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Taiwan Pavilion teaches us a few art-history lessons

Hung Tung-lu's Street Fighter: Chun-Li was at the 1999 Venice Biennale. PHOTO COURTESY OF COURTESY OF TFAM

Taiwan holds two major art exhibitions that are links for its artists, providing them access to the international art world. One is the Taipei Biennial held every two years at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (last held in November of last year) and the other is the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which opens next month on June 12. Well, if you haven't booked your pricey ticket to gondola city, you can get a taste of previous Venice exhibitions for the price of an MRT ticket to Yuanshan Station. This weekend Contemporary Art from Taiwan at the Venice Biennale, 1995-2003 opens at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and runs until Aug. 14.

Taiwan has been exhibiting at the Venice Biennale since 1995 and each year's presentation is organized by a local curator working with several artists and the museum. At the museum, you will get to learn about the various art projects Taiwanese artists have shown in Venice. For example, in 2003 New York-based Lee Ming-wei (李明維) created the Sleeping Project.

Wu Tien-Chang's portraits shown at the 1997 Venice Biennale. PHOTO COURTESY OF COURTESY OF TFAM

Each night for a week a guest was chosen who could sleep in a bed near the artist's bed. The two beds on rollers could be moved closer or further away to manipulate the level of intimacy filling the exhibition space.

Some of Taiwan's successes besides the conceptual artworks like Lee's include documentary photographs such as Chang Chien-chi's (張乾琦) The Chain which showed mental patients from Lungfatung (龍發堂) chained together at the waist, digital imagery installations by Hung Tung-lu (洪東祿) and huge painted floral murals by Michael Lin.

Lee Ming-Wei's Sleeping Project shown at the 2003 Venice Biennale. PHOTO COURTESY OF COURTESY OF TFAM

A group of five graduate students from the Taipei National University of the Arts in Guandu will be going to this year's Venice Biennale to hand out art awards they claim come from a Taiwanese point of view. Their conceptual art project titled the Taiwan Award Goes to Venice Biennale is based on the argument that all contemporary art is Western. What's unfortunate about this point of view is that even though it is a fallacy similar to the idea behind bra-burning, many people from both the East and the West continue to promote it. Luckily for the students, this fallacy helped them get big sponsorship from the National Cultural Association and interest in their project from Chen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀) and filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮).

Hsu Suchen's Ana Swinhoe at the British Consulate, in Kaohsiung. PHOTO COURTESY OF HSU SUCHEN

Maybe these art students and culture policymakers need a short art-history lesson. It can be agreed that the art market and its auction houses are Western-dominated -- but only that. Here are some questions that readily come to mind. Who is one of the pioneering video artists who made installations with video monitors and experimented with the latest in video technology? Nam Jun Paik, an artist from South Korea. Who is one of the most famous conceptual artists in the world? Yoko Ono, from Japan. Where was some of the most experimental avant-garde art happening in the 1950s and 60s? In Japan. And to go back even further: who threw their ink pots at the paper and painted wildly? No, before the abstract expressionists in the 1940s, there were the Tang dynasty experimental poets and calligraphers.

And talking about history, if you're in Kaohsiung this weekend, check out the latest exhibition in the basement of the former British Consulate and former prison. Five dynamic women artists -- Hsu Su-chen (許淑真) Gin Yang (楊瑾雯), Vita Lin (林杏鴻), Hsu Hui-ju (許慧如), and Wen-fang Kuo(郭紋汎) -- interpret the prison cell for an exhibition titled Cell Exploration, which requires audience participation and interaction.

At a glance:
What: Contemporary Art from Taiwan at the Venice Biennale, 1995 to 2003
Where: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 181, Zhongshan N Rd, Sec 3, Taipei (台北市中山北路3段181號)
Telephone: (02) 2595 7656
When: May 28 to Aug. 14, Tuesday through Sunday, 9:30am to 5:30pm
Details: www.tfam.gov.tw

What: Cell Exploration
When: Now through May 29
Where: The British Consulate at Takao, Kaohsiung
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