at the waist.
For a local viewer, like Wang Jie-hui, the images are powerful while also having a clear reference. In this case it is to the inmates of the Lung Fa Tang mental asylum, where pairs of mildly and severely disabled patients are chained together so that the more competent one may care for his companion.
"I've known about that place since I was a little kid and was taught to fear those people," said Wang. "So when I saw [the photos], I immediately knew what it and was frightened by it."
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