TFAM's Hyper Reality blurs the boundaries

The Taipei Fine Arts Museum's collection is rich and extensive, and lends itself to various juxtapositions for exhibitions such as the current Hyper Reality -- Contem-porary Images from the Museum Collection. The premise of the show is that with the advent of digital technology the distinctions between photography and fine arts are becoming blurred. As these digital images transcend appearance to convey reality, they then become hyper real, as they evoke otherworldly types of feelings, according to the show's curator Sharleen Yu.

The exhibition could have been stronger by focusing entirely on the post-martial law period when Taiwanese artists flourished after 1987. Moreover, the works of several European and Japanese artists are included, thus diluting one of the stronger themes of the show.

Narahara Ikko's Two Garbage Cans, Amerindian Village shows two garbage cans frozen in mid-air as if primal spirits elevated them to float amidst huge cumulus clouds. Working with silver bromide paper provides a sterling quality to the images.

Martin Franck juxtaposed surreal elements, such as a shadow of a tree trunk projected on a wall combined with the tree hidden behind, thus creating a whole tree, one that is part shadow and part leaves.

American photographer Arthur Tress created what he termed "scripted images," a series where children posed for him in run-down shacks and desolate areas. In Masked Children two youngsters wear dime-store Halloween costumes while stiffly posing in a run-down urban neighborhood. The contrast of the shabby surroundings with their attire hints at their aspirations for a middle-class life.

In this grouping of photographs, the local artists stand out. And no wonder as there is a movement afoot to make Taiwan a digital art paradise. Yet, it is not only the recent art that is striking. Veteran filmmaker Chang Chao-tang's (張照堂) gelatin silver prints of the early 1960s are metaphysically disturbing. In Being I a disembodied man stands relaxed while the horizon line seems to replace his head.

Several Taiwanese artists deal with political themes. Yao Jui-chung's (姚瑞中) Attacking the Mainland Action Series shows the artist jumping in front of historical buildings in China and Hong Kong. As he is suspended in midair he conveys his sense of both being in limbo and of cultural displacement.

Chen Chieh-jen's (陳界仁) morbid black and white digital print shows an orgy of naked massacred bodies with the artist's face superimposed on the soldiers' bodies. These macabre works may not seem like fine art to the general public, but they take their histor-ical place in a long tradition of anti-war art.

Wu Tien-chang's (吳天章) Farewell Ceremony of Injury I-IV is a group of portraits where the face is made mute and is obscured by various objects. Framed by local cultural artifacts such as crushed velvet and plastic flowers, the work is about repression and freedom of expression. This sense of voicelessness is a common thread in many artworks of the post-martial law period.

Daniel Lee's (李小鏡) Origin contains a slow moving projection that starts off with a scaly fish whose fins start to morph into legs and whose head starts to transform first into a lizard, then an ape and finally becomes a man. He made this work in 1999 when this type of technology was still revolutionary, yet the work still looks fresh.