Setting up social organizations has been a way for artists in oppressive political environments to encourage each other and buttress their common resistance to the stranglehold of the regime. During the martial law era, particularly in the early 1980s, more than 30 such art societies existed in Taiwan, the most famous one being the 101 Modern Arts Group. They organized exhibitions as a group and joined forces to criticize the oppressive social and political climate.
The lifting of martial law in 1987, however, deprived these societies of a common enemy and it wasn't long before most of them fell apart.
More than a decade later, these socially conscious artists who still have something to say about Taiwanese society gathered again to form the Handtoo Art Group (悍圖錄) in 1998. Among them are Wu Tian-chang (吳天章) and Yang Mao-lin (楊茂林), who represented Taiwan in the Venice Biennial in 1997 and 1999 respectively.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MAIN TREND ART SPACE
"Artistic Nomadism and Social Sentiments,"(藝術游牧與社會情愫) the group's current exhibition at the Main Trend Art Space (大趨勢藝術空間), showcases the latest developments in their artistic careers and offers keen perspectives on Taiwanese society.
"The younger generation of Taiwanese artists, who grew up in an affluent and democratic society and then studied art in Western countries, adopt a more lighthearted attitude to art. They are sometimes very bold and playful in their works. By contrast, the 40-something generation, who has been through the most turbulent years in Taiwan's social and political history, are more sensitive to social changes and show more affection for the country," Chen Jue-wen (陳瑞文), group member and the exhibition's curator, told the Taipei Times.
According to Chen, the works of Handtoo members still express the sense of mission and the ambition to change society after all the years of confrontation with the authorities have ended. "Apart from that, it's our mid-life crises that drew us together," he said. At a time when it's totally unfashionable, and certainly unprofitable, to be a full-time artist, Chen's eight mates have adhered to an artistic career. Their devotion shows through the 21 two-dimensional exhibits, which deal with present-day social issues in a sincere manner.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MAIN TREND ART SPACE
Yang Mao-lin has dealt with Taiwan's teenage pop culture for the past four years with his attention-grabbing multi-media works combining traditional Chinese prints, Japanese porn video stills, American cartoon and manga characters that rendered his last solo exhibition "Inviting the Immortals 2: Baby, you are amazing!" an R-rated show.
Completing his manga-characters series, Yang deals with teenage culture once again in God Loves You (神愛世人). The triptych replaces sacred Christian images and deities in Chinese New Year prints with famous manga characters. A manga fan and a graduate student at the tender age of 50, Yang observed on the college campus that "many teenagers love Japanese comic books. They often treat the comic characters like gods."
Words of pleasant greetings are written next to these deified robotmen and magical girls, giving them a down-to-earth human touch that is hard to find in religions' lofty gods. Many of the characters are far from omnipotent. Placing them at the center of biblical settings is as good as announcing the age of anti-heros, whose quirks and charisma, rather than sheer power, appeal to teenagers.
Kuo Wei-kuo's (郭維國) oil paintings characteristically set his nude self in a dreamscape, which, according to Chen, is a metaphor of the Taiwanese society. Under a cloudy sky in Where Is My Home? (何處是我家), Kuo is leading a packhorse, a broken mirror reflecting a young Kuo by its side, while looking back with thoughtful eyes as if setting out for a journey from which he will never return.
Quoting French philosopher Roland Barthes, Kuo declined to comment on his works, saying that the personal symbols which infuse these intriguing images are for each viewer to freely decipher. However, the best way to appreciate these atmospheric works is to just stand back and sink one's imagination into the these dreamscapes, as Kuo presents a humorous and spontaneous reflection instead of a fierce commentary on society.
Four years ago, Wu Tian-chang's staged photos and multi-media works won him international recognition. These works explored contemporary eroticism by setting overtly eroticized figures in the conservative 1950s, thus destroying the myths of the age of innocence. This time, Wu takes on genetic engineering in this exhibition with a folk-religion twist.
Living With One Heart Forever (永協同心) maintains his gaudy style with frames made of big golden roses and gold-rimmed black velvet. The work consists of two plates, on the right is an imitation oracle poem telling the story of a pair of twins' reincarnation, and on the left is a staged photo of the twin brothers riding on a two-person bicycle, one handless and the other legless. The poem attributes their deformities to their tragic love rivalry in their last life, saying that they have been fated to lack certain limbs so that they have to cooperate closely with each other in this life.
The work presents a scenario where all disastrous mistakes made in genetic engineering can be seen from a positive viewpoint and explained away by bad karma. Although it may seem too early for Wu to worry about the ramifications of the technology, the questions the work raises about the incompleteness in each person and how folk beliefs try to rationalize that and turn it into interpersonal advantage is particular relevant to Taiwan, where a sense of solidarity in the social and political arenas seems to be lacking.
The strongest emotional impact in the exhibition probably comes from Lu Tian-yan's (盧天炎) blood calligraphy. Using his own blood as ink, Lu wrote down on cotton cloth the Chinese characters for "the world is for all," (天下為公) "the revolution has yet to succeed," (革命尚未成功) and "the Republic of China," (中華民國) the slogans frequently evoked during Taiwan's martial law era.
For the older generation, who dream of "recovering" the Chinese mainland, these words are encouraging as they represent the pride and perseverance of traditional Chinese intellectuals. However, the blood calligraphy can strike viewers as ironically delirious, particularly with the burnholes and apparently accidental blood stains on them, as if the calligrapher is madly fighting for a lost cause to his last breath.
Viewers strolling among the exhibits may have a hard time finding a common thread uniting these works. Maybe a decade ago, these then hot-blooded 30-somethings all chose to ridicule political figures or deal head-on with cross-strait issues, but now their priorities have changed. What shows in this exhibition is their now mellow approach to social issues with matured artistic expression.
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
March 2 to March 8 Gunfire rang out along the shore of the frontline island of Lieyu (烈嶼) on a foggy afternoon on March 7, 1987. By the time it was over, about 20 unarmed Vietnamese refugees — men, women, elderly and children — were dead. They were hastily buried, followed by decades of silence. Months later, opposition politicians and journalists tried to uncover what had happened, but conflicting accounts only deepened the confusion. One version suggested that government troops had mistakenly killed their own operatives attempting to return home from Vietnam. The military maintained that the
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) announced last week a city policy to get businesses to reduce working hours to seven hours per day for employees with children 12 and under at home. The city promised to subsidize 80 percent of the employees’ wage loss. Taipei can do this, since the Celestial Dragon Kingdom (天龍國), as it is sardonically known to the denizens of Taiwan’s less fortunate regions, has an outsize grip on the government budget. Like most subsidies, this will likely have little effect on Taiwan’s catastrophic birth rates, though it may be a relief to the shrinking number of
Since its formation almost 15 years ago, Kaohsiung rock band Elephant Gym (大象體操) has shattered every assumption about contemporary popular music, and their story is now on screen in a documentary titled More Real Than Dreams. It’s an unlikely success story that says a lot about young people in Taiwan — and beyond. For a start, their sound is analog. In the film, guitarist Tell Chang (張凱翔) proudly says: “There is no AI in our sound.” His sister, bass player KT Chang (張凱婷) is the true frontwoman — less for her singing abilities than for her thunderous sound on the instrument. Fast like
RSS