The exhibition Wayward Economy is on view at the Main Trend Gallery until Feb. 26 and brings together a group of artists from Taiwan, Europe and Africa. Curated by Manray Hsu (
This grant -- for which 15 projects competed -- is the first of its kind in Taiwan and aims to help increase opportunities for local curators. It comes with a none-too-shabby minimum budget of NT$1 million.
The exhibition includes videos, Web sites and installations and tries to examine current economics in the context of art. As the curators posited in their statement: "The idea of wayward economy is to demonstrate that against the dominant rules of game in global economy, there are those behaviors and lives that are hard to control or predict, that are resistant and exist on [sic] the realm of parasite or survival, and hence wayward."
At first glance the argument put forth makes sense but upon closer scrutiny the works do not seem to entirely fit the bill.
Grouped under the theme "Informal and/or illegal economy" are the installations by Karl-Heinz Klopf, who shows his road documentary about local betel nut stands, projected in a makeshift wooden box.
Taiwan's COSWAS (Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters) installation is poignant and tells the story of a teen girl who willingly chose to go into prostitution to help out her struggling family. Now middle-aged, she is infirm and unemployable but is part of the activist collective, which allows her to sell herbal vinegar as a means to support herself.
Shilpa Gupta's video game parodies the efficient and economical delivery system in Mumbai where home cooked meals are delivered to office workers).
The section "Alternatives and Utopias" includes Oliver Ressler's ambitious project titled "Alternative Economics, Alternative Societies."
Viewers can sit down at one of 10 desks, each containing one-on-one short, provocative video interviews with leading Western thinkers such as Michael Albert and John Holloway who discuss various alternatives to globalization.
Topics such as Inclusive Democracy, Caring Labor, Participatory Economics, Change the World Without Taking Power, and The Paris Commune 1871 prepare one for the seriousness at hand.
Cheang Shu-lea (鄭淑麗) shows her Turn project, which debuted at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and which allows for free online music sharing. Visitors to her installation can burn music CDs for free. The Berlin-based artist group Big Hope has a large board game called Commonopoly where participants can playfully engage in ideas of sustainability and the like, while the Web site work of RE-CODE.COM offered free barcodes to download, thus showing the growing anti-NAFTA, anti-WTO sentiment in contemporary art.
What gave some joie de vivre to the austere exhibition was the live opening performance by AAKZB. (Atelier Artistique Kaam- Zoug-Bangre) from Burkina Faso. Their inclusion, as presented by Channel A, a group started by artists Lin Hongjohn and Ella Raidel, shed light on their plight as exploited workers in a local amusement park and epitomized the class and racial inequities in the global economy.
A section of videos and Web sites from activists and artists were presented as a supplement and titled Extra. However, it felt tacked on like an afterthought. Overall, the exhibition is heavy on the didacticism and light on the poetry.
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