I had a chance to chat with art critic/curator Jason Chia-chi Wang (
Wang's passion really comes out when he talks about one of his favorite subjects: Chinese ink painting.
Taipei Times: You recently curated the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of art this summer, and for architecture the year before (in Venice), plus you were the co-curator for the Taipei Biennial 2002 and now have this exhibition at MOCA. What is in your future?
Jason Chia-chi Wang: Since I've done all the major exhibitions recently, the next ones will probably be two or three years from now.
TT: You work independently as a curator rather than being affiliated with an institution?
JW: Yes. When they were establishing MOCA, I was the in-house curator. So I got this certificate that they gave me. It was number one. But I didn't stay. I stayed for three months. I put on the first exhibition and decided to leave. They wanted me to punch a time card: I said "No way." (Laughs.)
PHOTO: SUSAN KENDZULAK, TAIPEI TIMES
TT: So, basically you're a freelancer at heart?
JW: Definitely, I am a free spirit.
TT: How do you first conceive of an exhibition? Do you come up with the idea first, or think about the space and the funding?
JW: I think both. As a freelancer, I have to work with every gallery and institution and have to know how to work with them, in terms of the human relationships and support that they can give and the criteria they set up in advance.
TT: So each time it's different?
JW: Yes, each situation has a different structure. There are usually difficulties in terms of space and funding. Working with museums is easier as you usually don't have to worry too much about money.
TT: What's most important for you?
JW: The kind of space, the budget and what can work together -- a mixture of everything.
TT: What is your educational background?
JW: I did my undergrad in English literature at Fujen University. Then my first MA in Chinese art history. I mostly studied traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy. I went to UC Berkeley for Asian Studies with a focus on Chinese art history. I returned and worked in a publishing company for seven years.
TT: How did you get into contemporary art?
JW: I started hanging out with artists and realized this is fun and this could be a career. By making friends with artists I knew what was in their lives, their work and what is in their thinking. I became most familiar with Hanart Gallery as they featured the "Chinese-ness" of art, and then I expanded over the years, especially after 1996, with the fever of curatorship. It was a very new idea in Taiwan, curatorship without the museum, without the institution.
TT: When was your first exhibition?
JW: In The Edge of Tradition at Dimension Art Endowment it was about Chinese ink painting. I am still very concerned about the development of contemporary ink painting and how one can inherit tradition and go a new way to be contemporary.
TT: Would you say the turning point in your curating career was the 2002 Taipei Biennial co-curated with Bartomeu Mari that helped put you on the international stage, as now you can get big artists to participate in your exhibitions?
JW: The biennial really opened my eyes as it was a new way of working.
TT: How did you first conceive of this show Variation Xanadu?
JW: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's opium-inspired poem Kubla Khan was the starting point. The idea of this place Xanadu was more poetic than the generic space of utopia. I like the suspension of disbelief he created in his poetry and it's important for contemporary art. I actively try to lay out a practicing theory for artists to work with in a different way. And starting in 2002, I was thinking about including international artists in an exhibition. I was more interested in media society, problem of images and the dark side of globalization. I got this idea from living in Taiwan that that younger artists here no longer care about aesthetics. They don't talk about poetics anymore. They talk a lot of theories; yet the theories don't go with their works. So I wanted to go back to the basics of art: Why do we do art? And to reintroduce the poetry.
Here many young artists act passively and think about their own body, which is not only unhealthy, but egocentric. In Taiwan, there is a focus on generation gaps and every five years is a new generation of artists, but this concept doesn't exist in the US or Europe; art is not divided like this. This generation gap doesn't make artists responsible. You don't have to talk about history or tradition. My thinking is how to unite these things together by including the poetic feeling of work while touching on issues of space.
TT: Are these issues raised in the art institutions and academies here?
JW: Not really. Most professors are artists and teach how to create, without teaching views about the world, about some key issues in the world like Iraq, globalization. They tend to just talk about form and art in its most narrow sense.
TT: Are there special qualities you look for in a work?
JW: The more exhibitions I do, it's really important that the character of the artist comes through. I would say decency counts. (Laughs.) I prefer artists to be good to work with, reasonable and to be able to create.
TT: Would you like to do international exhibitions?
JW: I have reluctance to become a media figure. Self-promoting is not in my character.
MORE INFO:
What: Variation Xanadu
Where: Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei (台北市長安西路39號)
Tel: (02) 2552 3721 or go to www.mocataipei.org
When: To Sept. 25
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