Quoting London’s Tate Gallery, the Wikipedia entry for “appropriation” kicks off with the following lines: “Appropriation is a fundamental aspect in the history of the arts (literary, visual, musical). Appropriation can be understood as ‘the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work.’” It is productive to think of the Taipei Fine Art Museum’s exhibition Time Games: Appropriations of the Past (台灣當代.玩古喻今) not so much as an accomplished show that disentangles the various “borrowed elements” apparent in the work of 23 Taiwanese artists, but as a kind of cognitive dissonance.
“Based on the subject matter of the appropriated works, the exhibition is divided into seven categories, harkening back to the classification system of dynastic China: Landscapes; Taoism and Buddhism; Human Figures; Tales of the Mysterious; Calligraphy; Flowers, Birds and Beasts; and Photographic Images,” states the introductory brochure.
In other words, the visual language of contemporary Taiwanese art (all displayed works were produced after 1990) can be reduced to the subject matter found within another country’s art traditions using general categories that are never explained. What results is an exhibition of outstanding art that suffers from severe conceptual shortcomings.
Photo: Noah Buchan, Taipei Times
To underscore the relevance of its thesis, TFAM provides an illustrated handout featuring the “appropriated” works from China’s dynastic history (Southern Song to the Qing), many of which are to be found in the collections of the National Palace Museum and Beijing’s Palace Museum. The viewer can then bring the document into the museum and, presumably, marvel at the similarity between the works hanging on the walls and the matchbook-sized images on paper.
The problem, though, is that it’s baloney. While it’s undeniable that elements from China’s artistic history are present in the photography, painting and sculpture displayed here, American pop culture, European fairy tales and Japanese iconography — not to mention appropriated genres such as surrealism, dadaism and conceptualism — are equally, if not more, apparent.
Take Kuo Jen-chang’s (郭振昌) Where to Start III (從何開始之三) for example. The large-scale mixed-media painting of devilish characters seducing a young woman is a dadaesque medley of visual elements drawn from Taiwan’s folk religion and Walt Disney. Or Yang Mao-lin’s (楊茂林) Stories From the Lives of the Two Mad Sarvanivarana-Viskambhin Kings (除蓋障瘋癲二天王之本生傳). Yang has always had a penchant for secularizing the spiritual by commandeering kitschy pop characters (King Kong, Batman, Tinker Bell) as icons of the sacred. Here he follows that tradition, but using characters from Alice in Wonderland on a surface of Buddhist iconography. Intriguingly, the scroll on which the painting is based comes from Tibet.
Photo: Noah Buchan, Taipei Times
Other artists on view follow the classical Chinese tradition of imitation while appropriating the framework of conceptual art. Howard Chen’s (陳浚豪) Reproduction of “Travelers Among Mountains and Streams” by Fan Kuan in Sung Dynasty 1031 (2011 臨摹北宋范寬谿山行旅圖 1031) is an exact visual replica of the 11th-century work on which it is based. However, the “painting” was created using 750,000 mosquito nails, a process that evolved from Chen’s experiments with installation art. Interestingly, Chen’s solo show at Tina Keng Gallery (耿畫廊) last year translated “reproduction” in the title as “imitation.”
But it’s only with Chen Chieh-jen’s (陳界仁) photograph Revolt in the Body and Soul 1900-1999: Rule of Law (魂魄暴亂1900-1999:法治圖) that I realized how culturally myopic the museum is being. First because it presumes that photography should be included in the “classification system” of dynastic China on the level of the other six categories mentioned (and don’t get me started on the many ways we can classify calligraphy or landscape painting). Also, the photograph, based on a 1930 image of the Wushe Incident (霧社事件), can be seen as a performance art piece captured with the camera and modified with computer technology.
Reducing contemporary Taiwanese art to elements appropriated from China’s art history while ignoring other influences has become the shibboleth of TFAM (and other government-funded museums) over the past few years. Still, what Appropriations of the Past reveals, though inadvertently, is that the nation’s artists are adept at drawing on a diverse array of visual, theoretical and cultural elements through time and place to produce original work that bears all the hallmarks of hybridity, which is quintessentially Taiwanese.
Photo: Noah Buchan, Taipei Times
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and