The fourth international Taipei Biennial, held at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM), closes Jan. 23 and has already become noteworthy for provocative work by well-known and emerging artists, as well as for the conflict that emerged between its curators.
Additionally, discussions arose about other problematic issues inherent in the exhibition's structure, such as not commissioning new works, its mediocre budget and its tight time schedule.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF SUSAN KENDZULAK
Why does the Taipei Biennial hold such global importance and carry such prestige? Isn't it just about pictures hanging on a wall in a museum? Why does it receive so much press locally and internationally? Why do people in the field get so impassioned over it?
This type of major art exhibition, held every two years, comes from the tradition of the 19th-century's fairs, which were aimed at promoting the advancement of the host country's technologies and achievements. The Venice Biennale is the granddaddy of them all, having started in 1895. Art biennials raise a city's profile, thus explaining the mushrooming of biennials around the world: Shanghai, Havana and Istanbul to name a few. Next year one begins in Luanda, Angola.
Non-Western countries are catching on to this strategy of bringing in big-name curators and famous artists to mingle with the local ones because it gives cachet to the local scene. International press coverage links the famous artists with the local artists, thus giving a huge jumpstart to the local artists' careers.
Biennials also help to strengthen the infrastructure of the local cultural situation by creating more chances for publications and press coverage and reinforcing the various professions of artists, curators, critics and arts administrators.
In Taiwan, the profession of contemporary art is fairly new. When the TFAM opened at the end of 1983, it was the first contemporary art museum in Taiwan and one of the pioneers of contemporary art in Asia.
Lin Mun-lee (
Lin said that choosing the curators for the Biennial is a lot like matchmaking. The past three Biennials saw a kind of mentoring program between an experienced European curator and an emerging Taiwanese one. Yet, this time, it backfired, with no dialogue occurring.
"It's not that the formula is wrong, it's how it is done. How do you use the formula to make it work?" Lin said.
However, she believes the current direction of the Biennial is closing in on itself rather than opening up to the world as she originally envisioned.
The museum also plays a critical role between the foreign and local curators. Lin said it is the responsibility of the museum to consider how the combination of curators would work and that the museum doesn't have a system to analyze and improve the biennial.
Two of the artists in the exhibition agree. Lin Hongjohn (林宏璋) and Chen Chieh-ren (陳界仁) are compiling signatures from artists, critics, scholars and arts administrators to petition the Council of Cultural Affairs and Taipei's Cultural Affairs Bureau to ask for an overhaul of the Biennial.
They are asking for curators to be chosen at least a year before the exhibition opens, not five months beforehand, as was the case this year.
Second, they want the funding to be increased so that more artists can travel and that new artworks can be made. The budget for this year's Taipei Biennial was approximately NT$20 million, much less than other Biennials. And third, they are asking for a special Biennial department that works independently of the museum.
And as Lin stated the "Taipei Biennial represents Taiwan so the government should be more supportive, and not just the city government, but the central one too."
As Taiwan's cultural institutions are run by the government, the future of the Biennial is unfortunately not in the hands of the people who are trained in and are passionate about the arts, but rather in the hands of policymakers.
Exhibition notes
Taipei Fine Arts Museum,181, Zhongshan N Rd, Sec 3, Taipei
Telephone: (02) 2595 7656 or go to http://www.tfam.gov.tw
When: Until Jan. 23. Tuesday to Sunday, 9:30am to 5:30pm, closed Monday.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50