Where the Wild Things Are : Taipei Biennial

Extract : 

“As Franke states, the show addresses the need to “break free from the ‘frame’ of colonial modernity and its narratives, its way of describing the world, and the need to tell different histories of modernity (… ) ”. He writes, “The idea is to make an exhibition that shifts between fiction and historical analysis, just as the identity, or face of the ‘monster’ in this exhibition constantly changes.” (1) The entire repertoire consists of contributions from around 43 artists (a third of the works were commissioned for the Biennial) and several “mini-museums.” It features some of the most interesting Taiwanese artists such as Kao Chung-Li (高重黎) whose “Taste of Human Flesh,” an audio-visual installation with slide show and audio cassette, reveals the story of his father who got shot during the civil war in China around 1948. The work employs a mixture of images including archival photos, footage, hand-drawn animation; the work is narrated from the point of view of the bullet that remains inside the father’s body, voicing an overall criticism on the political and economic mutations which are brought on in times of war, colonization and globalization. (2)”

 

(Originally published on 2012.12.20. Read the entire article : http://www.randian-online.com/np_review/where-the-wild-things-are-taipei-biennial/)