A young woman naps on a pedestal-like bed, unperturbed by Soviet-era propaganda music and sensual Latin melodies playing a few meters away.
The setting is the New Museum in New York and the sleeping beauty is a living sculpture by Chinese artist Chu Yun. For the next three months a rotating group of women fueled with sleeping pills will recreate Chu’s island of serenity — snapping photos is allowed — as part of the museum’s lively first triennial, The Generational: Younger Than Jesus.
Guilt-free voyeurism and exhibitionism are common threads among the works by 50 international artists born after 1976 (hence the title reference to Jesus, crucified at 33). No surprise here. This crowd grew up in an era where it’s perfectly acceptable to share the most intimate or mundane details of your life on the Internet.
There’s not much rebellion in Younger Than Jesus. This cyber-savvy generation instead remixes vast quantities of visual information from all kinds of sources to construct its own reality, all to spirited effect.
Armenian artist Tigran Khachatryan’s aggressive, fast-paced video weaves grainy, black-and-white footage from Soviet avant-garde films with shots of teenage skinheads fighting, giving Nazi salutes and jumping away from speeding trains.
China’s Liu Chuang approached strangers on the street, offering to buy everything on them for US$500. It’s unclear how the handoffs took place, but at least three people said yes. Their personal items — from underwear and socks to makeup and credit cards — are neatly arranged on three platforms. For this group, anything can be displayed as art.
VIDEO DOMINATES
All mediums are represented, though video and photography dominate. More unusual experiments include Mark Essen’s video game, projected onto a wall that visitors can play with; Icaro Zorbar’s collage of three turntables surrounding a fourth one playing Latin music and Ruth Ewan’s jukebox with 1,200 protest songs.
Painting doesn’t seem to be popular among the 145 works on display.
One exception is Poland’s Jakub Julian Ziolkowski whose imaginative, painstaking canvases contain labyrinths but almost no empty space. The Great Battle Under the Table is a large maze of tiny warring soldiers, barbarians and dragons. The scene recalls Hieronymus Bosch; the layered compositional intricacy brings to mind a Persian rug.
THUMPING MUSIC
Many of the artists have an affinity for videos that either dwell on images of ultimate doom or move at time-warped speed while playing thumping music.
In his animated Panoptikon, Turkish artist Emre Huner’s post-apocalyptic scenes are a mix of science-fiction imagery with patterns from Turkish textiles and ceramics. French artist Cyprien Gaillard’s footage of gangs of fighting young men on the outskirts of St Petersburg, Russia, bring to mind Khachatryan’s manic youths.
Gaillard’s video is set to a fabulous dance soundtrack by the French musician Koudlam. Like the music, the actions of the men have a repetitive, meditative quality. The correspondence between the sound and images makes the piece engaging.
Philadelphia-based Ryan Trecartin’s hyperactive videos depict a world populated by hysterical characters with ambiguous genders. They speak gibberish at breakneck speed in digitally manipulated voices. Many sport blue teeth and garish makeup.
Trecartin has a huge following on YouTube. I got a headache 10 minutes into watching it. But that could be because I am two years older than Jesus.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS