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Art and more contained within

By Susan Kendzulak
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Sunday, Jan 04, 2004, Page 19

Soul-Skool Graffiti Crew made an urban experience of their container. PHOTO: SUSAN KENDZULAK

Kaohsiung takes pride in its heritage as a major shipping port and has gone all out to promote the 2003 Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival, being held at the Star of the Sea pier area until Jan. 11 and which includes an art exhibition, community art activities and various performances.

The first container arts festival took place in 2001 and had many of the artists refer to the container as a mode of transport for cargo, contraband, or human smuggling. This time the curated show with the theme of "post-civilization" has stepped away from alluding to the container as a means of shipment, but rather as a site for entertainment. More than 90 artists from Taiwan and around the world have participated in the show.

Taiwan's Soul-Skool Graffiti Crew captures the spirit of the festival with their work. Walking on train tracks to a loud pulsing hip-hop beat through several graffiti-painted containers, one feels the excitement of urban spaces minus the sense of danger. In other words, pure entertainment.

Nina Dimitriadi 11's The Flight allows the viewer to strap on a parachute and take off like a plane.

Kaohsiung's Sin Pin Pier Absolutely Art Space placed three containers in a precarious gravity-defying pyramid. One of the steeply inclined containers evokes the arduous mountain life of an Aboriginal.

Some artists used technology to reference the show's theme. In Hsu Jui-Hsien's (徐瑞憲) Gravity, a fake wall slowly and imperceptibly breathes in and out, symbolizing the gravitational force of civilization. Austrian Ella Raidel displays a grid of video monitors each showing a 24-hour span in one minute of several cities: Taipei, Kaohsiung, Linz, Vienna, Shanghai and Cannes. The compression of time highlights the rapidity of urban transformation.

Norbert Francis Attard created an optical illusion with water in his container.

A few containers by local art groups such as Taichung's Stock 20 and Chiayi's Tirosen use the containers as a basic white cube (i.e. gallery space) and install rather banal paintings and sculptures, basically ignoring the waterfront site or the function of a container, which is quite unfortunate, as these groups are known for much more provocative work.

Other containers sold goodies like popcorn.

However other artists try to link the site in their work. The interactive Periscope by Linda Tedsdotter allows the viewer to stand on a pedestal and look through the lens out to sea. Norwegian Marianne Heske brings the sounds of an ice-breaking ship cutting through the ice of a fjord, thus linking her home country's waterways to the Love River site.

One of the most successful installations, by Norbert Francis Attard from Malta, is poetic, complex, and yet simple. Standing at the doorway, the inside of the container, serving as a metaphor for our inner life, is filled with water and a motor pushes it out to sea. Visually, the water inside the container appears connected to the river outside, which would represent the exterior world.

Exhibition note: The 2003 Kaohsiung International Container Arts Festival will take place until Jan. 11.

Interspersed with the art were popcorn stands and souvenir stands to buy container-themed items such as pencils, boxes, key chains, etc., making it appear that the art is merely an entertainment backdrop serving corporate interests. A serious art event promoting provocative and innovative thought. Maybe not. A fun gathering place for the entire family to walk around, smell the sea, see the sights and to buy souvenirs. Most definitely.
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