Contemporary Taiwan Art in Context

 

By Luchia Meihua Lee

Outside In-New Realm for Taiwan Art, 2008

 

TAIWAN AND THE WORLD

The vernacular of contemporary art in Taiwan has been shaped in large part by its geography as an island and its access throughout history to manifold influence from abroad, from countries including Spain, the Netherlands, and Japan. I the 1970s, Taiwan’s economic boom enabled many students to study at western art institutions, and a new generation of artist quickly became skilled at incorporating outside influences into their own styles.

Local influences, however, came to play as large a role as the global, and an ethos emphasizing Taiwan artistic individuality swept the island in the 1970s. The establishment of museums and alternative art spaces in Taiwan marked a milestone in the availability of resources for Taiwan contemporary artists. This growth in public interest in art enable Taiwan to cultivate an artistic dynamism and become a setting for work that reflected uniquely local concerns and sensibilities. In addition, the heritage drawn from both the South Pacific islanders, who constituted Taiwan’ original settlers, as well as that from mainland China, have become interesting fulcrums by which “local” art was and continues to be defined. 

Artist in Taiwan today are faced with questions that confront all artists around the world. With rapid growth in communications, artist cannot help but be affected by ideas from across the globe and inspired to join international art movements. In Taiwan, this has been accompanied by migrations to the U. S. and Europe, not only of students from Taiwan but also of established members of the Taiwan art community, including artist, art historian and curators. At the same time, members of the Taiwan art community do not want to neglect their local heritage and traditions. This tension between embracing the influence of international contemporary art and finding a native voice has asserted itself artistic identity in the midst of the 21stcentury’s ever shifting “global village.” 

TAIWAN AND MAINLAND CHINA (PRC)

In recent year, East Asia has experienced an economic boom as well as an upsurge in international public interest. In particular, artists from mainland China have achieved a high profile and prices for their works have reached new height. However, artist from Taiwan have not gained access into this elite circle. This applies equally to artists in Taiwan and to artists from Taiwan living in the U.S. or Europe.

For example, in Sotheby’s first auction of contemporary Asian art, held in 2006, very few artists from Taiwan were included, while others were not recognized as being from Taiwan. Despite the fact that Taiwan artists are artistically active on the mainland and abroad, their art commands far lower prices and less attention than Chinese art from the mainland. 

Artist mainland China and Taiwan share many of the same traditions, techniques and influences. Yet for myriad reasons, the vernacular of each body of work can, in some cases, be strikingly different. Although a common method by which to try to define the nature of Taiwan art is to compare its aesthetics and subject matter with that mainland Chinese art – vice -versa-such comparisons can be reductive. Nonetheless, viewing art from Taiwan and mainland China in a mutual context can provide fascinating insight into both the history and contemporary developments of Chinese art as a whole. 

BEING “OUTSIDE IN”

The artists showcased in Outside in have dual outsider status. Not only do they engage on the outskirts of the booming Chinese art market,

Which is dominated by artist from mainland China, but in order to find a market for their work, many of them have chosen to work and /or sell their art abroad. Artists are perhaps most original and useful to society when they stand outside of it, however the individuals represented in Outside In are far from marginalized. Active in the United States, Europe and beyond, they continue making new spaces-international local-for their artistic expression.

One question that has arisen for many of the artists in this exhibit is what it means to self-identify as a Taiwan artist when they are no longer working, living, and /or selling art in Taiwan. Some are given the label “International artists” while others have chosen this term to identify themselves. Other artists have been lumped together with artists from Mainland China in exhibitions with no mention of their Taiwan origin. Artistic identity plays a large part in the concept behind Outside In. 

In this exhibit, we choose not to address the political issues facing Taiwan or its artists; instead, we would like to take a more expansive view of the world of contemporary art, and the dimensions of being both “Outside” and “In.” Some of the themes recurring in this exhibit are alienation and alliance in its various guises and the relationship between humans and their environment. 

A BRIEF HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY ART IN TAIWAN

The end of World War II and the transfer of Taiwan to the Republic of China, follow by the relocation of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949.marks a watershed moment in the development of Taiwan art. With the concurrent resurgence of the literati tradition, there was conflict at first between older styles and those more recently developed. This conflict eventually turned into a fascinating interaction and tendency in artistic communities to embrace both old and new in creating art.

As mentioned, Taiwan turned inward in the 1970s, focusing even more on its various art forms. What is known as the Museum Age ensued, spurring the growth of alternative art spaces which championed feminism, ethnic diversity, and pluralism. New ideas abounded, with a resultant renewed effort to incorporate Western styles and various art forms into Taiwan contemporary art. 

The creative impulses if Taiwan artists were further deepened by the lifting of martial law in 1987. Greater access to the free flow of information resulted in many students becoming more globally aware and traveling overseas to study art. OF equal importance was the economic boom that Taiwan experienced during this time, which spurred even greater government support for the artis. Artists active during this time felt the effects of a more economically and politically open atmosphere, resulting in growing artistic self-confidence and an overwhelming diversity in subject matter. 

Taiwan artists, having drawn upon such myriad sources, have often exercised their right to criticize state and society. Yet and equally large number of artists have produced works that are more peaceful and introspective. The contrast between these two popular but very different movements serve to highlight the immense range, variety, and vitality of styles currently flourishing in Taiwan contemporary art. Such diversity and dynamism can be observed in the sheer variety of artistic activity, including but certainly not limited to, the re-invention of tradition, the development of postmodern art and the proliferation of politically and socially-conscious art. Particularly in recent years, digital art and the use of new media has been gaining ground. Likewise, the art historians and scholars who have kept pace with these progressions are more widely explorative than their predecessors. Spurred in part by advances in government and in cultural policies, these developments have also had a significant effect upon the evaluation and growth of the art market land have vaulted the art communities of Taiwan into a singular position in relation to mainland China, Asia at large, and the international art world.

 

 

Curatorial supporting essay for the exhibition

Outside In-New Realm for Taiwan Art, 2008

Weatherhead, East Asian Institute, Columbia University, New York City

 

Smooth the image of the world : Wu Lan-Chiann

 Wu Lan-Chiann:

Smooth the image of the world 

by Luchia Meihua Lee

 Invention from tradition in a discourse complicates artistic subconscious expression. The perception of cultural influences affects technique; as context in brush ink painting as a medium might be relevant, and its importance might be intensified by intercultural confrontation. In Wu Lan-Chiann’s work, the challenge from the medium has been disguised by texture, composition, and format. Hybridity has been engaged in these landscape paintings, resulting in overall play with the viewer’s perception of time and space. As Jonathan Hays wrote about Mu Xin’s art, “The particular stillness of the image and the velvety smoothness of the image field”1 are apparent whether Wu’s works address the season, light and air, or the calm of night. 

In these past few years, horror and delight have alternated, and swelling painfulness has tested our endurance. Perhaps we haven't changed enough to ameliorate the inequities in many social subjects. In Wu’s art work, we find a view of a world not ordinarily seen, an alternative to the endless violence of our time space. Her extraordinary paintings possess a mythical quality and profoundly touch the core value of nature that is missing from urban life, and function as a salve beyond the material world. 

Born and raised in Taiwan, Wu lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds an MA from New York University’s Fine Art Department. Cross-cultural fusion has operated remarkably in her art to form a sensuous, organic, sleek and hermetically wider embrace as a contemporary Asian women artist.

Lucy R. Lippard" mentioned in 1975 "It is no coincidence that the women artists’ movement emerged in a time of political travail and political consciousness," 2 also pointing out the emphasis by the women’s movement on social structures that have oppressed women. In this vein, I identify this Taiwanese American woman artist, Wu Lan-Chiann as a minority's minority immigrant in US society. This is not an attempt to create distance from the official ideological universe about the patriarchal hegemony, but to lay emphasis on national identity among Taiwanese-Americans.3 However, Wu has also averred with Lippard that these social movements can provide heightened awareness of the multi-cultural model, which "could indicate a way to move back toward a more basic contact between artist and real life.”4 

Wu’s art is notable for a certain veracity resulting from the "deliberate modesty of format [and] displacement of literary sensibility into the fabric of the visual."5 I eschew an intellectual statement about female artists in general, while trying to make sense or identify sources that communicate with Wu's statement and experience, and thus follow her emotionally. When we embrace art by a woman, we too often celebrate delicacy, elegance, and softness. Thus, we can acknowledge the uniqueness of this great visual representative imagery. 

Her work is subtle in its details and tactile in its veiled-like application. Upon first impression, the strength of Wu's painting is its connection with traditional brush ink painting. I do not intend to examine the nature of her precedents, but underline the way in which she has modernized and advanced the brush ink tradition. Wu has not only chosen entirely different subjects than classical shan shui (literally, "Mountain and water" which means landscape) exponents,6 but also given an entirely different treatment of light. 

I have found undeniable pleasure in these paintings’ visual expression, from the pictorial techniques to the aesthetics and philosophy. In her Precious Light series, one can easily find the commitment to smooth muscle base. Cursory inspection might deem these paintings flat, but further study reveals subtle colors and application of foggy gradients. Sometimes jet black in blurred light, they strongly develop a quiet depth of harmonic power in the dark night. 

In Perseverance, one’s gaze is directed to the tree’s vigorous bark recalling a snake skin, around which interlocking pine needle-laden branches stagger. In traditional Chinese brush ink painting of pine trees, the artist aims not for a realistic effect but a symbolic representation of the independent stance of the literati. So Wu’s detailed rendering of the bark of her pine tree underlines the freshness of her approach, and a reorientation of the pine’s significance. 

The nature landscapes display a type of rhythm which seems discordant but not struggling. They are the basis on which she seeks to transcend cultural boundaries and create a timeless commentary on humanity. Wu believes in her art’s power to heal and unite, to express universal humanistic values through and her core conviction that we are one people. 

The artist writes that, "art speaks a universal language that people understand across time and place. People enter this world defenseless and curious, share the same hopes and fears, act out of kindness or spite, and go through the same stages of sorrow and grief. "

The evergreen nature of pine trees is a symbol of longevity and perseverance in Chinese culture.

Wu painted Perseverance in response to the global pandemic; while people around the world long for life to return to normal, it takes real perseverance to wait for that day. Perseverance is an innate human strength that Is evident only in difficult and challenge times.

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1. Hay, J. "Mu Xin and Twentieth-Century Painting", The Art of Mu Xin: Landscape Paintings and Prison Notes.               Yale University Gallery, 2001. pp. 28-39.

2. Lippard L.R. "The Women artist' movement-What next? The pink Glass Swan, The New Press, 1995. pg.81.

3. Salecl R. "National Identity and Socialist Moral Majority", New Formations. Routledge, 1990. pg. 25-31. I have tried to avoid simple criticism of the nationalism of Chinese in PRC, but this essay about the opposition moral majorities and authoritarian-populist Communist parties which "have built their power by creating specific fantasies of a threat to the nation and so put themselves forward as the protector of 'what is in us more than ourselves - our being part of the nation.' This analysis applies exactly to the record of the Chinese Communist Party, which has relentlessly and radically assaulted all traditional points of social identification, leaving a chauvinistic nationalism intertwined with support for the party and identifying all foreigners as the feared "Other" as the only remaining public fantasy available to the Chinese.

4. ibis. Lippard L.R. pg. 81.

5. ibis. Hay, J. pg. 36.

6. Lee, L. & Sibergale, J. Zhang Hongtu: Expending Visions of a Shrinking World, Duke University Press. 2015. pg. 160.

7. Lee, L. Meditation in Contemporary Chinese Landscape, 2008 Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College, CUNY