Contemporary Photography in Taiwan
As in the People's Republic, digital photography and video are popular contemporary art forms
Zhang Huan, from Family Tree, 2000, C-Print, 40 x 50".
[Courtesy of the artist and Aura Gallery]
in Taiwan. CHEN Chieh-jen (1960-) is interested in violent events that occurred in modern Chinese history, depicting his interpretations of the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s. Using digital techniques to mimic historical photographs that depict horrific acts, including decapitations, Chen Chieh-jen is concerned with the issues of body, national identity, and political power. His works, in their depiction of the life cycle and the afterlife, are also inspired by notions of Chinese Taoism.
HUNG Tung-lu (1968—) is interested in cyber culture and figures that represent this culture in Taiwan and Japan, creating figures based entirely on his imagination through digital techniques which deal with what human beings might become in the advancing cyber culture. He has explored answers to this question in Buddhist tenets and incorporates the idea of nirvana into his cyber creations, which are holographic in nature and mounted in light boxes. WU Tien-chang (1956—) uses digital photography to mimic posters that might be found in Shanghai, incorporating aspects of ancient Chinese myth, folklore, and Taoism into the narrative of his works.
CHEN Shun-chu (1963—) is concerned with the concept of family. He has taken portraits of his family members and others since 1992 and has accumulated hundreds of photos. In his works, he addresses social relations and their connection to the concept of family, and expanding this concept, to the idea of home.
YAO Jui-chung (1969—) a pioneer of Taiwanese contemporary photography, remains a leading photographer. He is also very active in the curatorial field and is known for his critical writing on the contemporary art and photography of Taiwan. In an early photographic series, he made upside-down self-portraits as a parody of Taiwan's national identity in relation to China. He is also interested in landscape that is ruined or abandoned in Taiwan, and the issues of cultural identity generated by these landscapes.
Shin-yi Yang
Zhang Huan, To Raise the Water level in a Fishpond, 1997, Performance, Beijing, China. Original in color.
[Courtesy of the artist and Aura Gallery]
Zhang Huan, To Raise the Water level in a Fishpond, 1997, Performance, Beijing, China. Original in color.
[Courtesy of the artist and Aura Gallery]
See also: Documentary Photography; Photography in Japan; Portraiture; Socialist Photography; War Photography
Further Reading
Cameron, Nigel, ed. The Face of China, 1860-1912 As Seen by Photographers & Travelers. Millerton, New York: Aperature, 1978. Capa, Cornell, ed. Behind the Great Wall of China: Photographs from 1870 to the Present. Greenwich, Connecticut and New York: New York Graphic Society and Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972.
Tuyl, Gijs van, Annelie Lütgens, and Karen Smith. The Chinese, Wolfsburg. Germany: Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 2004.
Wu Changyun, ed. 1957-2000, An Anthology of Chinese Photography. Beijing, 2003.
Wu Hung, ed. The First Guangzhou Triennial. Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art 1990-200. Guangzhou, China: Gaungdong Museum of Art, 2002.
Wu Hung, ed. Between Past and Future. New Photography and Video from Chin, New York: International Center of Photography, 2004, and traveling.
Average user rating: 5 stars out of 1 votes
Post a comment