Therefore, X=X. - TENG Chao-Ming Solo Exhibition
因此,X等於X。-鄧兆旻個展
2014.08.02~09.07
因此,X等於X。-鄧兆旻個展
2014.08.02~09.07
“Therefore, X=X. Teng Chao-Ming Solo Exhibition Project Fulfill Art Space is pleased to present Therefore, X=X., a solo exhibition of artist Teng Chao-Ming. One common theme of the presented four works, created from 2009 to 2014, is they are all transformation of seminal works previously created by different authors. Taipei People Drawing (2009), A Monument for the (Im)possibility of Figuring it Out (2012), To Sing or Not To Sing? (2014) and A Famili-ar Catastrophe (2014) are based on, respectively: Taipei People (a collection of fourteen short stories published in 1971 by writer Pai Hsien-yung),A Brighter Summer Day (a film released in 1991 by filmmaker Edward Yang), A Flower in the Rainy Night (a Taiwanese pop song written in 1934 by Teng Yu-Shien and Chou Tien-Wong), and Family Catastrophe (a novel published in 1973 by writer Wang Wenxing). Through researching the authors, content/structures, debates and influences of these works, the artist then transforms them into new pieces. In Teng's complex and conceptual practice, we see his interests and questions toward text, narratives, causality, histories and memories, and his capability of mobilizing different metaphors, visual languages, and conceptual systems to produce art that invites the audience to imagine and question together. Although not conceived as a series, these four works, when put together, construct a web for the audience to traverse and reflect on the changing socio-political environment, and the individual-collective consciousness of the Taiwanese society. On approaching these text, Teng said, "The uneasy and awkward feeling I have toward narratives makes the encounters with them often times become battles. I give in when I believe in what a piece of narrative is trying to say, losing myself in it; I attack it when I see its strategies/tactics and spot its weakness, then try to tear down its argument. These battles continues as I keep reading materials I gathered about these original works, until I figure out a way to reach a temporary stability, a local equilibrium. That is the moment these new pieces take shape. My starting point and methods are not so much interpreting or criticizing the referenced work. I see these works as previous events, and as time passes happens the encounters, then new pieces/events emerged. Encounters with the audience will surely destabilize these works, and the challenges I face, is to make these new events diverse, reflective, and interesting. There will be, of course, cases when the audience meets my work, they see dead-ends, which are of equal interests to me." Teng Chao-Ming was born and currently lives in Taipei, Taiwan. After graduating from the Media Arts and Science program from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007, he moved to and stayed in New York until late 2012, he then relocated to Taipei. Recent shows include Modern Monsters/Death and Life of Fiction, Taipei Biennial, Taipei, 2012, little water, Dojima Biennial, Osaka, 2013, The Romance of NG, TKG+ Gallery, Taipei, 2013, and Altering-Nativism: Sound Cultures in Post-War Taiwan, MoNTUE, Taipei, and Kaohsiung Fine Arts Museum, Kaohsiung, 2014 (touring show). A Monument for the (Im)possibility of Figuring it Out (2012), commissioned by Taipei Biennial in 2012, discusses how we use concepts such as histories, memories, fictions, events, causation, systems, etc. to deal with the past. Taiwanese director Edward Yang dramatized a real murder happened in 1961 to make his seminal film A Brighter Summer Day (1991), and built it in the logic of how this murder is "inevitable" because of the socio-political environment. The artist further dramatizes Yang's fiction: monumentalize this murder by transforming the final killing scene into a life-size sculpture, as if this event represents the 60s of Taipei, while deconstruct the film's narrative to question the concept of monuments. The main protagonist of To Sing or Not to Sing? (2014) is the song A Flower in the Rainy Night, which is over 80 years old. From its birth in 1934, the song has been able to mobilize people of all hierarchies and occupations, events, ideologies and has acquired the status of the Taiwanese folk song. TENG collects its histories and how the song was used in different contexts and edits the material into a chronological story. The artist then deconstructs it further into new texts and presents them as a stage to provide new space of imagination. The second component of this piece is a prelude of this song, played randomly both indoor and outdoor. Taipei People Drawing (2009) transcribed Pai Hsien-Yung's most well-known novel Taipei People (1971), a collection of 14 short stories about people who fled from China to Taiwan following the war from 1949. These "Taipei People" physically live in Taipei but mentally live in the mainland China/the past, with a strong sense of loss, cursed, and inability. These stories are Pai's projection of the nostalgia toward the lost Chinese-ness from his own experience of diaspora. By copying the text onto the book, TENG tried to reduce a distance shared by many Taipei people, in time, space, emotion and identity. A custom-made "bookmark" etched with an arrow symbol comes from the image emerged constantly from the artist’s experience of reading the novel: a pointing device. A Famili-ar Catastrophe (2014) references Taiwanese writer Wang Wen-Hsing's Family Catastrophe (1972), an iconic novel of Chinese literature modernism movement. Teng singles out the twelve "Father Missing" fliers that are used in the novel as the main narrative structure, and prints 10,000 copies of each, then stacks them in a custom-made glass container. This object symbolizes the responsibility, desire, the process of making sense of it, rejections, and any possible mental states and behaviors from the children, when a "father (figure)" disappears. The second component of this piece is a blue gradient that is often used for identity portraits. 因此,X等於X。鄧兆旻個展 鄧兆旻個展《因此,X等於X。》展出四件作品皆有一共同手法:藝術家轉化了四件來自不同創作者的文本。《臺北人素描》(2009)、《一個紀念碑,紀念釐清的(不)可能性》(2012)、《唱還是不唱?》(2014)、《一場熟悉的家變》(2014)分別研究了:《臺北人》(1971,白先勇)、《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》(1991,導演楊德昌)、《雨夜花》(1934,作曲鄧雨賢/作詞周添旺)、與《家變》(1973,王文興)。藝術家透過閱讀作者、及這些作品創作的背景、內容、結構與辯論,選擇適切的切入點、形式、媒材與概念將這些研究轉化成新作品。在這些作品中,可以看到鄧兆旻對於文字、敘事、因果關係、歷史與回憶等等的興趣與質問,以及藝術家動員不同的譬喻、視覺語言與概念系統來邀請觀眾一同想像的能力。同時,這些作品儘管非以系列方式思考完成,在本展中置放在一起卻清楚提供了一個得以思考台灣社會與個人-集體潛意識變動的場所。 藝術家如此描述他接近這些文本的心態:「我與『敘事』之間有點彆扭不太自在的關係讓我與它的相遇經常變成了一場戰鬥。敗退的時候,我信了它要說的,沉浸在它身體裡;攻擊的時候,我看出了它的策略與弱點,想方設法瓦解其攻勢。這一輪輪的戰鬥,在研究這些作者及其作品的過程中持續著,直到我找到一個與其共處的方式、一個暫時穩定的狀態,作品便會成形。我的出發點與方法並非詮釋或點評原作。而是把這些作品視為一個個事件,隨著時間過去,到某個時間點上與我相遇,新的事件於是產生。這些事件/作品,在與不同觀眾相遇的當下將再次變得不穩定。我的挑戰,就是讓這些即將出現的戰鬥,可能性變得豐富多樣。當然對某些觀眾來說,也有可能會是再也開展不下去的僵局。」 鄧兆旻出生與工作於台灣,台北。2007年自麻省理工學院媒體藝術與科學碩士班畢業之後定居於紐約,在2012年返回台灣居住。近期重要展覽包括2012年《現代怪獸-想像的死亡與復生》臺北雙年展、2013年《little water》堂島川雙年展(日本大阪)、2013年《NG的羅曼史》TKG+畫廊(台灣臺北)、及2014年《造音翻土:台灣戰後聲響文化》國立台北師範學院美術館/高雄美術館巡迴展。 作品簡介 《一個紀念碑,紀念釐清的不可能性》討論人們如何利用歷史、紀念、虛構、事件、因果、系統等等的概念去面對「過去」。楊德昌透過《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》戲劇化了一個1961年發生的真實殺人事件,來描述環境可以如何導致最後的悲劇。而鄧兆旻則將導演的這一步更推進往戲劇化去:為殺人事件立碑,好比這樣的事情方才得以紀念臺北的六零年代。但同一時間,透過紀念碑中不同元素的操作,藝術家質疑紀念碑這樣的概念。紀念碑的前提是「我們已經釐清了事情的真相」,但若釐清永遠無法窮盡,紀念碑又該如何可能? 《唱還是不唱?》的主角是一首傳唱超過八十年的曲子:《雨夜花》。這首歌曲從誕生至今,動員過各式各樣的人事物而獲得了「台灣民謠代表」的地位。藝術家將研究這首歌曲的種種形貌所得的文字編輯成依照時序排列的《雨夜花》身世歷史,再將其拆解後製作成可以再被利用的新文本。這面牆的留白處,準備給觀眾思考敘事的「表面」。附上重新錄製《雨夜花》的前奏,提問著「唱」一首歌究竟是什麼意思? 《臺北人素描》抄寫了白先勇《臺北人》十四則描寫二戰後從中國大陸移居至台北的「臺北人」故事。這些角色住在臺北,但心卻住在中國大陸/過去,並且帶著強烈的失去、命定、與無能為力的情感。這些故事投射著作者自身離散經驗的鄉愁。透過在書本上逐字抄寫,藝術家嘗試著去拉近一個許多臺北人共有的距離:時間上、空間上、情感上與認同上的。抄寫後的書本附上一個類似書籤的「箭頭」,則是來自藝術家閱讀與抄寫過程中一個不斷出現的意象:一個指向用的工具。 《家(熟悉的)變》從台灣小說家王文興於1972年發表的小說《家變》而來。鄧兆旻將故事中作為敘事架構的十二則「尋父啟示」獨立出來,各印了一萬張後放在客製的玻璃缸中。這個物件象徵著父親(或擁有「父親」形象與權力作用的任何東西)的突然消失,身為「孩子」的:責任、慾望、理解的過程、與拒斥,以及任何可能的心理狀態與行為。作品的另外一個元素:大頭照常用的藍色漸層背景,則提供觀眾投射尋父概念裡的任何主體或印象。 |