Letter from Taipei
08 Taipei Biennale
Frederika Whitehead
Especially irksome to the Chinese would be Tiananmen survivor Liu Wei's video A Day to Remember, 2005. It is a moving film that bears many repeat viewings. Wei's ambition is to break the silence imposed by the government about the military crackdown on student protestors on June 4, 1989. On the anniversary of the massacre Wei spent the day walking the streets around Beijing University and Tiananmen Square. With his camera in hand he asked person after person if they knew what the date was and what day it was. The film begins light-heartedly in the morning; some respondents quite genuinely seemed not to know what he was getting at and became quite giggly in front of the camera. As the sun heats up others seem more aggravated and refuse to talk to him. Some try to evade the question. Some choose to lie and do so with varying degrees of success - some shamefacedly, some just plain badly. Several complain about the camera, and one man gets angry and demands to know what unit Wei is from. At dusk he finally finds one weary-looking female student who gives him an answer. She tells him that it is the anniversary of the student strike. He asks her 'Will you say a few words about it?' She replies, 'No, absolutely not', and turns away.
Other governments are put on trial with equal force. Curators Manray Hsu and Vasif Kortun have invited Oliver Ressler to curate a show within the biennale. 'A World Where Many Worlds Fit' is dedicated to counter-globalisation movements. A cacophony of videos and graphic images document protests at meetings of the G8 and other global organisations. Allan Sekula's slideshow Waiting for Teargas, 1999, includes the images that we are all sadly too familiar with: police in full riot gear tear-gasing protestors who have only bandanas to protect their faces. Other films show the lighter moments of protesting: Nuria Vila and Marcelo Expósito have sought and collated images of protestors who have used costume and performance. The costumed performances serve to entertain, to alter the relationships at the demonstrations, or simply to play out a small piece of theatre for all to see. The symbolism of the man in a pink tutu dusting a tank during a protest in Tactical Frivolity+ Rhythms of Resistance, 2007, is particularly loaded.
Back in the main exhibition The Yes Men's acerbic and very funny parodies of global businesses and the American government are a joy to watch. Their trick is to pose as representatives of a particular global brand and slowly ramp up the claims for their product until they become quite preposterous. The credulity of the unwitting audiences is stretched until it breaks. Its most famous victim so far has been BBC World. The channel believed one of The Yes Men when he posed as a representative from the Dow chemical company and interviewed him on air. In the interview he said that Dow - now owners of the Union Carbide plant that released 40 tonnes of toxic gas into the atmosphere in 1984, killing 3,800 instantly and leaving 100,000 with chronic illnesses - was accepting responsibility for the Bhopal disaster. The news channel ran two cycles of the interview and Dow's stock lost £2bn on the German exchange. Two monitors run side-by-side in the gallery, with a big comfy sofa to suggest home television viewing. One shows the BBC World interview and the second shows the crummy stage set of an office from which the supposed Dow representative was speaking.
The main venue for the biennale is the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, designed by Kao Er-Pan, this is one of the most iconic and impressive modern buildings in Taipei. Outside the Biennale the art world in Taipei is smaller than those in Shanghai or Beijing but still vibrant. There is not the same goldrush as is presently occurring on the mainland, or the same volume of speculation in the market - although good sales were recorded at Art Taipei 2008 in September with $23.5m worth of works sold. Footfall was up to 72,000 visitors - 4,000 more than visited Frieze Art Fair last year. Taiwan is a wealthy country and Taiwanese collectors have played a substantial part in the art market boom on the mainland. The art scene in Taipei is well funded and supported by the Taiwanese government. Ma Ying-jeou, president of Taiwan, has been mayor of Taipei and during that time he was a regular fixture at art parties.
In terms of artist-run/artist-orientated spaces the most famous include IT Park, VT Salon and the Taipei artist village. IT Park is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Its reputation as a trailblazer stems from the fact that it was one of the first galleries to champion installation and new media art. This gallery is architecturally beautiful with cutaways in the walls that flood the interior galleries with light. It is currently showing Michael Lin. VT Salon a few doors down is a gallery with a hip bar attached. Taipei artist village is situated in a former government office building - the building lay empty for many years until the Cultural Affairs Bureau took it over in 2001 - and now houses an extensive residential studio programme and operates exchange programmes with 30 similar organisations worldwide, including Gasworks and the British Council visiting artists scheme. Some of the best known commercial galleries include Main Trend, Dynasty, Grand Siècle and AKI. Main Trend is a huge space off the Cheng De Rd, it represents Wu Tien-chang and Chen Chiehjen, two of Taiwan's 'fab four', the other two artists being Yang Mao-lin and Hou Chun-ming. Taiwan Panorama described the quad as part of 'the post- martial-law "Museum Generation" '.
Grand Siècle deals exclusively in new media art and is currently showing Chen Wen-Chi. Many saw fit to comment on the dominance of new media art in the biennale but, given the prevalence it has within the main galleries, it seems appropriate that the biennale would in some way reflect this. It is a strong biennale, because it feels well-rooted in the local scene. More new media art was to be found at MOCA in its third digital arts festival which opened on the same day as the biennale. So far so cohesive, except that on the day that I had earmarked to visit it Taipei was hit by typhoon Sinlaku, 147mph winds and torrential rains causing the Taipanese to batten down the hatches. It seems that even the strongest and most cohesive of art groups can be blown shut by strong winds from outside.
08 Taipei Biennial is at Taipei Fine Arts Museum and various venues from September 13 to January 4.
This report was originally published in October 2008 / No 320, p39.
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