The international exhibition of the Taipei Biennial: Great Theatre of the World is currently on view at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum until March 2, 2003. Using the theme of the world as a theatre allows for some reflections for the audience on how we are all actors in this game of life.
One dynamic work that stands out from the rest is the film Lingchi -- Echoes of a Historical Photograph by Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁) who combines a fictive imagining of a real historical event with the current tragedy of local Taiwanese laborers.
Shot using 16mm film and transferred to DVD, the silent black and white movie (approximately 20 minutes long) is beamed onto large screens with three projectors, thus creating an effect that is powerful, mystical, majestic and monumental. At times all three projections are in sync, and at other times the screens show three different images.
COURTESY OF CHEN CHEH-JEH
The film is based on the famous 1905 photograph of a man being punished the Manchu way, by being cut into pieces for the crime of murder. His ecstatic expression is attributed to opium, which was administered to prolong the torture. Philosopher Georges Bataille discussed this photo extensively in his book The Tears of Eros and noted the correlations between the beauty of religious eroticism, divine ecstasy and the shocking horror of cruel torture.
Chen's cinematic close-ups of the victim's face bring to mind images of blissful euphoria, homoeroticism, and religious crucifixion. Slow motion close-ups of a hand holding a knife, the grim expressions of the crowd of ponytailed bystanders, blood dripping down the crowd's legs and flowing into the ground are eerie, but surprisingly not as violent as what one might expect considering Chen's topic. The film is oddly un-sadistic, even though the content is of death by dismemberment.
Interspliced with the staged reenactment of the torture scene are scenes where the camera slowly pans above a crowd of silent women. These women are factory workers in Taoyuan, and due to various tragic events such as occupational hazards or unemployment, they no longer are able to work. Chen links these contemporary women to the 1905 victim. Due to the women's circumstances, which are often beyond their control, they are also suffering a long torture, but without any bliss.
Chen came to international prominence with his large computer images of similar torture scenes. However, this film is a departure from those past works. By linking the historical with the contemporary social and economic situation in Taiwan, Chen has created an extremely powerful work that links the past with the present, the fictive with the documentary. He is also specific to the local situation, while remaining universal.
One irritating drawback to viewing Lingchi is the encroaching cacophony of sounds from other artists' installations, which dramatically shatters the silence of this overwhelmingly poetic work. However, this is not a reason to avoid seeing the work. It's a cinematic experience worth remembering.
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
Writing of the finds at the ancient iron-working site of Shihsanhang (十 三行) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), archaeologist Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華) of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology observes: “One bronze bowl gilded with gold, together with copper coins and fragments of Tang and Song ceramics, were also found. These provide evidence for early contact between Taiwan aborigines and Chinese.” The Shihsanhang Web site from the Ministry of Culture says of the finds: “They were evidence that the residents of the area had a close trading relation with Chinese civilians, as the coins can be
The March/April volume of Foreign Affairs, long a purveyor of pro-China pablum, offered up another irksome Beijing-speak on the issues and solutions for the problems vexing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US: “America and China at the Edge of Ruin: A Last Chance to Step Back From the Brink” rang the provocative title, by David M. Lampton and Wang Jisi (王緝思). If one ever wants to describe what went wrong with US-PRC relations, the career of Wang Jisi is a good place to start. Wang has extensive experience in the US and the West. He was a visiting
The January 2028 presidential election is already stirring to life. In seven or eight months, the primary season will kick into high gear following this November’s local elections. By this point next year, we will likely know the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate and whether the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) will be fielding a candidate. Also around this time, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will either have already completed their primary, or it will be heading into the final stretch. By next summer, the presidential race will be in high gear. The big question is who will be the KMT’s
RSS