Sunday, May 18, 2008

1999 Taiwan Pavilion at Venice



For the 1999 Taiwan Pavilion, curator J.J. Shih’s “Close to Open” included three artists: Hwang Buh-Ching, Chen Chieh-Jen, and Hung Tung-Lu.

Hwang Buh-Ching’s Feast in the Wild contained ten tables with plates of herbs and drawings made of seeds stuck on netting which connected his nature walks to the rapid modernization of Taiwan.

Chen Chieh-Jen’s digital images of torture scenes relates to his street performance pre-martial law and to Buddhist sacrificial imagery. His combination of the historical with the topical makes him one of the most urgent artists.

Hung Tung-Lu’s training as a painter gives him a dynamic graphic sensibility which he applied to his digital lenticular imagery that combined Manga figures in front of traditional Asian architectural sites such as temples to show that contemporary Asian culture looks back to its roots even though it looks forward to new imagery.

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