“I wanted my work Good to Have You Here [2007, 有你真好] to come from a Taiwanese angle,” he says. “The country is sandwiched between China and Japan and the geographical and cultural connections have influenced Taiwan’s appearance today.”
Hsieh’s painting includes stylized versions of Chinese and Japanese flags with what appears to be an empty flagpole between. Still, the work seems more about color and space than politics, and it didn’t stir controversy when shown in Shanghai in 2007.
While interviewing Hsieh in his Bali Township (八里鄉), Taipei County studio, he came off understandably confused about cross-strait politics and complained that Taiwanese media coverage was often too one-sided.
Hsieh talked about attending a demonstration against Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin’s (陳雲林) visit in November, saying that he mostly went for the spectacle and that he was turned off by what he felt was the Democratic Progressive Party trying to take advantage of the event.
When I tried to corner him on whether he would show in China as a “Chinese artist” or an artist from “Taiwan, China,” he skirted the question, mentioning a story the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) covered last year about an advertisement by Taipei’s Asia Art Center (亞洲藝術中心) that listed 19 Taiwanese artists as being from “Taiwan, China.” The gallery caught hell for it, with one artist writing on his blog: “Here’s my middle finger: Fuck this show and fuck this gallery.”
Hsieh said that when he heard about the Asia Art Center story, he thought about making a work and labeling it with his name and a series of politically charged descriptions of his country like “Taiwan, China,” “Taiwan, Republic of China,” and the most controversial of them all: “The Republic of Taiwan” (台灣共和國). He never made the work.
One of the most interesting remarks from the interview came from a staff member of Aki Gallery (也趣畫廊), which represents Hsieh.
“The position of artists and galleries is different,” said Jocelyn Li (李悅芝), who accompanied me to Hsieh’s studio. “For galleries, we want to do business and make our commission, so we really want to get into the Chinese market. But for artists, the work is more important ... They can say, ‘OK, I’m not going to show.’”
But can they? Making a living as an artist can be challenging and as with galleries, there’s a strong temptation to go where the money is.
About a week after my interview with Hsieh I sent him an e-mail, hoping to get solid answers to some of the questions I felt he’d avoided. He responded straightforwardly, but what struck me was the honesty shown in an aside.
“To tell the truth,” Hsieh wrote, “I’m still trying to figure out things for myself ... That’s why my answers were unsure and hesitant.”
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