Curators take over MOCA

Variation Xanadu is the last exhibition in the Curators in MOCA, 2005 series recently on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art and is curated by Jason Chia-chi Wang

(王嘉驥). The exhibition features mainly video works by well-known international artists such as German filmmaker Werner Herzog, Runa Islam and Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba in addition to well-known Taiwanese artists Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁), Wu Tien-chang (吳天章)and documentary filmmaker Huang Mingchuan (黃明川).

Wang recently curated the Taiwan Pavilion titled The Spectre of Freedom at this year's Venice Biennale. Wang who is more of a literary-based curator came up with the premise for Variation Xanadu based on the ideas put forth by Samuel Taylor Coleridge's opium-dreamt poem The Ballad of Kublai Khan which described the poetic space of this fictive place Xanadu. The theme of this unattainable, yet perfect space combined with the diverse artworks fit well together as there is an overall narcotic and hypnotic effect to what is on view.

One fascinatingly hypnotic work is Hiraki Sawa's video projections of airplanes flying through the domestic interiors of an apartment, with planes taking off from an unmade bed or landing on a kitchen table to create an effect that is quite dreamlike and erotic.

The films by artistic filmmakers Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba and Werner Herzog are a must-see. Nguyen-Hatsushiba's Memorial Project Nha Trang, Vietnam: Toward the

Complex, for the Courageous, the Curious and the Cowards is a haunting monument. Filmed underwater, fishermen without any breathing apparatus push Vietnamese-style bicycle carts through the reefs and periodically come up for gasps of air, thus showing that the drive for survival such as breathing overrides the scripted acts of the performance.

Time is a big theme in many of the works on view, but often containing a sense of wistfulness. Herzog's Ten Thousand Years Older is a compelling short 10-minute film documenting the discovery of one of the Amazon's last unknown tribes, and moves ahead to 20 years later, ultimately showing that contact with modern life led to the tribe's demise.

Tse Su-mei, won a Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2003 for his video The Desert Sweepers among her other works for the Luxembourg Pavilion. In the video, street sweepers futilely continue to sweep the sand in the vast limitless desert with no end in sight.

China-based artist Wang Jianwei (汪建偉) shows his film Living Elsewhere that documents peasants who squat in abandoned mansions built near an airport access highway in Chengdu, Sichuan Province and is a glaring metaphor for the dark side of globalization.

Some alumni from the Taipei Biennial 2002, in which Wang co-curated, includes Runa Islam from England. Her double screen projection with a jazzy soundtrack hints at narrative and solemnly ruminates about aging and city life. Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁) created a special work for the exhibition titled Ba-de Area which also explores the memory of

abandoned spaces.

Kao Chung-li's (高重黎) installation of noisily running 8mm projectors show his hand-drawn animations that combine personal mementoes with images of war and destruction. Hou Tsung-hui (侯聰慧) has an intimate photo installation of psychiatric patients at the infamous Lun Fatang Monastery.

And stay tuned because in October, MOCA will hold an international seminar entitled Exhibition Curating and City Marketing from Cultural Activities and world-renowned curators specializing in cross-culture studies or Asian cultural studies will participate.