│EXHIBITION
“Nomadic Art and Social Sensation” -- Cultural Observation for 8 Kinds of Art Expressions
Curator / Chen Rui-Wen
Interview by Art Reservation Magazine
The important era of development of artistic environment in Taiwan was the entire ’90 since 1985; there were mainly two trends in the phase: one was the concern regarding Taiwan’s social circumstance; the other was the boom of adopting western culture. The presenting 8 artists belong to the former one; their works usually refer to political criticism or opposite contemplation to social phenomena. Just because of such an inclination, works of these artists were mostly decoded from the angles of politics and society.
Majority of these artists were educated before declaration of martial law ended with classic-inclined conception, hardly relieve from the so-called “missionary obligation”. Comparing to the attempt on pursuing something profound in creations, they are used to not make straightforward scale of where they are placed but rather a kind of seeking self-consolation that yet makes their works look pretty somber. Beneath the background, their inventions in fact intensely reflect a state of spiritual rove and nomadism particular in Taiwanese; such a character emerged from subconscious actually represents the core of Taiwan’s art, and that’s another mode of observation the sponsor intends to issue from the exhibition.
In the exposition, participating artists submit their works at different age according to personal thought, for example, artist Ming-Zhong Li displays his work of ’80 while artist Tian-Zhang Wu brings in a new work never faces up before. Within those works, the artists also unroll diversity of thinking paths in the face of swiftly converted Taiwan’s environment, all of these are worthy of carefully thinking over.
These artists in fact possess considerably artistic appreciation that enable them to keep moving on, nevertheless, due to variation of artistic tendency and deterioration of domestic economics, which more or less have brought them some negative influences. Such being the case, except presenting the angle from self-observation in the show, we look forward to hearing these artists to move on confidently.
(extracted from Art Reservation Magazine No.113 dated Feb.1st 2002)
