Taiwanese Artists Research Articles

A Study on the Community Network between LUNG YING-TSUNG and the Arts and Culture Community in Hsinchu

<p>龍瑛宗（1911-1999）為新竹地區戰前知名的客籍日語作家，戰後初期因政權更迭、跨語等因素，輟筆未能繼續創作。但他並未放棄對文學的興趣，仍積極與省籍藝文人士維繫良好的社交網絡。為了重拾創作，龍瑛宗韜光養晦努力學習中文，期待能夠重返戰後臺灣文壇。他因地緣、客籍身分的關係與新竹地區藝文人士吳濁流（新竹縣）、鄭世璠（新竹市）往來密切，本論文將利用相關文獻史料、照片、書信、作品等，重新拼貼他們實際的往來情況，釐清他們如何因職場和媒體報刊雜誌的關係，跨時代、跨國境維繫翰墨之緣和以畫會友，建構這個社會群體的文化記憶，希望藉此勾勒出戰前世代的藝文活動型態與人際網絡。</p> <p> </p><p>LUNG YING-TSUNG (1911-1999) was a well-known Hakka-Japanese writer in Hsinchu before the Second World War. However, in the early postwar period, he ceased writing due to various factors such as the change of government and official language, which hindered his ability to continue his work. Nevertheless, he maintained his interest in literature and maintained strong social connections with Taiwanese artists and writers. LUNG YING-TSUNG kept a low profile, studying Chinese in anticipation of resuming his creative work and rejoining the Taiwanese literary scene after the war.</p> <p> LUNG YING-TSUNG had close tie with literary figures in the Hsinchu area, such as (WU CHO-LIU [Hsinchu County] and CHENG SHIH-FAN [Hsinchu City]), due to his local connections and Hakka background. This paper aims to reconstruct their shared history using relevant documents, historical materials, photographs, letters and work to seek to clarify how they maintained their friendships through calligraphy and painting across generations and borders, particularly in relation to their workplace and media magazines. The gold is to construct a collective cultural memory of this society and shed light on the artistic and cultural activities as well as interpersonal networks of the Japanese-speaking generation before the war.</p> <p> </p>

The Past and Future of Taiwanese Art：A Look Back over the Past 100 Years

From the Japanese colonial period to the present, the question, “What is Taiwanese art?” has been asked over and over again, and a clear answer has yet to be found. This is not only a search for identity but is also rooted in the pain of Taiwan’s history, as artists address the shifting national borders and the nation state of Taiwan. In the past few years, several important exhibitions of Taiwanese art have been held. The study of Taiwanese art history, which had been a rather minor academic field, has gradually gained momentum. Today, many art historians are attempting to depict Taiwan from the perspective of the island and the many ethnic groups and foreigners who reside there. Furthermore, since many Taiwanese artists and scholars have studied and researched in Japan for over a century now, the study of Taiwanese art history will hopefully develop more actively not only in Taiwan but also in Japan.

Dancing me from South to South: on Wu-Kang Chen and Pichet Klunchun’s intercultural performance

ABSTRACT “Intercultural performance” elicits complicated power dimensions in an exchange between center and periphery. To address these power dimensions, this paper focuses on dance pieces Behalf (2018) and the Rama's House opening performance (2019), co-choreographed and performed by Taiwanese artist Wu-Kang Chen and Thai artist Pichet Klunchun. By using a comparative approach to uncover the other’s traditional dance training system, they cooperate to rewrite the conflicting history of performance in Southeast Asia—crossing several intricate borders. Their collaboration(s) can be viewed as a resistant imaginary in line with the “South-South” coalition scheme. That is, artists who share similar marginalized experiences under the hegemony of intercultural performance collaborate to create works based on equality and reciprocity, with respect for and curiosity regarding each other. This research explores how experiments in contemporary dance can liberate the body from the discipline of traditional cultural codes as well as colonial imperatives, and help reconstruct a new, tangible corporeality through South-South intercultural exchange.

Uses of Exploits

Uses of Exploits

Rhizomatic Encounters With Inter/Transmedia Art: A Pedagogy for Learning and Teaching Experiential Contemporary Art

Teaching and learning through contemporary art has gained validity as a powerful and effective pedagogy in contemporary art education practice. In this article, we highlight characteristics of contemporary art and rhizomatic learning theory, and then we propose a pedagogical model that combines them for teaching and learning through experiential contemporary art. We also explain how to implement this model by showing examples of students’ rhizomatic encounters with inter/transmedia art created by Taiwanese artist teams. As the artworks offered present moments as sites of learning or places in process, students were triggered by the intersection of sounds and visuals and recalled their memories along with relevant themes; they then re/created personal meanings and/or new knowledge. Thus, the proposed pedagogy model with the implementation guidelines (autonomy, documentation, and group discussion of collective rhizomatic learning artifacts) is effective. Strategies and challenges for implementing this model in art education are recommended and discussed.

Between Art, Science, and Queer Ecology: A Conversation Between Kuang-Yi Ku and Liang-Kai Yu

Recent years have witnessed the increasing collaboration between science and visual art/design projects. Kuang-Yi Ku, a Taiwanese artist based in the Netherlands whose artistic practice that converges art, design, and biotechnology is a case in point. Ku's works often deal with the human body, sexuality, interspecies interactions, and medical technology that aim to investigate the relationships among technology, individuals, and the environment. Based on Ku's practices in and observations on the expanded field of “Art and Science Collaboration”, he converses with Liang-Kai Yu, PhD researcher in radical museology and queer studies. Firstly, they begin with Ku's speculative approach in bio-art/design that mobilizes not only visual languages in arts but also biomedical technology. Of interest here is whether the future orientation of a speculative approach in art/design could not only stimulate imaginations but also trouble the linear notion towards the future. Secondly, Ku and Yu reflect on the increasing demand for social and ecological goals requested by science-based artist residencies and open calls in Europe. This institutional phenomenon concerns the functionality of art and remains a debated subject. Thirdly, they discuss the shared concerns between bio-art/design and STS studies and consider how both fields could benefit from each other. Finally, the conversation moves back to Ku's bio-artistic projects with a focus on reproductive technology as well as the cross-species future. They address Ku's recent projects such as “Grandma Mom” (2021) that questions the patriarchal regime within the medical field and the ongoing “Queer Termite Project” that speculates an inter-species architecture in which humans and termites reciprocate one another.

Bodies, Temporality, and Spatiality in Chen Chieh-Jen’s Lingchi: Echoes of a Historical Photograph (2002) and Factory (2003)

This article discusses Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-Jen’s (1960-) two early videos Lingchi: Echoes of a Historical Photograph (2002) and Factory (2003). By revisiting a historical photograph taken by a French soldier in 1905 and articulated by French philosopher George Bataille in 1961, Chen reworks the internal genealogy of imperialist violence from late-nineteenth-century China to 1990s Taiwan in Lingchi. Lingchi reenacts a victim in the process of execution (death by a thousand cuts) from an old photo, which interrogates the violence of photography on a dying person and Bataille’s fetishisation of the cultural Other. In one scene, the camera enters the subject’s bodily orifices and shows two scenes: the sites of imperialist invasions in the early twentieth century as well as two laid-off women workers in 1990s Taiwan. Factory reorganises this group of laid-off women workers to work in the abandoned garment factory as if they stage a silent labour strike. This reenactment not only plays a prolonged and endless labour conundrum but also reveals the unequal economic relationship between Taiwan and the United States in Cold-War Taiwan, a continuation of imperialist domination in the postwar period. This article explores two dimensions: First, the aestheticisation of the suffering subject in Lingchi and how it debunks the Western gaze. Second, their communal subjects (the women workers) and the scenes in Lingchi and Factory reflect the continuation of imperialist domination in Taiwan under globalisation.

“The Circle of Life Is Endless”: Shih Li-Jen’s “King Kong Rhino” in Venice and beyond

When “King Kong Rhino”—the monumental–sculpture by the Taiwanese artist Shih Li-Jen (1955–) left Venice for Bassano del Grappa in December 2018, it joined a distinguished line of rhinoceroses to have embarked on a European tour. This article examines the place of Shih’s rhinoceros sculptures in this “Endless Circle of Life,” beginning with the European journeys of two historical rhinoceroses, Ganda who arrived in Portugal in 1515, and Clara who was displayed in Venice in 1751. The article outlines Shih’s idiosyncratic collage of themes from Eastern and Western history, philosophy, spirituality and mythology, and his perception of the rhinoceros as powerful but threatened, as expressed in his motto “Strength and Vulnerability.” The animal’s vulnerability has been fuelled by its long history of exploitation for profit. Though it remains an object of commodification today—in some societies rhinoceros horn is revered as the ultimate gift—there has recently been a discernible shift in the way these magnificent animals are viewed, a shift away from exploitation and which Shih claims drives his work. Despite his expressed intentions, however, this paper suggests that, perhaps unwittingly, the marketing of his work serves to extend the long history of human exploitation of the rhinoceros. Finally, the commodification of Venice and its Biennale, at which “King Kong Rhino” was exhibited, is discussed in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Becoming the Past: Time and Memory in Stanley Fung’s Biblical Icons

Abstract This paper analyzes a contemporary Taiwanese artist Stanley Fung’s portrait photography and his contextual biblical interpretation of time and memory: the experience of the coming of the kingdom can be lingered on in an artist’s imagination. As a biblical interpreter, Fung’s visual exegesis asks the viewer to reconsider how the historical consciousness of self and community together impact one’s sense of time. Fung uses clothing and plants to invoke the viewer’s longing for a new, local culture where the gospel can be dressed, and a new soil where it can be planted. Photography as a legitimate extension of the sacred text engages the viewer’s biblical imagination and demands a response. Eternal beings and Christian anthropology, as manifested in Fung’s work serve to remind us of the distinction between memory and the sacred, life and destruction, creation and redemption.

The aesthetics of the multitude in Chen Chieh-Jen’s Lingchi: Echoes of a Historical Photograph (2002) – A genealogy

Abstract Taiwanese artist Chen Chieh-Jen’s video works directly address Taiwan’s post-martial law condition. His video installations demonstrate what I propose to identify as ‘the aesthetics of the multitude’. Through the process of filmmaking, Chen imagines the possibility of a collective political alliance. Theorized by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, the multitude rejects reductive identity politics and acts against capitalism. The multitude depicted in Chen’s work suggests a democratic potential that has the capacity to resist the sustained exploitation and homogenization that exists under neo-liberal globalization. His first video installation, Lingchi: Echoes of a Historical Photograph (2002), not only sets the tone for his later works but also signals a paradigm shift in Taiwanese contemporary art from the national to the global after 2000. I argue that Chen’s aesthetics of the multitude move beyond the contentious issue of national identity that characterizes Taiwan’s postcolonial art in the 1990s and anticipates the formation of a postnational subjectivity.

Dynamics of bamboo design and build collaborations

<p>Design and construction of a temporary bamboo structure provided the vehicle to explore live and interactive design-led research, extending collaborative partnerships and forging new relationships. Designed for two events of contrasting scale as part of the Dark Mofo annual arts festival hosted by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania, the project drew on an extensive portfolio of research into traditional and contemporary bamboo structures complied by Sydney-based architecture practice, Cave Urban. It extended Cave Urban’s previous partnerships with Taiwanese artist, Wang Wen Chih, and involved collaboration between Cave Urban and students from the University of Tasmania (UTAS) School of Architecture & Design and Tasmanian College of the Arts (TCotA), and on-site assistance from the MONA events construction team.<br />Construction over a three-week process involved design research that provided new knowledge into bamboo structures and developed new process of Learning By Making as a form of collaborative research-based teaching. Interaction between the team of 25 people shifted between modes of open/closed and flat/hierarchical collaboration, in a dynamic process that lent new definition to the idea of ‘live’ projects. Design-led research provided the opportunity for an equal number of students and expert collaborators, facilitating an opportunity to explore a master/apprentice model, to expanded practical and theoretical knowledge and expertise through the design and construction of a temporary civic event space.</p>

Regenerating the arts: sculpture conservation and 3D panoramic guides at the Juming Museum, Taiwan

AbstractThe Juming Museum in New Taipei City, Taiwan has carried out the in situ preservation of 30 outdoor stone sculptures by the Taiwanese artist Ju Ming. As part of the programme their original display area was reactivated as a Stone Conservation Lab and additional work was carried out, including the installation of protective canopies and a wooden walkway to the area, as well as the initiation of a three-dimensional (3D) scanning project and online resource for the sculptures.The canopies have played a central role in mitigating both the biological deterioration and weathering of the stone but while the walkway increased the safe distance between visitors and the artworks, it also prevented audiences from a close appreciation of the sculptures. The application of 3D scanning and implementation of a 3D panoramic guide has successfully resolved this paradox and resulted in some unexpected benefits. Unlike virtual street-views, which may lack artwork information and present only 2D images, the 3D panora...

Visualizing post-human and cybersexuality: Lin Pey-Chwen and the Eve Clone series

Abstract This article takes post-human and cybersexuality as the main perspectives from which to contextualize the Taiwanese artist Lin Pey-Chwen’s (born 1959) Eve Clone series, on which she has been working since 2006. It describes how Eve Clone’s virtual body of Eve expresses Lin’s perceptions of the symbols and imaginings of the post-human. The latest Eve Clone series explores issues of femininity, but is also related to the religious symbolism that Lin has adapted in the creation of her work. Although using science and digitality to create art, Lin criticizes technical civilization while reclaiming the importance of nature. In Portrait of Eve Clone, the cyborg body has been created from the main technical operation of digital technology, and this adaptation of a digital body examines the discourses of both the body and sexuality. Lin’s Eve Clone has created a perfect being in cyberspace through artistic aesthetics and new media technologies.

The Taiwanese artist Mei Dean-E and the concept of Chineseness

Abstract The artist Mei Dean-E (born in 1954) constantly questions the identity of Taiwan and especially of its Chinese component. In an era of de-Sinicization of Taiwan, to which Chineseness does this second-generation mainlander refer? Mei Dean-E, a Dada and Pop Art artist, challenging mental habits through a deconstruction of signs and symbols, gives multi-layered answers. I will argue that he never gives up his emotional relationship to Chinese culture and reinvents a form of Chineseness which is much more related with personal feelings than with official slogans or international opinions.

Using Non‐Destructive Analysis Techniques to Examine the Artworks of Taiwanese Artist Cheng‐Po Chen (1895‐1947)

AbstractThis study employed the non‐destructive techniques to analyze and examine the artworks of the Taiwanese artist Cheng‐Po Chen (1895‐1947) for disclosing the damage to Chen's artworks and determine his creation habits. Ten pieces of artworks that required restoration were examined using ultraviolet examination techniques. Based on the differences in their fluorescence characteristics, various parts of these works were shown to have been retouched, thus, original and retouched regions were distinguished. Examining these works using Infrared instrument revealed that Chen did not use charcoal to prepare drafts, and he directly applied oil paint to the canvases. Subsequently, these two examination techniques were adopted to examine sketches. The results showed that residues imprinted on them cause of storage methods were organic materials from charcoal and not carbon granules. The X‐ray examination identified numerous creations beneath the surface of several artworks. The X‐ray fluorescence spectrometer was used for elemental analysis of the pigments. The results corresponded with the pigments listed in Chen's purchase form, thus, we summarized the composition of palettes used by Chen. In general, this study acquired a considerable amount of information from the pigment examinations and established a database of the pigments that Chen commonly employed in his artworks.

Exploring the Special Orientation Systems in the Chinese Calligraphy of a Taiwanese Artist who is Adventitiously Blind

Exploring the Special Orientation Systems in the Chinese Calligraphy of a Taiwanese Artist who is Adventitiously Blind

Books and Boundaries: Writers and their Audiences (review)

Reviewed by: Books and Boundaries: Writers and their Audiences Susan Stan (bio) Books and Boundaries: Writers and their Audiences. Edited by Pat Pinsent . Lichfield, Staffordshire: Pied Piper Publishing, 2004. The 1999 publication of Sandra Beckett's collection of essays, Transcending Boundaries: Writing for a Dual Audience of Children and Adults, brought together some of the emerging scholarship on the difficulties of defining audience, rooted in both contemporary and historical examples. Overnight, it seemed, the discussion of children's and young adult books as complicated by their adult writers and/or readers achieved critical mass and has since found many forums, including a day-long annual conference held at Roehampton Institute in London. This volume contains the proceedings of that conference, held on November 15, 2003 and co-sponsored by the British section of IBBY and the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature (NCRCL). In this printed collection, fifteen papers join talks by authors and publishers, [End Page 227] reorganized from their place on the conference schedule into three catch-all sections. The majority of the papers are by writers who have some affiliation with the University of Surrey Roehampton, either as current or past students in the master's or doctoral program or as faculty members. The informal talks that frame the collection of papers add the insights of authors, publishers, critics, and a lone bookseller. In the first section on picture books, Penni Cotton introduces the European Picture Book Collection, more thoroughly documented in her book Picture Books sans Frontières (2000). Funded by the European Union and available as an online resource, this project was designed to create a collection of books that can be used to foster cross-national knowledge among children in the countries of the European Union. Here Cotton, research fellow at NCRCL and project director, demonstrates how a teacher can point out visual and linguistic cues that reveal information or influences specific to a country or culture. She mentions but doesn't describe, for reasons of space, a methodology for examining pictures that will send some readers to seek out her book. Cotton's article addresses boundaries of all sorts—physical borders between countries, linguistic borders, and visual images that speak more or less loudly depending on one's culture or nationality. The other papers in the picture book section deal with specific authors or topics. Catherine Buscall focuses on the dual-audience aspect of French writer Claude Ponti's picture books, while Sarah Godek examines the many ways in which the monster introduced in Mary Shelley's novel has been transmuted in children's picture books. Particularly fascinating to me was Mieke K.T.Desmet's study of the Taiwanese artist Jimmy Liao, whose work defies category and who has become a cultural phenomenon in Taiwan. In books published for the adult market, he uses the picture book format to address the exigencies of modern urban living. Desmet's meticulous discussion of four of these books suggest that Liao has developed a genre unto itself, one that calls to mind, but is distinctive from, the work of artists more widely known in Europe, such as Michèle Lemieux, Anthony Browne, and Satoshi Kitamura. All of the essays in the second section explore the crossover nature of a group of books, either by author (Eoin Colfer, Melvin Burgess) or genre (e.g., historical fiction, epic narratives, autobiography, fantasy). As is the case with most conferences, not all papers directly address the stated theme. Instead, some writers have used this conference as an occasion to present work with the title or introduction tweaked to fit. "'On the Borders of Adult Knowledge': Children Growing Up in William Mayne's A Game of Dark, Midnight Fair & Cradlefasts," by Jenny Kendricks, is one such example, even as it offers a close and insightful reading to demonstrate how Mayne captures the essence of adolescence in these three books. Peter Bramwell's study of the marginalized positions of characters in several fantasy books highlights internal border crossings [End Page 228] within the text, while also appearing to have been originally written for another purpose. Rachel Falconer's "Tolkien, Dante, and Crossover Epic" goes directly to the heart of...

12th International Congress of Oriental Medicine

It was indeed an extremely well organized Congress; almost a full week filled with a multiplicity of organizational details accompanied by food, flowers and elegance coupled with the warmth of the Taiwanese organizers, although a few of us from northern climes were sweltering in the warm and humid weather. (Martin Richardson, Oxford University Press, England; Emiko Okudo, Oxford University Press, Tokyo, in charge of the publisher's booth, displaying our new journal Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (eCAM); Edwin Cooper, Editor-in-Chief; Nobuo Yamaguchi, Managing Editor; Patty Willis, Administrator). We found it especially warm at the lunches provided as voluminous buffets, served under lovely tents. It was indeed a community affair in which everyone literally dug in with chopsticks to partake of exotic foods. The opening ceremony held the night before had all the trappings of a usual gala—a live rock music band such as La Bamba, folk dancers from the highlands of Taiwan, graceful swan dancers and even the Flamenco, performed by superb Taiwanese artists, that was as authentic as if we were in southern Spain. Other hints of a real gala included multiple lights, large screen video of VIP tables and one that attracted the most attention—the Mayor of Taipei, who welcomed the delegates in the best of spoken English. This was followed by a monstrous buffet. Numerous excursions were designed to highlight Taiwanese culture. A. Taipei City Tour included a visit to (1) Martyrs' Shrine, (2) National Palace Museum, (3) Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, (4) Chinese Temple, (5) The Presidential Office (pass by) and (6) Handicraft Center. B. Culture Tour included a visit to (1) Lungshan Temple, (2) Pao-An Temple and (3) National Taiwan Junior College of Performing Arts (Chinese Opera Performance). C. Wulai Aboriginal Village Tour including (1) Push-car Ride, (2) Wulai Waterfall, (3) Aborigine Folk Dance, (4) Swallow Lake (pass by) and (5) Chieftain Statue. D. Folk Arts Tour included a visit to (1) Sanhsia Tsu Shih Temple, (2) Old Street Scene in Sanhsia, (3) Yingko's Pottery Factory and Show Room and (4) Pottery Street in Yingko. E. Taroko Marble Gorge Tour. F. Taipei Night Tour including (1) Mongolian Bar-BQ Dinner, (2) Lungshan Temple, (3) Hwashi Night Market and (4) Panoramic View from the Taipei Observatory. G. East Coast and Taroko Gorge National Park Tour. The enormous efforts that went into the organization of the event were all clearly evident, especially Supervisors: Department of Health, Executive Yuan; Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry, National Science Council and the Taipei City Government; Sponsors: China Medical University, Chinese Traditional Medicine Research and Development Fund, Committee on Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy, Department of Health, Council of Agriculture, National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine, National Univion of Chinese Medical Doctors Association and ROC Chinese Medicines Association. There was a vast representation of people on the Organizing Committee, Executive Committee and Committee Members. There were numerous organizations and support and interest groups as well. Finally, there was widespread representation on the ISOM Organization. The conference included Lectures, Oral Presentations and Posters and Exhibitions in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean (simultaneous translations were provided). The first day of the Congress opened with three superb Plenary Lectures that set the stage for the later scholarly and research oriented presentations.