TAIPEI BIENNIAL Sep.13 2008 ‐ Jan.4 2009
Curators Manray Hsu, Vasif Kortun. Organizer Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Preview Sep. 11‐12 2008
www.taipeibiennial.org
The 6th Taipei Biennial, like our lives, is uncertain, fragmented and fragile. The project does not have a single theme, but a constellation of correlated themes, most of which address the chaotic states of things in this time of globalization. The exhibition engages with the city of Taipei in various ways. It does not only take place in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, but also exists in a range of urban spaces. There will be performative works and interventions in the city, some of which will be documented and reconfigured in the exhibition venues.
These venues will include the Beer Brewery, a site that has been through an extended process of transformation from its inauguration as Taiwanʹs first beer factory (a production and distribution site built during the Japanese occupation), to a state monopoly that involved privatization and re‐branding and finally to its relocation outside of the city center. While the factoryʹs history can be read as a classic example of shifting states of use in any post‐industrialized city in the world, the exhibition is interested in seeking the nuances and specificities found within the general.
The breweryʹs daily operation will continue during the exhibition run, and its space will be utilized as a real place rather than an insular exhibition zone. In addition, the curators plan to employ a number of advertising boards in the city, spreading the biennial throughout different neighborhoods and bringing the project into view when least expected.
The biennial does not only refer to the physical site of the museum, where the art of the day turns to and reflects on, but also to other spaces, mental sites where discussions pertaining to globalization and its discontents, the states of things and the opportunities of change are at the core of daily life. It is here that the impacts and import of globalization in Taipei, the transformations that effect the mobility of people and the current conditions of labor are felt, and it is these spaces that artists learn from, feed‐back into and to which their practice responds to. While art does not provide answers, it has the capacity to reflect on these issues from multiple angles, to work with different forms of enquiry and determine when to focus on individual moments. As with the approach of the biennial, no story is infinitely singular.
A story in Taipei for example will link to many other places in Asia and the globe. Hence, the exhibition focuses on issues such as globalization and its resistances, the neo‐liberal habitat, mobility, borders, divided states and micro‐nations, urban transformations, informal economies, politics, and conditions of war. Each area of focus is associated with many other questions, for example, the mobility of a tourist, a temporary worker or a foreign bride are certainly not the same, not even similar.
Towards this end, the biennial has been commissioning as many new works as possible, or asking the artists to rethink and adapt previous projects in the light of their presentation in Taipei. There will also be existing works juxtaposed against the new ones. The exhibition will have thematic compilations and farcical and biting videos. By means of these projects the curators and artists will explore the diverse opportunities that this biennial is capable of creating and responding to.
SHAUN GLADWELL IN ZOMBIE SURFERS / CELL PROJECT SPACE, LONDON.
2 May 2008
zombie surfers curated by rich (ten toes) priestley private view Friday 2nd may, 2008 3nd may – 1st june http://www.cell.org.uk
Zombie Surfers is a moment inspired by a surf session at Sennen Cove, Cornwall. An eerie fog rolled in whilst we were waiting for swell in the line-up, causing a quiet and stillness of the sea, that caused us to lose all sense of direction to the shore. For a while, we and other lost surfer souls drifted in the fog like grey shadows…waiting. Later, on the same day, back on shore, we encountered a pristine hearse parked by the storm wall.
Strapped to its roof were 2 longboards, and inside, where a coffin might usually be found, 2 short boards. The owner, with characteristic blonde shock of hair, was being berated for his lack of respect for the dead by a local fishwife.
The artists selected for Zombie Surfers may not actually be surfers, but this is not a requisite. A surfer, like an artist, is in pursuit of an elusive moment of perfection. it is this elusive moment which drives them to continue to obsessive lengths. Ironically, attainment of this legendary and enigmatic perfect moment may endanger the perpetuation of the individuals obsession, but until then we are drawn towards our goal like stumbling zombies. Zombie Surfers examines hierarchies within sub-cultural structures and focuses on individuals obsession with inclusion or exclusion in the club.
The gallery becomes the surf shack, the place of obsessive worship; its contents become its icons, effigies and shrines, and its gallerist come shack keeper its preacher. Whilst art and surfing can both be considered to be hedonistic pursuits, they are also sub-cultures with competitive challenges whose pursuit aids personal development. For Zombie Surfers, Priestley creates the mythical surf shack within the gallery, and becomes proprietor for the duration of the show.
The work selected becomes a part of the interior and display, as if whims of his alter-ego shack-keeper, and the blurring of the edges between what is art, interior and product opens a dialogue about collaboration and anti-authorship. Visitors are invited to participate and try smoothies, watch surf films, leaf through fanzines, use wifi, play surf tune classics, hang out, tune in, turn on...