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Mixing theater with art for a dynamic dialogue

A potent mix of theater and art? PHOTO COURTESY OF KAOHSIUNG MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

Can theater and art symbiotically be shown under the same roof? Does theater belong in an art museum, since its methodologies, history, and references are often not art-related? These are some of the questions raised in City Odysseys ? Loosing and Lost, a group show of visual artists Liu Shih-fen (劉世芬), Peng Hung-chih (彭弘智), Huang Yi-Ju (黃怡儒) and two theater groups Shakespeare's Wild Sisters and the Riverbed Theatre currently at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts until May 23.

Media artist Hsu Su-chen (who is currently part of the Taiwan-British artist exchange) organized this show under the museum's biannual Forum for Creativity in Art program. Hsu chose work that reflected the physicality of the body, covertly as in Peng's work or overtly as in Liu's work.

Liu's nursing career informs her art practice. In a chamber at the end of a narrow corridor, on two large screens, morphed faces slowly pop into view and then dematerialize. On a smaller video screen, a grid of 12 circles shows various interior parts of the artist's body filmed by swallowing a camera.

Exhibition Notes: Performances scheduled Sunday March 28 at 11am and 3pm. For further info: www.kmfa.gov.tw

Walking into the room that contains Peng Hung-Chih's Little Danny: Made in Austria reminded me of the joke that dyslexics pray to Dog. A large skylight filters rays of light onto the 4.5m-tall sculpture of a toy Dalmatian which takes on the aura of a sacred icon making the viewer feel he has come to the end of his pilgrimage.

It is really an awe-inspiring site, and yet extremely comical. The sculpture is embedded with 3,000 toy dogs whose little synchronized yaps are triggered by a hidden motion sensor. Peering through the body, one sees a complex system of wires, an electronic nervous system. "Little Danny" not only refers to neural and urban pathways, but about people as a collective and about the pathways of globalization as the toys were made in China by a Taiwanese company and shipped via Hong Kong to Austria. Whew!

The two theater groups performed on opening day. Shakespeare's Wild Sisters' hour-long performance included workers in orange jump suits (inspired by the conceptual artist group Post-8) who move ladders and props; a surveillance-like video mimicking an interrogation/torture scene; the leads providing voice-overs to the movie-like projection of different actors; and a Quentin Tarantino/Keystone Kops- inspired musical interlude. Without their live performance, however, the installation of metal lockers with humans projected onto hanging garments would seem deadened.

The Riverbed Theatre's more arty installation of staged photographs, archival texts, a white-chocolate-covered room, and assorted found objects such as a suicide contraption told the seemingly real story of deceased hermetic madman C.A. Tinquero whose unpublished play Headless in Los Angeles is what the group performs live. The performance in English combines video and music and brings to mind many cinematic references rather than art ones.

Seeing a crossover between diverse disciplines can be a bit confusing as there are different sets of criteria to use to read art and to read theater. However, by combining them in this way creates a dynamic dialogue and makes it an exhibition the viewer will think about for a long time after.
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