The playful and interactive Taipei Biennial 2000 challenges the function of a museum, the traditional idea of art, and is an entertaining and provocative way to spend an afternoon. Here is a short description of each of the art works.
Before entering the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, you will see huge black bands painted on the museum's overhang. Silent Foundation by Sidney Stucki appears like techno codes or abstract art, while his work as both gallery artist and techno DJ blurs the line between art and music.
Inside the museum, the foyer's soft rosy glow is emitted by the traditional Chinese floral and phoenix pattern floor painting by Michael Ming-Hong Lin.
Visitors are invited to walk on the enormous painting and can sit on one of the floral pillows.
Lin's painting transforms the sterile museum space into a domestic and cozy place of hospitality.
Look up and you will see Jun'ya Yamaide's big blue balloons that float like clouds. Yamaide asked local people to write one of the Chinese characters from their names, which he then attached to the balloons and released to the sky.
Surasi Kusolwong's Everything NT$20 contained 1,000 items from Thailand, such as pillows, T-shirts, toys and plastic goods that were offered for sale on the opening night. The sale became a feeding frenzy with people hauling several bags of goods out of the museum within minutes. The items will continue to circulate outside of the museum, bringing art into daily life.
Wang Youshen provides the tools for you to be an artist. He invites direct action by allowing visitors to print photos in his darkroom. While Kendell Geers' Shooting Gallery shows us the entertainment value of extreme violence.
Follow the smell of Chinese cooking and you will enter Pascale Marthine Tayou's walk-in egg-shaped structure that connects his native Cameroon culture with Taiwanese culture through the shared experience of eating.
Take a few moments to contemplate the sacred with Lee Mingwei's shrines that display participants' personal objects. Next are Uri Tzaig and Kim Sooja's video installations. Tzaig alters the rules of the game, while Kim uses the Korean bundle of clothing as her metaphor for life.
You will then be bedazzled by Liza Lou's glittering and beaded Back Yard. A suburban barbecue is transformed into a meticulous shimmery meditation on the passage of time and labor.
Gimhongsok's vibrating LOVE project allows you to ponder the absurdity of love, while Meshac Gaba's interactive puzzles let you think about the Game of Democracy. Wang Du's cluttered installation of toy missiles and newspapers will help you contemplate the strategy of war games.
Artists Claude Closky and Daniel Pflumm show how consumerism affects our lives and how brand names are closely related to art. Closky's video projection of advertising superlatives will jump out at you and Pflumm's corporate logos seem like abstract art.
At the opening, former Geisha girl and musician Hanayo performed her eclectic blend of avant-garde music. On a calmer note, she displays her touching photos of intimate moments with her young daughter.
Combining art, design and psychology, Tobias Rehberger and Wang Junjieh both design total environments for better living. Rehberger's home furnishings are designed according to his friend's suggestions while Wang's Microbiology Association is a fictitious R&D institute to improve life in the future.
Navin Rawanchaikul invites you to sit on a rattan mat, watch his video and eat some watermelon seeds. If you are lucky, your package of seeds may contain a winning ticket for a free mat. Winners are encouraged to document how they use the mat and send photos and letters to Navin.
Stick a banana between your legs or use your head to hold a bucket and a ball against the wall. Hold this position for one minute and you have just become a one-minute sculpture by Erwin Wurm.
Kyupi Kyupi's video projection transports you into a strange world that combines cabaret and burlesque theater, sci-fi pizza delivery girls, and fish-head singers.
Henrik Plenge Jakobsen's Peephole challenges our sense of perception. Peep into the CD player for a new look on reality. Also challenging our sense of perception are Hung Tunglu's large lenticular panels of Japanese cartoon figures juxtaposed on historical Chinese sites.
Jonathan Monk's slide projection In search of Gregory Peck captures the era of the 1950s. Monk reshot photos that his musician father had taken when he was on the road in America.
Mark Lewis' single reel film will mesmerize you by the different senses of time he gives you in four minutes. Michel Majerus focuses on making connections between the architectural space, painting and sculpture and combines visual signs from mass media and fine arts.
Loris Cecchini's large light boxes and soft rubber bicycle and bench will alter your sense of reality.
For the voyeuristic viewer, Shulea Cheang's casting for her upcoming porno flick and Hsia-fei Chang's video of scantily clad babes will satisfy your desires.
Candice Breitz's video loops of duets sung by Whitney Houston and Karen Carpenter to themselves hint at narcissism, while confusing the pronouns "I," "me" and "you" imply psychological disorder and problems with identity.
The 1990s were a turbulent time for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) patronage factions. For a look at how they formed, check out the March 2 “Deep Dives.” In the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s the factions amassed fortunes from corruption, access to the levers of local government and prime access to property. They also moved into industries like construction and the gravel business, devastating river ecosystems while the governments they controlled looked the other way. By this period, the factions had largely carved out geographical feifdoms in the local jurisdictions the national KMT restrained them to. For example,
The remains of this Japanese-era trail designed to protect the camphor industry make for a scenic day-hike, a fascinating overnight hike or a challenging multi-day adventure Maolin District (茂林) in Kaohsiung is well known for beautiful roadside scenery, waterfalls, the annual butterfly migration and indigenous culture. A lesser known but worthwhile destination here lies along the very top of the valley: the Liugui Security Path (六龜警備道). This relic of the Japanese era once isolated the Maolin valley from the outside world but now serves to draw tourists in. The path originally ran for about 50km, but not all of this trail is still easily walkable. The nicest section for a simple day hike is the heavily trafficked southern section above Maolin and Wanshan (萬山) villages. Remains of
With over 100 works on display, this is Louise Bourgeois’ first solo show in Taiwan. Visitors are invited to traverse her world of love and hate, vengeance and acceptance, trauma and reconciliation. Dominating the entrance, the nine-foot-tall Crouching Spider (2003) greets visitors. The creature looms behind the glass facade, symbolic protector and gatekeeper to the intimate journey ahead. Bourgeois, best known for her giant spider sculptures, is one of the most influential artist of the twentieth century. Blending vulnerability and defiance through themes of sexuality, trauma and identity, her work reshaped the landscape of contemporary art with fearless honesty. “People are influenced by
Ten years ago, English National Ballet (ENB) premiered Akram Khan’s reimagining of Giselle. It quickly became recognized as a 21st-century masterpiece. Next month, local audiences get their chance to experience it when the company embark on a three-week tour of Taiwan. Former ENB artistic director Tamara Rojo, who commissioned the ballet, believes firmly that if ballet is to remain alive, works have to be revisited and made relevant to audiences of today. Even so, Khan was a bold choice of choreographer. While one of Britain’s foremost choreographers, he had never previously tackled a reimagining of a classical ballet, so Giselle was
RSS