Kuo Chen-chang (郭振昌), or J.C. Kuo as he is better known in Western art circles, has achieved something of a coup with his current solo show at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. The whole third floor has been given over to his works from the last 20 years. There are 137 on display, and this makes the show, titled Totem and Taboo, a powerful statement on what this artist is about.
Kuo was born in 1949 in Lugang Township and is regarded as part of the first generation of modern Taiwanese artists. As a student under the influential modern painter Lee Chun-shan (李仲生), he developed an interest in abstract art and Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Kuo has come a long way since then, developing a style that also draws extensively on Taiwanese popular culture and religion, but these elements are still strongly in evidence in his work.
Although he uses a wide variety of motifs taken from traditions like the Eight Generals formation (the wardens of hell in Taiwanese folk tradition), Daoist iconography and Chinese calligraphy, Kuo was unequivocal about the fact that he is an artist in the Western tradition.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
The Eight Generals motif features strongly in many of his early works. “These are demons who came to marshal recalcitrant ghosts back into hell,” Kuo said in an interview with the Taipei Times at the opening of his show. “The idea had great appeal to me as a way of expressing some opinions about the contemporary political situation.”
Many of Kuo’s works tell stories and make references to mythology but comment directly on contemporary Taiwanese society. According to curator Jason Wang (王嘉驥), “Kuo reveals the collective unconscious and the hidden desires of Taiwanese … Taiwan has existed for so long in a psychological state of crisis, but most people only seek peace and quiet, and to achieve this they have had to repress a great deal of what they hope for and believe.”
In Kuo’s paintings these hopes and beliefs are brought out and commented upon, often ironically. The combination of simple line drawings with elements of photo-realism, airbrush fantasy and kitschy Chinoiserie tell stories drawn from classical Chinese literature, Aboriginal folk tales and modern pop culture, a combination that is brilliantly illustrated in Kuo’s New Paradise.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
Kuo’s paintings range from the monumental — his 2001 piece Totem and Taboo is 16m long — to intimately amusing works such as Bride and Groom, which depicts Confucius and the folk goddess Matzu against a background built up from tiny cartoon decals from Disney and Japanese comics.
“Kuo is someone who talks with a very loud voice,” Wang said. “He is an artist who looks closely at the development of society in Taiwan ... His art expresses many different voices that emerge from Taiwan society ... and he has continually attempted to express Taiwan’s development over the last century as a society that is a hodgepodge of Chinese, Taiwanese, Western and even post-colonial Japanese influences.”
These loud paintings are given plenty of space to shout out. TFAM has dedicated all three of its third-floor showrooms to this exhibit. The layout is free flowing and is not divided into different periods, so themes are discovered in surprising new ways as one wanders through the gallery.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TFAM
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